Julia Bush
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199248773
- eISBN:
- 9780191714689
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248773.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This book provides the first full history of the female campaign against votes for women in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. By 1914, the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was ...
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This book provides the first full history of the female campaign against votes for women in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. By 1914, the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was dominated by the self-consciously masculine leadership of Lord Cromer and Lord Curzon, but also heavily dependent upon an impressive cadre of women leaders. An overwhelmingly female membership rivalled the suffrage organizations in numbers, though not in levels of activism. The first half of the book explores the motives and ideals of women against the vote. The provenance of their opposition is analyzed through three overlapping groups: maternal reformers, women writers, and imperialist ladies. In the second half of the book, a detailed study of anti-suffrage organizations and their supporters reveals that partnership between the sexes was seldom straightforward, even for a movement dedicated to separate and complementary gender roles. Anti-suffragism was divided by internal conflicts between men and women, and between reformers and ultra-conservatives, as it fuelled the suffrage conflict and wider contemporary debates over the Woman Question. Women pursued their own agendas within organized anti-suffragism, demonstrating their affinity with the mainstream social conservatism of the British women's movement and continuously collaborating with moderate suffragists in non-political social action. The rediscovered history of female anti-suffragism provides new perspectives on campaigns both for and against the vote. It also makes a significant contribution to the wider history of Victorian and Edwardian women's social ideas and public activism.Less
This book provides the first full history of the female campaign against votes for women in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. By 1914, the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage was dominated by the self-consciously masculine leadership of Lord Cromer and Lord Curzon, but also heavily dependent upon an impressive cadre of women leaders. An overwhelmingly female membership rivalled the suffrage organizations in numbers, though not in levels of activism. The first half of the book explores the motives and ideals of women against the vote. The provenance of their opposition is analyzed through three overlapping groups: maternal reformers, women writers, and imperialist ladies. In the second half of the book, a detailed study of anti-suffrage organizations and their supporters reveals that partnership between the sexes was seldom straightforward, even for a movement dedicated to separate and complementary gender roles. Anti-suffragism was divided by internal conflicts between men and women, and between reformers and ultra-conservatives, as it fuelled the suffrage conflict and wider contemporary debates over the Woman Question. Women pursued their own agendas within organized anti-suffragism, demonstrating their affinity with the mainstream social conservatism of the British women's movement and continuously collaborating with moderate suffragists in non-political social action. The rediscovered history of female anti-suffragism provides new perspectives on campaigns both for and against the vote. It also makes a significant contribution to the wider history of Victorian and Edwardian women's social ideas and public activism.
Pat Jalland
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201885
- eISBN:
- 9780191675058
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201885.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter discusses the plight and sorrow of the Victorian and Edwardian women in the face of their husband's death. In the 19th century, the mortality rates were high producing high rates of ...
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This chapter discusses the plight and sorrow of the Victorian and Edwardian women in the face of their husband's death. In the 19th century, the mortality rates were high producing high rates of widowed people particularly women because of the mortality differential favouring women and the higher rates of remarriage for widowed men. Widowhood in the early Victorian times was often seen as an end of marriage, a devastating experience on women whose central role was to be a dutiful wife and guardian of the family. The status of widows in the Victorian period was greater than that of a spinster but less than that of a wife. The chapter also discusses the stages of grief, bereavement and the emotional trauma in the lives of widowed women, as well as the symptoms and behavioural characteristics of grief seen in the middle and upper classes in the 19th and the 20th century. The chapter also tackles the different consolations of widowhood found within the comfort of religious family and memory. A case study on the peculiar widowhood of Lady Holland is also included in this chapter.Less
This chapter discusses the plight and sorrow of the Victorian and Edwardian women in the face of their husband's death. In the 19th century, the mortality rates were high producing high rates of widowed people particularly women because of the mortality differential favouring women and the higher rates of remarriage for widowed men. Widowhood in the early Victorian times was often seen as an end of marriage, a devastating experience on women whose central role was to be a dutiful wife and guardian of the family. The status of widows in the Victorian period was greater than that of a spinster but less than that of a wife. The chapter also discusses the stages of grief, bereavement and the emotional trauma in the lives of widowed women, as well as the symptoms and behavioural characteristics of grief seen in the middle and upper classes in the 19th and the 20th century. The chapter also tackles the different consolations of widowhood found within the comfort of religious family and memory. A case study on the peculiar widowhood of Lady Holland is also included in this chapter.
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823229857
- eISBN:
- 9780823241040
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823229857.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter addresses a different set of female anxieties — one that has less to do with outright violence and more to do with cultural expectations and social demands. The dominant issues in ghost ...
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This chapter addresses a different set of female anxieties — one that has less to do with outright violence and more to do with cultural expectations and social demands. The dominant issues in ghost stories by Victorian and Edwardian women do not concern women being murdered or physically abused by men but rather marriage and motherhood. In stories focused on these themes, the tensions between the idealized expectations surrounding feminine roles and the far less fulfilling realities of marital life for many women are brought to the fore. Ghost stories that address marriage, according to Catherine Lundie, deal with infidelity, psychological and sexual abuse, arranged marriages, and the incompatibility of partners. In this chapter the author surveys a variety of ghostly American tales by Victorian and Edwardian women that attend to the subjects of marriage and motherhood and that reflect differing opinions on the subjects.Less
This chapter addresses a different set of female anxieties — one that has less to do with outright violence and more to do with cultural expectations and social demands. The dominant issues in ghost stories by Victorian and Edwardian women do not concern women being murdered or physically abused by men but rather marriage and motherhood. In stories focused on these themes, the tensions between the idealized expectations surrounding feminine roles and the far less fulfilling realities of marital life for many women are brought to the fore. Ghost stories that address marriage, according to Catherine Lundie, deal with infidelity, psychological and sexual abuse, arranged marriages, and the incompatibility of partners. In this chapter the author surveys a variety of ghostly American tales by Victorian and Edwardian women that attend to the subjects of marriage and motherhood and that reflect differing opinions on the subjects.
Laura Schwartz
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719085826
- eISBN:
- 9781781704936
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719085826.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book studies a distinctive brand of women's rights that emerged out of the Victorian Secularist movement, and looks at the lives and work of a number of female activists, whose renunciation of ...
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This book studies a distinctive brand of women's rights that emerged out of the Victorian Secularist movement, and looks at the lives and work of a number of female activists, whose renunciation of religion shaped their struggle for emancipation. Anti-religious or secular ideas were fundamental to the development of feminist thought, but have, until now, been almost entirely passed over in the historiography of the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement. In uncovering an important tradition of freethinking feminism, the book reveals an ongoing radical and free love current connecting Owenite feminism with the more ‘respectable’ post-1850 women's movement and the ‘New Women’ of the early twentieth century.Less
This book studies a distinctive brand of women's rights that emerged out of the Victorian Secularist movement, and looks at the lives and work of a number of female activists, whose renunciation of religion shaped their struggle for emancipation. Anti-religious or secular ideas were fundamental to the development of feminist thought, but have, until now, been almost entirely passed over in the historiography of the Victorian and Edwardian women's movement. In uncovering an important tradition of freethinking feminism, the book reveals an ongoing radical and free love current connecting Owenite feminism with the more ‘respectable’ post-1850 women's movement and the ‘New Women’ of the early twentieth century.
