Victorian Women
While the aristocratic women of the Victorian age have long preoccupied the popular imagination, seldom have women of the other classes been granted a voice. Victorian Women is the first book to allow women of all classes to render their own lives, in their own words, from birth to old age, in the 'long nineteenth century' between the French Revolution and the First World War.
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While the aristocratic women of the Victorian age have long preoccupied the popular imagination, seldom have women of other classes been granted a voice. Victorian Women is the first book to allow women of all classes to render their own lives, in their own words, from birth to old age, in the long nineteenth century between the French Revolution and the First World War. In letters, memoirs, and other contemporary sources these women describe their childhood and education; courtship, marriage and homemaking; sex and motherhood; marital breakdown; widowhood; and their pastimes and entertainments. Their voices, heretofore drowned by the cacophony of louder, often male versions of history, speak to us with clarity and poignancy, revealing strength of feeling, courage, and humor. We find in this book the unmarried woman worker, the single mother, the prostitute, as well as those who fought for professional recognition against the regiments of the church, government, and law. Booknews A reprint of a book first published in 1993 by John Murray, UK. Perkins (women's history, Northwestern U.) uses letters, memoirs, and other revealing, first-hand sources to describe the social conditions of women of all classes during the Victorian era. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
IllustrationsIntroduction11What Use Were Girls Anyway?: Class and the Importance of Gender62That Won't Earn a Gal a Living: Education for Girls273Thinking of England: Sex, Courtship and Marriage514Angels in the House: Marriage and Domestic Life735Time of Their Own: Women's Interests and Entertainments936Punch and Judy: Holy Deadlock, Separation and Divorce1137Turning Their Industry to Best Account: Widowhood and Old Age1328Making Their Own Way: The Lives of Unmarried Middle-Class Women1539Cheap Labour: The Lives of Unmarried Working-Class Women16910Obliged to be Breadwinners: The Lives of Married Women Workers18611Ladies Bountiful: Philanthropic, Voluntary and Political Work20212A Separate Species of Womanhood: The Demi-Monde219Conclusion: To Become Themselves235Select Bibliography249Index254
\ BooknewsA reprint of a book first published in 1993 by John Murray, UK. Perkins women's history, Northwestern U. uses letters, memoirs, and other revealing, first-hand sources to describe the social conditions of women of all classes during the Victorian era. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR booknews.com\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher"A useful and engaging book, one in which real voices are allowed to speak and to describe experience as being as squalid, muddled, painful and interesting as it generally is."\ -Sunday Times,\ "On individual examples Perkin is superb, not just on the great reformers but on the individual free-wheelers like Isabella Bird-Bishop, who set off at 40 to see the whole world and managed it."\ -The Independent,\ \ \
