The Victorian City (HI371) - Term 2, Seminar 4
Seminar 4: Women and the City
Key Texts
Kathryn Gleadle, British Women in the Nineteenth Century
Jane Rendall, Women in an Industrialising Society: England 1750-1880
Martha Vicinus (ed.), A widening sphere: changing roles of Victorian women
Catherine Hall, 'The early formation of Victorian domestic ideology', in Hall, White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations of Feminism and History
TLTP Package: Major Themes in Women’s History
· Discuss the concept of domesticity and its role in placing women in the private sphere in the nineteenth century
· What opportunities were there for women to participate in the public sphere?
· Assess women's contribution to the economy?
· Is there a distance between public rhetoric and the actual experiences of women?
Further Reading
Joanna Bourke, 'Housewifery in working-class England, 1860-1914', Past and Present, 1994
Patricia Branca, Silent Sisterhood: middle class women in the Victorian home
Barbara Caine, Victorian Feminists
Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1750-1850
Sara Delamont and Lorna Duffin (ed.), Nineteenth century woman: her cultural and physical world
Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (eds), Women in British Politics, 1760-1860: The Power of the Petticoat
Lee Holcombe, Victorian ladies at work: middle class working women in England and Wales, 1850-1914
Angela John, Unequal opportunities: women's employment in England 1800-1918
Jane Lewis (ed.), Labour and Love: Women's experience of home and family, 1850-1940
Jane Lewis, Women in England, 1870-1950
Sonya Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and class in 19th century England
Martha Vicinus, Suffer and be still: women in the Victorian age