Female Alliances

Queer Intimacy: Speaking with the Dead in Eighteenth‐Century Britain

“…Sarah Savage's relationships with the people in her community were marked by misunderstanding and mistrust, mostly as a result of Savage's Dissenting faith and her inability to conform to traditional Anglican practices of religion and sociability. 54 When Savage expressed concern about getting along with her neighbours in her diaries, she spoke with Hunt in order to decide upon a good course of action. In one entry Savage debated whether to attend 'public assemblies', the Anglican church services sponsored by her community, and looked to a passage from Hunt's papers for advice:…”

‘I swim like a frog that has lost the use of its hind legs’: The Pursuit of Health and Leisure in Buxton, 1781‐90

“…As Newdigate's and Macartney's specific motivations for visiting Buxton correspond closely to the later phases of de Grey's spa-visiting, it is evident that women engaged in those aspects of spa life thought most conducive to their own changing situations. 10 A widespread assumption (but not a universal one) is that by the later eighteenth century medicinal considerations for visiting spas had been deposed in favour of the pursuit of leisure; where taking the waters did occur, it was as much a social as a therapeutic activity. 11 J. H. Plumb notes that, although spas themselves declined, people began to 'accept frankly the idea of a holiday for holiday's sake'.…”

Embroidering women and turning men

“…11 However, scholars have recently begun to consider literary sources such as letters as material and emotional objects. 12 My aim in this essay is to tackle the emotions linked to handiwork and read the expressions of emotions from objects and between the lines of scarce journal entries.…”