Women in British Politics, 1780-1860: The Power of the Petticoat

by NA NA

Overview

This groundbreaking volume examines women's political involvement from a variety of innovative angles. In addition to exploring literary sources and women's contribution to electoral processes, pressure group politics are examined in depth (including Jewish civil rights and the campaigns against the Corn Laws and Indian widow-burning). The attention to neglected aspects of women's political activity, such as religion, domesticity, European nationalism, empire, and lifestyle enable this book to challenge not only the historiography of Georgian and Victorian women, but also the nature of political history itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312233563
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	12/02/2000
Edition description:	2000
Pages:	179
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Kathryn Gleadle holds a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the Department of Politics and Modern History at London Guildhall University.

Sarah Richardson is Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Petticoat in Politics: Women and Authority, c. 1760-1860--Kathryn Gleadle & Sarah Richardson
• Women, Electoral Privilege and Practice in the Eighteenth Century--Elaine Chalus
• Patriotism and Providence: The Politics of Hannah More--Anne Scott
• "Well-Neighbored Houses": The Political Network of Elite Women, 1780-1860--Sarah Richardson
• From Supporting Missions to Petitioning Parliament: English Women and the Evangelical Campaign against Sati (Widow-Burning) in India, 1813-1830--Clare Midgley
• Women Writers and the Campaign for Jewish Civil Rights in Early Victorian England--Nadia Valman
• Domestic Economy and Political Agitation: Women and the Anti-Corn Law League 1839-1846--Simon Morgan
• "Our Several Spheres": Middle Class Women and the Feminisms of Early Victorian Radical Politics--Kathryn Gleadle
• "Jenny Rules the Roost": Women and Electoral Politics, 1832-1868--Matthew Cragoe

Editorial Reviews

"...combine[s] the best of the new research with theoretical sophistication..."--Anna Clark Victorian Studies
"Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson have produced a book which will be widely welcomed by teachers of eighteenth and nineteenth-century British women's history as well as by researchers in the field. Women in British Politics, 1760-1860 brings together several of the most important recent threads of scholarship in this field."-- Emma Vincent Macleod in H-Albion

From the Publisher

Claiming for themselves the Petticoat Government metaphor used during the period by those who feared women's power both in political arenas and in domestic space, British historians examine the contexts in which those fears were based. They explore the nature of women's political involvement in the electoral process from a variety of innovative angles, and also women's contribution to pressure group politics such as Jewish civil rights, European nationalism, and campaigns against the Corn Laws and Indian widow-burning. They eight essays are from a May 1998 conference in Warwick. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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