bluestockings exhibit

Brilliant Women, 18th Century Bluestockings

While women of brilliance in 'the colonies' might not had the opportunity to form a similar group to England's Bluestockings at that same period, it does not keep us from an interest in these, the women depicted in the National Portrait Gallery exhibition in London. These women, we've been told, were only imitating similar women in French society!

"The exhibition begins by introducing the fashionable Bluestocking Circle and exploring how a tight-knit group of women became a model for rational 'Enlightenment' forms of sociability. The Bluestockings met in the London homes of the fashionable hostesses Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), Elizabeth Vesey (c.1715-91) and Frances Boscawen (1719-1805) from the 1750s. Together these women, and the eminent men who supported their endeavours, invented a new kind of informal sociability and nurtured a sense of intellectual community and potential. Guests included the leading literary, political and cultural figures of the day, including the scholar and classical translator Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), the critic and writer Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the artists Frances Reynolds (1729-1807) and her brother Sir Joshua (1723-92), the novelist Fanny Burney (1752-1840) and the writer and dramatist Hannah More (1745-1833). They got their comical name — 'Bluestockings' — when another guest, the botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702-71), was welcomed at one of Elizabeth Montagu's salons even though he had arrived absent-mindedly wearing the blue woollen stockings normally worn by working men, instead of the more formal white silk."

For example, Elizabeth Carter: "Encouraged by her father, a clergyman, to study, Carter applied herself with such perseverance that she became one of the most learned Englishwoman of her time, being mistress of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, besides several modern European languages. She rendered into English De Crousaz'sExamen de l'essai de Monsieur Pope sur l'homme (1739); Algarotti's Newtonianismo per le Donne; the works of Epictetus (1758) and wrote a volume of poems. An icon of virtue and learning, Carter was later sought out by aspiring women writers, including the literary critic Elizabeth Montagu, with whom she developed a lifelong friendship and helped to establish the Bluestocking Circle."

The section titled A Revolution in Female Manners continues: "With greater restrictions imposed on personal freedom, the final section of the exhibition considers the changing fortunes of the intellectual and creative woman. A Revolution in Female Manners explores the rise and fall of two writers — the republican historian Catharine Macaulay and the early 'feminist' Mary Wollstonecraft. Both held radical beliefs, greeted the French Revolution with enthusiasm and spoke out for women's rights. But their troubled reputations were due not only to their uncompromising politics, but also to their rejection of traditional female behaviour, especially in their liberal attitudes, publicly-voiced political opinions and unconventional sexual lives. But the contemporary moral climate saw new limits placed on female self-expression and the traditionally demarcated roles of the sexes were emphasised once again."

Culture and Arts, Art and Museums, History, Women of Note, Senior Women Web

Brilliant Women, 18th Century Bluestockings

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