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{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox person
| name = '''Katherine Mayo'''
| image =Katherine Mayo 1928.jpg
| image_size = 240px
| alt =
| caption = Mayo in 1928
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1867|01|27}}
| birth_place = [[Ridgway, Pennsylvania]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1940|10|09|1867|01|27}}
| death_place = [[Bedford Hills, New York]]
| citizenship = American
| other_names =
| known_for = ''[[Mother India (book)|Mother India]]'' (1927)
| occupation = Writer
| years_active = 1892–1940
| home_town =
}}

'''Katherine Mayo''' (January 27, 1867 – October 9, 1940) was an American historian and nativist. Mayo entered the public sphere as a political writer advocating [[Nativism (politics)|American nativism]], opposition to non-white and [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] immigration to the United States, along with promoting racist stereotypes of African Americans. She became known for denouncing the [[Philippine Declaration of Independence]] on [[Scientific racism|racialist]] and religious grounds, and then went on to publish and promote her best-known work, ''[[Mother India (book)|Mother India]]'' (1927), a deeply critical book on Indian society, religion and culture. Written in opposition to the [[Indian independence movement]], the book received a sharply divided reception upon its publication and was accused by several authors of being Indophobic, including [[Mahatma Gandhi]].

==Biography==

Mayo was born in [[Ridgway, Pennsylvania]], to James Henry and Harriet Elizabeth (Ingraham) Mayo, and was educated privately. Shortly after graduation, she started work as a researcher and historian by helping [[Oswald Garrison Villard]] of the ''[[New York Evening Post]]'' (whose father owned the newspaper) prepare his book ''John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After'', a biography of the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]], which was published in 1910. Villard was a founder of the [[American Anti-Imperialist League]] and an officer of the [[NAACP|National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]]. He influenced Mayo to become active in several social reformist circles.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Chatfield, Charles |title=World War I and the Liberal Pacifist in the United States|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=75|issue=7|year=1970|pages=1920–1937|jstor=1848023|doi=10.2307/1848023}}</ref> Mayo also became a member of the [[Mayflower Society]] and maintained links with the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]], which at the time largely shared her hostility towards non-white and Catholic [[Immigration to the United States|immigration]] to the United States.<ref name="Teed">{{cite journal |author= Teed, Paul |year=2003 |title= Race Against Memory: Katherine Mayo, Jabez Sunderland, and Indian Independence|journal= American Studies|volume= 44|issue= 1–2|pages= 35–57|jstor=40643432}}</ref>

Several of Mayo's early writings promoted anti-Catholicism and racist views towards people of color. Mayo combined anti-Catholicism and anti-Filipino sentiment in her writings that opposed the [[Philippine Declaration of Independence]].<ref name="sinha">{{cite book |title= Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire|last= Sinha|first= Mrinalini|year= 2006|publisher= Duke University Press Books |isbn= 978-0-8223-3795-9|page= 68}}</ref> Mayo's early journalistic works promoted an "[[Anglo-Americans|Anglo-Saxon]]" version of American nationalism and contained xenophobic remarks towards Irish immigrants, as well as racist views of African Americans.<ref name="Teed"/><ref name="sinha"/> Mayo claimed that "negroes" were sexually aggressive and lacked self-control, thus rendering them a threat to "innocent white Anglo-Saxon women".<ref name="Teed"/> Mayo put her writing skills behind the effort to establish the [[New York State Police]] and supported their efforts to suppress immigrants and African Americans whose involvement in labor rights movements were viewed by Mayo as a threat to [[white supremacy]].<ref name="sinha"/>

== Mother India ==

Mayo published a polemical book, ''[[Mother India (book)|Mother India]]'', in 1927 in which she attacked Indian society, religion, and culture. Mayo's book quickly became controversial in both India and the [[Western world|West]], where critics criticized her depiction of India and its culture as Indophobic. Conversely, some admirers of her work pointed to the accuracy of many of her claims.<ref name="Teed"/><ref name="sinha"/>

The book created a sensation on three continents.<ref>Mrinalini Sinha: "Introduction". In: Sinha (ed.): ''Selections from Mother India''. Women's Press, New Delhi 1998.</ref> Written in opposition to the [[Indian independence movement|movement for Indian independence]], Mayo criticised India's treatment of women, the [[Dalit]]s, its animals, the nature and the character of its nationalistic politicians. Mayo singled out what she perceived to be the "rampant" and fatally weakening sexuality of Indian males, which she claimed to be at the core of all problems in India as developmental trends which lead to masturbation, rape, homosexuality, prostitution and venereal diseases and, in particular, to early sexual intercourse and premature maternity. Mayo's claims were supported by the [[British Raj|colonial government]] as a countermeasure to growing sympathies for the [[Indian independence movement]] among outside observers. The book was also propagated among Americans who connected the movement for Indian independence with the [[American Revolution]].<ref name="Teed"/> The book prompted the publication of over fifty books and pamphlets critical of Mayo's claims<ref>{{cite book|last=Jayawardena |first=Kumari |title=The white woman's other burden: Western women and South Asia during British colonial rule |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vJ9MCPdcGrsC&pg=PA99 |access-date=February 23, 2011 |year=1995 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-91104-7 |page=99}}</ref> as well as the production of an [[Mother India|eponymous film]] (presenting an epic drama which constituted a rebuttal to the claims made in the book).<ref name="sinha"/> The book was burned in India and [[New York City|New York]], along with effigies of Mayo.<ref>Frick, Katherine (Spring 2006) [http://www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Mayo__Katherine.html Mayo, Katherine (Prence, Katherine)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716065640/http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Mayo__Katherine.html |date=July 16, 2011 }}. libraries.psu.edu</ref> It was criticised by Indian independence activist [[Mahatma Gandhi|Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi]], who wrote in response:

{{quote|This book is cleverly and powerfully written. The carefully chosen quotations give it the false appearance of a truthful book. But the impression it leaves on my mind is that it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains. If Miss Mayo had confessed that she had come to India merely to open out and examine the drains of India, there would perhaps be little to complain about her compilation. But she declared her abominable and patently wrong conclusion with a certain amount of triumph: 'the drains are India'.<ref>[http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/02/teaching-journal-katherine-mayos.html Teaching Journal: Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927)]. Lehigh.edu (February 7, 2006)</ref>}}

After its publication [[Dalip Singh Saund]] (who later became a [[United States Congress|U.S. congressman]]) wrote ''My Mother India'' to counter Mayo's assertions.<ref>{{cite book|last=Saund|first=Dalip Singh|author-link=Dalip Singh Saund|title=My Mother India|year=c. 1930|publisher=Pacific coast Khalsa Diwan society (Sikh temple)|location=Stockton, California|pages=218|oclc=3401226|lccn=30013748}} {{LCC|DS421 .S25}} {{OCLC|253315388}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Tisdale|first=Sara|title=Breaking Barriers: Congressman Dalip Singh Saund|url=http://www.pewforum.org/Breaking-Barriers-Congressman-Dalip-Singh-Saund.aspx|work=Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|access-date=March 10, 2012|date=December 19, 2008}}</ref> Another response to Mayo's book was [[Dhan Gopal Mukerji]]'s ''A Son of Mother India Answers''.<ref>{{cite book| author=Mukerji, Dhan Gopal |year=1928 |title=A Son of Mother India Answers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=al3rIwAACAAJ&q=editions:j0Q-czVT0s4C |publisher=E. P. Dutton & company, 1928 |isbn=9788171676507 |access-date=January 16, 2014}} Reprint 1928 by Rupa & Company, {{ISBN|978-81-7167-650-7}}</ref> The title of the 1957 Hindi epic film ''[[Mother India]]'' was a deliberate rebuke to Mayo's book.<ref name="sinha" /> [[Lala Lajpat Rai]] wrote a book in response to Mayo's work, called ''Unhappy India'' in 1928.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hindustanbooks.com/books/unhappy_india/Unhappy_India.html|title=Unhappy India by Lala Lajpat Rai}}</ref>

==Works==
* ''Justice to All: History of the Pennsylvania State Police'' (1917)
* ''The Standard Bearers: True Stories of Heroes of Law and Order'' (1918)
* ''That Damn Y'' (1920)
* ''Mounted Justice: True Stories of the Pennsylvania State Police'' (1922)
* ''The Isles of Fear: The Truth about the Philippines'' (1925)
* ''[[Mother India (book)|Mother India]]'' (1927)
* ''Slaves of the Gods'' (1929)
* ''Volume II'' (1931)
* ''Soldiers What Next!'' (1934)
* ''The Face of Mother India'' (1935)
* ''General Washington's Dilemma'' (1938)<ref>{{Cite web|last=Corbin|first=John|date=March 6, 1938|title=A New Washington Story; GENERAL WASHINGTON'S DILEMMA. By Catherine Mayo. 323 pp. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. $2.50.|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/03/06/578429482.html?zoom=15.35|url-access=limited|url-status=live|access-date=August 11, 2021|website=New York Times|language=en}}</ref>
* ''Selections from Mother India'' (1998, Mrinalini Sinha, editor)

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|author:Katherine Mayo|Katherine Mayo}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Katherine Mayo}}
* {{Librivox author |id=8595}}
* [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300811h.html Mother India book download]
*Katherine Mayo papers (MS 345). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0345]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mayo, Katherine}}
[[Category:Historians from Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:1868 births]]
[[Category:1940 deaths]]
[[Category:Anti-Indian sentiment in the United States]]
[[Category:American white nationalists]]
[[Category:American white supremacists]]
[[Category:American women historians]]
[[Category:Racism in the United States]]
[[Category:Anti-Catholic activists]]
[[Category:People from Ridgway, Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Anti-black racism in the United States]]

Katherine Mayo - Revision history

CleanupBot at 09:33, 30 January 2022