The origins of modern feminism : women in Britain, France and the United States, 1780-1860
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Bibliographic Information
The origins of modern feminism : women in Britain, France and the United States, 1780-1860
（Themes in comparative history）
Macmillan, 1985
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. [364]-368
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This comparative study analyses the emergence of feminist movements and their differing characters in Britain, France and the United States. Jane Rendall examines the social, economic and cultural factors which affected women's status in society, and led some women to act, individually and collectively, to seek to change it.
The Enlightenment emphasis on women's 'nature' and the evangelical stress on the moral potential of women contributed to a framework of ideas which could be used by conservatives and by feminists. Among the middle classes, discussion focused on the need to improve women's education and on the strengths and limitations of domesticity. Patterns of paid employment for women were shifting, and Jane Rendall suggests that the weak position of women in the labor market during the early stages of industrialisation restricted their ability to associate together. Yet involvement in religious, political and philanthropic movements could provide a means by which women might come together to identify their common concerns and learn the necessary political skills.
Jane Rendall places the origins of feminism in the broader context of social and political change in the nineteenth century, looking both at the changing relationship between paid work and domestic life and at the links between feminism and class and political conflict in three different societies.
Table of Contents
List of Plates.- General Editor's Preface.- Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- PART 1: THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE NATURE OF WOMEN.- PART 2: FEMINISM AND REPUBLICANISM: 'REPUBLICAN MOTHERHOOD'.- Republican Possibilities.- Conservative Reaction.- PART 3: EVANGELICALISM AND THE POWER OF WOMEN.- Evangelical Themes.- Revivalism and the Organisation of Women.- Millenarianism.- PART 4: EDUCATING HEARTS AND MINDS.- The Case for 'Maternal Education'.- The Training of Teachers.- The Education of the Majority.- PART 5: WORK AND ORGANISATION.- Women's Work in the Early Nineteenth Century: Changes and Continuities.- Women Workers and Organisation.- The New Industrial Society: Factory Labour and Domestic Service.- New Demands and New Jobs.- PART 6: DOMESTIC QUESTIONS.- Domestic Myths and Domestic Realities.- Women and Community Protest.- Middle-Class Domesticity and its Boundaries.- Challenges to Domesticity: Individual and Collective.- PART 7: POLITICS, PHILANTHROPY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE.- Crowds, Radicalism and Revolution.- Political Issues: Class, Slavery and Race.- Moral Reform and Philanthropy.- PART 8: THE FEMINIST CASE.- Three Writers.- Feminist Practice: Defeat and Difficulties in France.- The United States: Feminism and the Current Reform.- Great Britain: Feminist Politics and the Politics of Class.- Conclusion.- Abbreviations.- Notes and References.- Notes to Plates.- Bibliography.- Index.
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