WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN
Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 1: Early Women's Journals, c.1700-1832, from the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Part 1 concentrates on Early Womens Journals, c1700-1832, and fills a major gap in the provision of source materials for Women's Studies. For whilst much has been done to make available women's journals of the 19th and 20th centuries, there has hitherto been very little available concerning the 18th century.

This lacunae is significant because between the emergence of the first women's periodicals in the 1690's and the appearance of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 it has been said that there was a fundamental shift in the status of women. Conventional chronology points to a decline of the early modern intellectual and economic independent-mindedness and the rise of breathless, wilting Victorian femininity.

An examination of the original source materials enables such theories to be tested. were 18th century women regarded as equals in intellectual debate? Were they more outspoken than their Victorian counterparts? When did the image of woman as home-maker actually emerge? Was modesty a Victorian virtue? When did the glorification of womanhood begin? When did the cultivation of appearances assume a central role? How radical was the shift in attitudes towards women between 1690 and 1860? Did men and women perceive the role of women differently?

This first part is based largely on the Hope Collection of Early Newspapers and Essayists at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. From the very first periodical for women, The Ladies Mercury (1693), through to the angry, political strains of The Isis (1832), this part offers 40 rare womens journals. Other titles include: Delarivier Manleys Female Tatler (1710); The Mirrour (1719); Ladies Journal (1727); The Parrot (1728); Eliza Haywoods The Female Spectator (1744-1746) and The Invisible Spy (1759); The Ladys Weekly Magazine (1747); The Midwife (1751-1753); The Ladys Library (1751); Have at You All (1752); The Ladys Curiosity or Weekly Apollo (1752); The Old Maid (1755-56); The Pharos (1786-1787); and The Ladys Miscellany (1793).