Description
Book SynopsisThis book tells the remarkable stories of ten women whose inspirational lives and struggles exemplify the concerns and problems that other women have faced throughout the last two centuries.
Trade ReviewA collection of essays focusing on the life and work of ten individuals. Some are well-known names, if not well-known lives - Elsie Inglis, Katherine, the 'Red Duchess' of Argyll; others more obscure - Eliza Wigham (anti-slavery and women's rights activist), Mary Brooksbank (Dundee radical and poet). The aim is to provide not just individual portraits of women, but to contribute to our understanding of women's roles over 200 years. The chronological arrangement of the essays means that they can be read almost as a continuous narrative, which highlights change but also underlines the persistence of patriarchal attitudes. Willa Muir (born 1890), wife of Edwin, may have had a very different life from Jane Welsh Carlyle, born 90 years earlier and wife of Thomas, but both lived in the shadow of their husbands, and suffered for it. The essays are a tale of struggle - for love, for qualifications, for opportunity, for recognition ! The particular value of these essays is that they are anchored in social, political and professional contexts, which illuminate the lives and are in turn illuminated by them. -- Jenni Calder A collection of essays focusing on the life and work of ten individuals. Some are well-known names, if not well-known lives - Elsie Inglis, Katherine, the 'Red Duchess' of Argyll; others more obscure - Eliza Wigham (anti-slavery and women's rights activist), Mary Brooksbank (Dundee radical and poet). The aim is to provide not just individual portraits of women, but to contribute to our understanding of women's roles over 200 years. The chronological arrangement of the essays means that they can be read almost as a continuous narrative, which highlights change but also underlines the persistence of patriarchal attitudes. Willa Muir (born 1890), wife of Edwin, may have had a very different life from Jane Welsh Carlyle, born 90 years earlier and wife of Thomas, but both lived in the shadow of their husbands, and suffered for it. The essays are a tale of struggle - for love, for qualifications, for opportunity, for recognition ! The particular value of these essays is that they are anchored in social, political and professional contexts, which illuminate the lives and are in turn illuminated by them.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; List of Illustrations; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Jane Welsh Carlyle: Living with Genius (1); 2. Eliza Wigham: Religion, Radicalism and the Origins of the Women's Movement in 19thC Scotland; 3. Madeleine Smith: Sex and the Single Girl in Victorian Scotland; 4. Sophia Jex-Blake: Women and Higher Education in 19thC Scotland; 5. Lady Frances Balfour: the Radical Aristocrat; 6. Mary Mitchell Slessor: Serving God and Country; 7. Elsie Maud Inglis: Scotland's Joan of Arc?; 8. Katherine, Duchess of Atholl: the Red Duchess?; 9. Willa Muir: Living with Genius (2); 10. Mary Brooksbank: Work, Poverty and Politics in 20thC Scotland.
