The second half of the nineteenth century saw in newly industrialized England the creation of a “domestic ideology” that drew a sharp line between domestic woman and public man. Though never the dominant reality, this demarcation of men’s and women’s spheres ordered people’s values and justified the existing social structure. Out of this context sprang a women’s movement that celebrated its female identity, its campaigns “concerned as much with promoting that optimistic self-image as with a simple call for equality with men.” Levine traces the changing face of a half century of England’s feminist movement, the personalities who dominated it, its pressing issues, and the tactics employed in the fight. Political themes common to the specific protests, she finds, included women’s moral superiority, a close-knit sense of a supportive female community, and a conscious woman-centeredness of interests. Along the way, Levine puts to rest many inaccuracies and assumptions that have dogged the history of presuffragette feminism, causing it to be discredited or dismissed. She refutes, for example, the judgement that the movement served only the needs of bourgeois women, and she warns against the pitfall of defining feminism by the standards of a male politics whose practices make comparisons inadequate and unsuitable. Levine has organized her study with an eye to the breadth of concerns that characterized England’s nineteenth-century feminism: women’s entry into education and the professions; trade unionism, working conditions, equal pay; suffrage and other political and property rights for women; marriage and morality issues—prostitution, incest, venereal disease, wife abuse, pornography, and equal rights to divorce.

Assembling a full and comprehensive collection of material which illustrates all aspects of the emergent womene(tm)s movement during the years 1850-1900, this fascinating book will prove invaluable to students of nineteenth century social history and women's studies, to those studying the Victorian novel and to sociologists. Womene(tm)s pamphlets and speeches, parliamentary debates and popular journalism, letters and memoirs, royal commissions and the leading reviews, are all used to document the conflicting images of women: e~surplus womene(tm) and the issue of emigration; womene(tm)s work and male hostility to it; the opening of education by Emily Davies; the claim to equity at law; the attack on the sexual double standard, led by Josephine Butler; womene(tm)s public service from philanthropy e" exemplified in a Mary Carpenter or Louisa Twining or Octavia Hill e" to local government; and finally womene(tm)s entry into politics led by Lydia Becker. The contents range from Caroline Norton on her battle for child custody in the 1830s to Annie Besante(tm)s inspiration of the match-girle(tm)s strike in 1888, and from W. T. Stead on child prostitution to Mrs Humphrey Ware(tm)s Appeal against female suffrage in 1889. The book was originally published in 1979.

Beyond the Frame rewrites the history of Victorian art to explore the relationships between feminism and visual culture in a period of heady excitement and political struggle. Artists were caught up in campaigns for women's enfranchisement, education and paid work, and many were drawn into controversies about sexuality. This richly documented and compelling study considers painting, sculpture, prints, photography, embroidery and comic drawings as well as major styles such as Pre-Raphaelitism, Neo-Classicism and Orientalism. Drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies to analyse the links between visual media, modernity and imperialism, Deborah Cherry argues that visual culture and feminism were intimately connected to the relations of power.

Bridging the fields of political theory and history, this comprehensive study of Victorian reforms in marriage law reshapes our understanding of the feminist movement of that period. As Mary Shanley shows, Victorian feminists argued that justice for women would not follow from public rights alone, but required a fundamental transformation of the marriage relationship.

Free and Ennobled: Source Readings in the Development of Victorian Feminism covers the knowledge gap in the field of Victorian feminist studies. This book is the outgrowth of a college course on the Victorian Woman. This book is composed of ten chapters, and begins with an introduction to womanhood. The succeeding chapters deal with the emergence of feminism and the introduction of the Victorian Feminism movement as part of social adjustment. Other chapters are devoted to controversial issues in women's right, including education, emancipation, work, and political rights. The final chapters discuss the achievements of the Victorian Feminism movement. This book will prove useful to sociologists.