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Cover of Women and the People

Women and the People Authority, Authorship and the Radical Tradition in Nineteenth-Century England

  • Published: 23 Nov 2000
  • DOI: 10.4324/9781315318028
  • Print ISBN: 9780754602613
  • eBook ISBN: 9781315318028

Based on extensive new research investigating the range of women’s involvement in early nineteenth-century popular politics, mid-Victorian reform and the women’s movements of the late century, Women and the People makes an original intervention in the historiography of the radical tradition by exploring the interconnections of populism, liberalism and feminism. Attending to authorship, the study argues that the representational forms adopted by radicals were as important as the content of what they said in shaping their self-perception, their construction of others, and the reception of their ideas. In fiction, poetry and autobiography, as well as in political writing, speeches and journalism, women reworked radical conventions and imagined new models of political identity, participation and authority. Though, in general, radicals appealed to ’the people’, women were often positioned as the suffering objects of reform rather than as the agents of change. By showing how they challenged or reinforced these conceptions of ’women’ and ’the people’, the book contends that radical women invoked alternative communities of sex, class and nation, and helped to remake and discipline the political sphere, as they strove to make it their own.

Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Women and the People: Re-making the Radical Tradition
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      I
      The meanings of the populist idiom
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      II
      Radicalism and representation
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      III
      The ambiguities of radicalism
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      IV
      Rethinking experience
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      V
      The authority of experience
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      VI
      Politics and power
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    A Leader of the People: Eliza Sharples and the Radical Platform, 1832–52
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      I
      Isis: conversion and rebirth
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      II
      Eve: freethought and the politics of knowledge
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      III
      Liberty: women and republicanism
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      IV
      The Lady of the Rotunda: women in public
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      V
      Hypatia: the perils of martyrdom
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    Women of the People: Influence and Force in the Chartist Movement, 1838–48
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      I
      Moral- and physical-force Chartism: a contested history
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      II
      The Birmingham Women’s Political Union and the influence of women
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      III
      The BWPU and the use of experience
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      IV
      The BWPU and the threat of force
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      V
      The Nottingham Female Political Union and the power of women
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      VI
      ‘What power has woman … ?’ Rhetoric and agency in the Chartist movement
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    Serving the People: Feminist Writers and the Politics of Improvement, 1830–50
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      I
      Radicals and writers
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      II
      Feminism and the radical unitarians
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      III
      Writing for the people
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      IV
      Serving the cause of labour
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      V
      Authorship and authority
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    The Daughters of the People: Representing the Needlewomen, 1841–64
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      I
      Women’s work in the needle trades
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      II
      ‘No slavery is worse’: the Children’s Employment Commissions and the dressmakers
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      III
      ‘A tragic and touching romance’: Henry Mayhew and the slopwomen
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      IV
      ‘Let the words of the poor girl … sink deep into your heart’: the politics of needlework
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      V
      ‘The work of emancipation’: the women’s movements and the needlewomen
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    The People and the Outcast: The Repeal Movement and the Battle for Liberalism, 1870–74
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      I
      ‘The people and their rulers’: the contested elections and English democracy
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      II
      The ‘solemn trust’: electors and the people
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      III
      ‘By force of conscience’: the politics of influence
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      IV
      ‘The old traditions of the party’: the contest for the Liberal Party
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      V
      ‘Those who are instructed in history’: rewriting the past; rewriting the future
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    Of the Common People: The Dimensions of a Radical Life, Mary Smith, 1822–89
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      I
      Reading autobiography
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      II
      ‘Of the order of the common people’: childhood and identity
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      III
      ‘A lady without money’: work, mobility and status
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      IV
      ‘Women must be their own helpers just as every class and every individual must’: the politics of improvement
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      V
      ‘The inner cravings of my soul’: writing and subjectivity
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    Beyond the People? Reconfiguring the Radical Tradition
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    Back Matter