Borderline Citizens: Women, gender and political culture in Britain, 1815-1867

by Kathryn Gleadle

Overview

This volume provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of women's involvement in British political culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is based upon extensive archival research, but also engages with recent feminist theories in the social sciences, such as psychology and sociology. The volume is innovative too for its attention to rural experiences of politics, as well as urban. Dr Gleadle not only throws new light on women's political activities but also does much to challenge many traditional assumptions about contemporary politics per se. This includes, for example, fresh insights into the great Reform Act of 1832, attention to the many continuities in political practice and ideas, and a focus upon the primary significance of parish politics within the day-to-day activities of the middling and gentry classes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197264492
Publisher:	British Academy
Publication date:	12/13/2009
Series:	British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kathryn Gleadle is a Fellow in Modern History at Mansfield College at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Abbreviations ix

Note on the text x

Introduction 1

I Women, Gender, and the Landscape of Politics 23

1 Borderline citizens: women and the political process 25

2 Women, the public sphere, and collective identities 61

3 Women and the family in political culture 92

4 Community, authority, and parochial realms 123

II Case Studies and Micro-Histories 157

5 Women and the 1832 Reform Act 159

6 Land and dynastic subjectivity: the public spheres of Mary Ann Gilbert 192

7 'Doing good by wholesale': women, gender, and politics in the family network of Thomas Fowell Buxton 225

Conclusions 257

Bibliography 269

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

"[An] excellent book. Compelling not simply because it is theoretically well informed but because it is exceptionally well researched. The depth and breadth of her engagement with the published and manuscript sources of the era is remarkable."—Journal of British Studies

From the Publisher