Elite Women in Early Modern London1
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Women’s History Magazine Issue 53, SUMMER 2006 Issn 1476-6760 Marjo Kaartinen on Elite Women in Early Modern London Stefania Licini on Women’s Wealth in nineteenth-century Milan Hasmik Khalapyan on Training in Needlework for Armenian Girls Igor A. Shkolnikov on Men and Women’s Suffrage in Britain PLUS: Reviews of Six Books Conference Report Conference Notices and Calls for Papers Women’s Library Newsletter Steering Committee News 15th Annual Conference of the Women's History Network THINKING WOMEN Education, Culture and Society 1 - 3 September 2006, Collingwood College, University of Durham Plenary Speakers Professor Elizabeth Ewan, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada ‘Learning about Women and Learning: The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women’ Professor Linda Eisenmann, John Carroll University, Ohio, USA ‘Thinking Women in 1963: To Be or Not To Be Feminist?’ Professor Joyce Senders Pederson, University of Southern Denmark ‘Thinking Woman: The Educational Ideals and Legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft’ For further information on papers and academic matters contact the organisers Sarah Aiston, Maureen Meikle or Jean Spence at [email protected] For further information on accommodation contact: [email protected] or telephone (0)191-334-2883 www.womenshistorynetwork.org Administrator: Dr. Joyce A. Walker (Women’s History Network) , Department of History, University of Aberdeen, Crombie Annexe, Meston Walk, Old Aberdeen, AB24 3FX E-mail: [email protected] Editorial in the words of his opening quote ‘that no battle is in question, but a cordial co-operation. This is no duel but a One of the strengths of the Women’s History Network is its duet.’ (Izrael Zangwill, 1907) diversity, a feature which has been marked at conferences over the years, but particularly recently — possibly a feature of the Notably the projects of Women’s History Scotland (formerly web and the dynamic WHN website. This summer issue of the the Scottish Women’s History Network) have come to magazine, drawing on previous conferences at Aberdeen and fruition this spring; see the photo from the launch of the Hull, reflects that diversity with articles ranging in time from Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women and Gender in the seventeenth century to the twentieth, geographically Scotland on p. 44 of this issue. This and the very large embracing Armenia, Italy and Britain, and the authors hail conference on Single Women in History (23–24 June at from Armenia, Russia, Italy and Finland. UWE) are clear evidence of the vigour of the local as well as national networks. Which is a tidy way of reminding you that Marjo Kaartinen introduces us to the ways that elite women the last chance to offer a paper for this year’s WHN used the metropolis of London in the seventeenth century. conference will have passed, but NOW is the time to register. Linking her research to the growing body of research on urban The conference, THINKING WOMEN: Education, Culture culture, consumption and leisure, she shows how women were and Society, will be held 1–3 September 2006, at the active participants in the city. Although women’s urban University of Durham. The venue promises to be one of the experience and urban spheres were partly different from men’s, more attractive, and the city of Durham is a real pleasure. within the boundaries of respectability, women’s sphere was The third plenary speaker has now been announced. She is extensive, and often permeable and negotiable. Joyce Senders Pedersen, of the University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include the history of Moving into the nineteenth century, Stefania Licini continues education and women's studies, and she is the author of The the theme of elite urban women with an examination of Reform of Girls' Secondary and Higher Education in women’s wealth in Milan. In a detailed economic analysis of Victorian England (l987) and numerous articles on estate materials, she demonstrates the importance that female educational topics in women's history. Sessions will embrace investment had. Through lending to the state, companies, banks education, the humanities and cultural representation, and to private individuals, women ‘put a vast amount of wealth Continued on p. 4 into men’s hands’ and contributed to meeting the financial needs of the period. This contribution was supplemented by the third of women who worked in the booming textile industry, so that clearly women’s work and investment did make a difference. TABLE OF CONTENTS Hasmik Khalapyan shows how textiles, particularly Marjo Kaartinen: Women’s Metropolis — p. 4 needlework and embroidery, were used by women of the Elite Women in Early Modern London Christian Armenian community within the Ottoman Empire to Stefania Licini: Women’s wealth in the p. 13 reduce the cost of girls’ education, while at the same time nineteenth century: some evidence from giving them the skills to earn their living in the limited female job market, without going against the ‘cultural’ perceptions of the probate records of Milan, Italy (1862– women’s space and femininity. She takes us beyond the simple 1900) association of women and needlework to show how it became a Hasmik Khalapyan: Women’s Education, p. 21 dynamic if persistent tool in the education of Armenian Labour or Charity? Significance of women. Needlework among Ottoman Armenians, We return to Britain with Igor Shkolnikov’s discussion of the from Mid-Nineteenth to Early Twentieth men of the women’s suffrage movement. He explores the Century issues of men’s motivation for joining the fray, how they Igor A. Shkolnikov: “Not A Duel But A p. 31 presented themselves, what they brought to the movement and Duet”: Men and Women’s Suffrage In how they perceived their roles within the movement, as well as Britain how they were perceived by others. His concern is primarily with the rhetoric and representations of these men, and argues, Book Reviews p. 39 Conference Report p. 44 Conference Notices and Announcements p. 45 Cover picture: Nellie Kemper Hedges with her grand- daughter Hazel c1910; printed by permission of the copyright Women’s Library News p. 48 holder. Steering Committee News p. 50 Editorial 3 Just as the authority of the lord over his Women’s Metropolis — Elite tenants was called into question by new opportunities for economic and physical Women in Early Modern mobility in the late sixteenth century, 1 London so, too, was the power of the husband over his wife challenged by the new Marjo Kaartinen, Ph.D., Academy freedoms offered by the city. Profound changes in the ideology of gender Research Fellow among men and women of the upper The Academy of Finland and University of Turku classes are suggested by recurring tensions in the day-to-day negotiations of married life, by individual women’s The past ten or fifteen years have seen a proliferation of movements between the country and the fascinating research on the history of early modern city, and in the division of labor and English women. Women have been given the place they power between couples.5 deserve in history, and, consequently, they have been found in places where they had not been seen earlier. In the same vein, the dichotomy of public and private As a result, we now have studies available, for spheres has been challenged. Earlier the ’public sphere’ example, on elite and plebeian women, as well as was mostly seen as governed by men, into which women women as consumers, mothers, professionals, or were not allowed without running the risk of being politicians. We have also learned about women’s 2 mentally or physically threatened, in other words, leading role in the eighteenth-century urban culture. without the danger of becoming impure; the ‘private’ We have come a long way from the days in which sphere was seen as the area in which women were more urban history assumed that urban experience was 3 free to operate. I believe there is now a consensus that essentially male. the dichotomy of public and private is misleading since the early modern spheres of public and private clearly The patriarchal set-up of early modern England has were overlapping, blurred and permeable.6 also come under closer examination. On the one hand, we have been shown how the printing presses produced Much of the research on early modern women has a wealth of pamphlets and conduct books which were focused on the long eighteenth century, for obvious intended for the enforcement of patriarchy, and on the reasons: the wealth of sources available to scholars is other hand, our conceptions of gender in early modern both immense and intriguing.7 However, this emphasis England have been challenged by intriguing revelations tends to cast an unfortunate shadow on the women of the of the past exploring the ways in which gender roles earlier centuries, and there appears to be much available were crossed and in which the limits of patriarchy were 4 space for research on women’s experiences in the negotiated. As Alice Friedman puts it: sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. This seems to be especially true regarding women of the elite as a group before 1660; for example the admirable monographs of Laura Gowing and Bernard Capp have concentrated on plebeian women’s worlds. Women of the gentry and Editorial continued aristocracy were of course a very small minority in the early modern metropolis, but nonetheless merit much intellectual contribution to the social sciences, scientific more consideration.8 endeavour, and past representations. Returning to our opening theme, this conference again promises to explore the The generations of women crowding the eighteenth- diversity and range of women’s history in this new millennium. century metropolis have been by now convincingly shown to have had a great influence on the elite urban A key issue for WHN, as always, is a responsible approach culture, but London was not a womanless void earlier, to managing and maximising members’ money.