Women and Leadership in Nineteenth-Century England

Dirge of the Fallen Woman in European Literature: When Religion Turns Sour and Evil to Make the Innocent Female Soul Suppressed

“…The aristocratic women had more independence, freedom and power in the society than the middle class and lower class women. The upper-class women lived as "members of a collective household with many familial supports" [Shiman, 1992]. Marriage was the principle aim of the lives of aristocratic families and it was an alliance of powers for them.…”

“…The 18 th century French society and Victorian society contained different social layers and women of each social layer had different positions. Shiman (1992) and Harvey (2003) describe that women of each social position had their own duties and responsibilities with some limited rights. Amelia Mason in The women of the French Salons [Mason, 1891] reveals how independent, educated and stubborn daughters of high and bourgeois French families were sent to convents for refuge and Diderot further adds that the illegitimate daughters were also sent to convents as refugees.…”

Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury

“…119 Lilian Shiman notes 'hisses, cheers and cries' from delegates. 120 Apparently concerned by the number of delegates who feared their branches would break up should Somerset's resolution pass, one delegate made a counter resolution that it was unwise to push the move at the time. This was rejected by fifty-one votes to forty, then Biddulph's resolution was lost by sixty-six to thirty-nine.…”

“…Over 240 women had been at the meeting, however; at best, this was minority support. 122 Temperance periodicals carried public disagreements and recriminations about the suffrage policy, the actions of the Somerset camp, and by extension reflections on the nature of women's work. 123 In the New Year, the BWTA executive disaffiliated from the World's Women's Christian Temperance Union.…”

“…Her opponents objected that the BWTA was being turned into a more overtly political American-style body. 124 Back in Britain, Somerset and Willard based themselves at Reigate and made a multi-city tour during which Somerset pressed the case for female suffrage. They visited Ledbury in January 1893, tying in with a temperance mission that featured the American speaker J.G.…”