Mary Smith (1822–1889): A Radical Journalist under Many Guises

2019 ◽  
pp. 502-515
Author(s):  
Florence S. Boos
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Woman Writer ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
Class Woman

In this essay, Florence S. Boos examines the career of Mary Smith, a writer who used the correspondence columns of the Carlisle Journal and other periodicals to write on religious pluralism, women’s enfranchisement, Liberal party politics, Irish Home Rule, and British imperialism. The extent of her contributions will probably never be fully known since her letters were signed with initials or with pseudonyms such as ‘Burns Redivivus’ or ‘Sigma.’ Anonymity was crucial for a lower-middle-class woman writer who could not vote but yearned to influence public debate. ‘If men knew who the writer was,’ she acknowledged, ‘they would say, “What does a woman know about politics?”’ (p. 510). When adopting various signatures, she shifted her tone and persona accordingly, reserving her most strident voice for the letters she published on Liberal party politics, styling herself as ‘Sigma’ or ‘Z.’ ‘Periodical journalism,’ Boos concludes, ‘provided Smith with the opportunity to explore a range of personae, topics, and rhetorical approaches over several decades, and to influence public opinion in favour of her chosen causes while retaining her cherished mental independence and broadly critical stance’ (p. 513).

North and South

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gaskell ◽  
Sally Shuttleworth
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Authority ◽  
Industrial Town ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
Class Woman ◽  
And Gender ◽  
North And South ◽  
Obedience To Authority

`She tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.’ North and South is a novel about rebellion. Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny, it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the conflict between Margaret’s ready sympathy with the workers and her growing attraction to the charismatic mill ownder, John Thornton. This new revised and expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate.

Modern Dating and Respectability on Trial

2019 ◽  
pp. 146-170
Author(s):  
Tyler Carrington
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
German Society ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
The Face ◽  
Class Woman ◽  
Legal Strategy ◽  
The Way

Chapter 5 follows the sensational trial of Frieda Kliem’s murderer and the strategy of the defense, which was not so much a legal strategy as a way of turning the trial into a question of Frieda’s respectability as a middle-class woman. It interprets this trial—and the life of Frieda Kliem, more generally—as a microcosm of the large-scale confrontation between nineteenth-century society and the emerging twentieth-century world. It contends that identity, presented either authentically or as an illusion, became supremely relevant in the metropolis, where the ubiquity of strangers, new faces, and mysterious crimes shaped the way city people narrated the search for love and intimacy. And because enterprising outsiders like Frieda Kliem so flouted the established patterns of middle-class respectability, they remained on the outside looking in as German society clung to the nineteenth-century world that was crumbling in the face of a bewilderingly new twentieth-century one.

Home rule and the liberal party, 1899–1906

1963 ◽  
Vol 13 (52) ◽  
pp. 316-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.W. McCready
Keyword(s):  
Party Politics ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Financial Measures ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
History Of ◽  
Liberal Reform ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Pros And Cons

Gladstone’s dramatic commitment of the liberal party to a policy of home rule for Ireland in 1886 was followed by the Grand Old Man’s two attempts at turning his policy into legislation. The first home rule bill, that of 1886, was defeated in the house of commons and then in a general election: the second, that of 1893, was overwhelmed in the house of lords and then dropped by Gladstone’s fourth government. Though the Gladstonian commitment remained and the liberal party continued to be a home rule party — and though the pros and cons of the union of 1800 remained the major structural feature of British party politics — it was not until 1912 that the liberals did anything further about their major Irish policy. For most of the period 1893-1912 they were, of course, impotent in opposition and consequently in no position to take the initiative on home rule. In 1906, however, they won a landslide victory over their unionist opponents and it is striking that this electoral victory and the great impulse it gave to one of the most dynamic governments in the whole history of British liberalism was not followed, as had the last two liberal victories under Gladstone, by the introduction of a third home rule bill. Had the liberal landslide of 1906 been put behind another home rule measure the whole history of the matter would certainly have been radically different. The house of lords would have been easily overwhelmed; the great advance in constitutional reform for Ireland would have been carried in a spirit of liberal reform rather than of political surrender; the development of Sinn Fein would have been frustrated or at least diverted. But the liberal victory of 1906 was not so used. Home rule was postponed and sidetracked and was taken up again only when the liberal party once more desperately needed Irish votes in the budget election which followed the rejection of Lloyd George’s financial measures by the lords in November 1909. The home rule banner was hoisted afresh by Asquith, the prime minister, in his Albert Hall speechof 10 December 1909 and the third home rule bill appeared in due course in 1912 in direct — and significant — succession to the budget and the parliament act for both of which the Asquith government needed Irish support in the commons.

Gender, Medicine, and Consumer Culture in Victorian England: Creating the Kleptomaniac

1999 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Whitlock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Retail Crime ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Class Woman

In his Crime and Society in England 1750-1900 Clive Emsley notes that “for England the subject of the middle-class woman ‘kleptomaniac,’ as opposed to the working-class woman ‘thief,’ awaits an historian,” and casts doubt on the significance of the respectable shoplifter in England. However, not only is there ample evidence that middle-class shoplifting was a rising concern in Victorian England, it is a key example of the way in which gender ideology and medical science were constructed to solve a commercial and legal problem. Early in the nineteenth century, a respectable woman accused of shoplifting only had the option of denying her crime and blaming the shopkeeper; however, as the number of middle-class women committing retail crimes such as shoplifting and fraud increased, the issue of representation in the nineteenth century became more complicated. Woman’s role as aggressive consumer and her role in retail crime clashed with her home-centered image. In trials, canting ballads, and scathing articles, critics presented an image of the retail female criminal as greedy, fraudulent, and middle-class. Women fought against this image by denying their crimes or by participating in the creation of the developing representation of criminal women as ill rather than greedy.

La espiritualidad de la madre de familia: Mónica «mater», imagen de la Iglesia

Augustinus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
Vittorino Grossi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
Class Woman ◽  
The Church

The article presents the figure of Monica, mother of Augustine, highlighting her spirituality as a Christian mother, underlining especially three elements. First, the fact that Monica is a middle-class woman, in relationship to women of high social rank, of whom we know the stories, told by Gregory of Nissa, Gregory of Nazianzus or Jerome. Later, the article points out how Monica is the image of the Church, and not just a domestic example of a Christian mother. Finally, the article shows that Monica, as “mother”, plays a role in the society, not only with respect to her children, but also expresses the identity of the mother. In Monica, the woman as “mother” is “subject” of rights, is “uxor” according to Roman law.

scholarly journals Marriage in The Late of 19th Century Reflected in The Age of Innocence

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
Hasnani Hasnani
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Middle Class Woman ◽  
Class Woman ◽  
The Age Of Innocence ◽  
Sociocultural Background

The Age of Innocence presents marriage woman in sociocultural background of upper-middle class woman in the late of 19th century. This research aimed to describe marriage in the alte of 19th century reflected in The Age of Innocence. The researcher used qualitative method. The data were analyzed by using the Sociological theory in order to describe marriage in the novel. The sociological theory is uesd to analysed the sociological background of marriage woman at that time. The results of the research shows marriage in the late of 19th century that describe in two parts; woman as fiancee and woman as a wife. The Age of Innocence represent the marriage women are still patriacy and in the domestic sphere

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