In the late nineteenth century three British women were notorious for their activism in the cause of social purity. The reputations of two of themJosephine Butler and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwellhave survived in the twentieth century. The reputation of the third, Jane Ellice Hopkins, is forgotten although she was the founder of the White Cross Army, an international, nondenominational movement devoted to overthrowing the sexual double standard. By the mid 1880s this slight, middle-aged Victorian spinster was recognized as the foremost advocate of the sexual single standard and as a powerful advocate of legislative change furthering that end. In her own time Hopkins was one of the best-known women reform writers in England although she had more public detractors than apologists. Most of her writings address the issue of sexual purity in the context of women's needs for equal status in British society.

Born on 30 October 1836, Jane Ellice was...