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Women's travel writing [ Reading & Writing / Mobility ]

… female authors to tackle political issues, a field considered to be inappropriate in the education of eighteenth-century women. The revolutionary decade intensified the politicisation of sociability in travel narratives as the formation of … tied up with the nature and form of the government. Practices > Reading & Writing Practices > Mobility Keywords Women Travel French Revolution travelogue wollstonecraft montagu beaumont biggs Williams In her preface to Lady Mary … (‘customs and manners’) but also as a means (‘conversation’) of acquiring a more unbiased knowledge of the countries women visited. Lady Montagu, for instance, describes her own encounter with Turkish sociable practices to debunk the …

Female friendship in eighteenth-century English literature [ Feelings & Emotions ]

… of the long eighteenth century offers abundant portraits of female friendship as a frequent form of sociability among women – sometimes sentimentalised as true spiritual companionship between pure and innocent souls, sometimes demonised as … desire. As opposed to men’s friendships, which centred on socialising in the public sphere, forms of attachment among women were associated with the intimate and the private. Whether it is through the refinement of romantic odes to female … of lesbian desire, fictional portraits of female friendship in the long eighteenth century seem to have provided women with the intellectual stimulus, the emotional support and the spiritual fulfilment that was often missing in their …

Pocket [ Clothing & Fashion ]

… Abstract From the mid-seventeenth century until the late nineteenth century, women used tie-on pockets to carry and keep their possessions at hand. Independent from the rest of their clothing, these often capacious pockets were tied around the waist and worn under the petticoat by women of all classes. This short article proposes to see tie-on pockets and their contents as means to explore female … could sometimes materialise bonds between female friends and kin. Objects > Clothing & Fashion Keywords Dress Women mobility portable objects keepsakes Friendship When a lady was attacked in London in 1754, her pockets contained …

Female beauty [ Taste & Manners ]

… saw a surge of discourses on beauty, establishing aesthetic, moral, and social trends. Through these commentaries and women’s increasing social interaction, beauty’s idealised physical features - symmetry, fair skin and rosy cheeks - came … an aesthetic and behavioural expectation, used to advocate and challenge established moral virtues, cultural beliefs and women’s self-creation. Concepts > Taste & Manners Keywords Women Appearance Beauty Aesthetics Manners Conduct ‘Female beauty’, wrote Oliver Goldsmith in  An History of the Earth  …

Politics [ Politics & Society / Feelings & Emotions ]

… political networking, solicitation, manoeuvring, and negotiation took place in mixed-sex social arenas that included women, or were hosted by women. The importance of sociability and its place in political culture becomes very apparent when considering what could … became so divisive that sociability broke down. Practices > Politics & Society Concepts > Feelings & Emotions Keywords Women political hostess dinner Public Days race meet election canvassing chairing Sociability was intrinsic to British …

Hannah More (and philanthropic sociability) [ Religion & Philanthropy / Politics & Society / Religious Belief ]

… Clapham Sect, to embark on crusades against poverty, the perverted manners of the Great, the ill-conceived education of women and the evils of slavery. She devised an original philanthropic model of sociability, a sociability of the heart, with a strongly religious dimension, thus outlining a new role for women as prime agents of social and moral reformation. People > Religion & Philanthropy Practices > Politics & Society … Keywords Bluestocking Education Evangelicalism Friendship Manners Philanthropy Poverty Reformation Religion Slavery Women Wilberforce Hannah More (1745-1833), who was one of the first women writers to become famous in Britain and later …