Tinky
- Wednesday, July 23 2008
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Sounds fascinating, Lady Dixie. Thanks for bringing it to our attentions. My experience with governesses was that I was always trying to worm my way into their affections.
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I read this book a few weeks ago and thought it was excellent. I especially loved how Brandon chose to focus her study, rather than talk about the governess in general. Its interesting, because I'd just finished Agnes Grey previously and wanted to see how the real thing compared to her experience.
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I think I first saw this book on your shelf, Tootsie dear. Many thanks for finding it.
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Sounds like grueling work indeed, particularly being neither fish now fowl, as far as the household hierarchy was concerned. I'd really like to read this. Thanks so much, Dixie dearest, for bringing it up!
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Sounds like a great read. Awhile ago, I spied it on your shelf and quickly added it to my wishlist.
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AA's members have wonderful shelves!
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What a perfect suggestion for this group! I've put it on my TBR shelf and am looking forward to delving in...sounds fab
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Tinky
- Thursday, July 24 2008
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Lady Beaufort! Where have you been, my darling? We've missed you.
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If this book says that being a governess was the only occupation for genteel women in England, it is somewhat inaccurate. Many women ran businesses, or taught in schools. The first woman doctor qualified in the mid c.19, and the occupation of nurse became much more respectable-and well paid-as the century progressed.
Hertha Ayrton was not the only woman scientist.
The c.19 also saw the advent of women's universities and women doing clerical work. There were women journalists, and owning a typewriter was pretty much a gurantee of an income.
The first woman lawyer was Ethel Benjamin here in NZ, albeit late c.19 !
Certainly some governesses had bad experiences, but not all by any means, and some were very well paid; much better than men working as farm labourers doing back-breaking work.
Let us not denigrate our past sisters by insisting upon their victim status !
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The author does not state that at all. On the contrary, she looks at the various occupations that were available to women; the one that was considered the most appropriate was governessing, with running a school seen as a branch of that profession. Some governesses were paid well. Most, however, were not. The average salary was 20-40 pounds a year, and governesses were expected to work from sun up to sun down, seven days a week. Many were also required to do sewing and other light housekeeping chores in addition to tending to and teaching the children. While their work was probably not physically "back-breaking," it was often tedious and unrelenting. Most governesses complained that the isolation of the job (since they were neither part of the household staff nor of the family) was the worst part of their vocation.
Some women did run businesses, but it was considered to be inappropriate. Miss Matty in Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford opens a tea shop. The only reason this is accepted is because the townspeople know that she is in dire financial straits.
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor in the U.S. (1850). When she came to England to do post graduate work, she was allowed in every department -- except the one for female diseases.
Nursing was considered an entirely inappropriate profession for women until Florence Nightingale reformed it during the Crimean War (1854-1856). Up until that time, nurses were typically prostitutes who followed soldiers for the money they could make. Alcoholism was prevelant among these women. Dickens's Sarey Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit (1844-1846) is a typical nurse of the era.
Girton College was opened at Cambridge in 1869; Newnham College was opened in 1871. Women were allowed to attend lectures at the professor's discretion. Neither college conferred actual degrees until 1947. And there were many, many arguments about what courses were appropriate for women, given their "lack" of capability in comparison to men. Both men and women argued vigorously that females did not have the same intellectual capacity as men -- something that was going on well into the early 20th century.
Typewriters did not come into common use until the end of the 19th century. The advent of the New Woman, which started in the 1890s, was radical and controversial. The New Woman wanted to work, marry when and if she so chose, go to university, smoke, and generally to set her own boundaries. Grant Allan, Mona Caird, and G.B. Shaw all included New Woman characters in their works. It was a highly controversial idea. Bicycles were seen as a symbol of the New Woman's freedom.
Women had very few legal rights. Upon marriage, all of their assets became their husband's property. A woman had no legal right to her own children. This didn't change until the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882.
I certainly appreciate your points, but we shouldn't sugar coat the past by ignoring the realities of it.
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The character of Cecilia in "Atonement", as you who are reading it might recall, attended Girton College at Cambridge, while Robbie attended the University at the same time. Like Dixie says, she does not receive a degree. There are some interesting moments when the book touches on the state of women ...particularly the chapter when the mother, Emily Tallis, muses upon Cecilia's choices in life.
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As my post indicated, I am aware of all that, having an MA (Hons) in Eng Lit & Social History; I was not trying to sugar-coat the past, but to not make women into victims by virtue of our sex.
40 pounds a year would have been reasonable-especially with board thrown in-at the end of the c.19 a farm labourer was earning 10s a week-and keeping a family on it. It was much better than domestic servants' wages.I know it went down when the market was flooded, as wages always do. I do wonder how many governesses did work 'sun up to sun down'. Women's wages have historically been low because-theoretically-some man was supposed to keep them-see Miss Matty when Peter returned !
Sairey Gamp was an exaggerated comic figure; it is hard to imagine anyone employing her in real life ! Of course there were some of that genre, but let us hope not many that awful.I don't think that even Florrie N could have made much of her. I doubt if she was a graduate of Elizabeth Fry's Institution for Nursing Sisters (founded 1840); it is sad that FN gets all the credit for reforming nursing, although she was the dominant ideological figure in it.
Before the Married Women's Property Act, it was possible to secure property before marriage-a kind of early pre-nup-so that the husband could neither 'kiss it or kick it' out of her as one contemporary writer elegantly put it. Families did not want family money to go 'out of the family'. As I understand it, the husband gaining control upon marriage of the wife's assets was a reasonably short-lived thing, but I am not sure of dates. It certainly wasn't so in previous centuries.
One theory about the women's universities is that when Oxbridge dons became free to marry they married women who were well-educated and they and their wives wanted women to have the same rights to tertiary education as men. One reason among many, of course.There's a marvellous Punch cartoon of a young woman stepping into a 1st class railway carriage the year that women took the three highest honours at Oxbridge.(I can't remember when or what.)
In JM Barrie's play 'The Twelve-Pound Look' the first wife of a wealthy man left him as soon as she had saved 12L; the price of a typewriter which made her independent of him. It ends with his browbeaten second wife admiring the free and independent look of her predecessor (she doesn't know that Kate is the first wife; they meet by chance) and casually asking how much one of those machines costs...
As Caroline Norton's and Annie Besant's cases show, the custody issue was frought with complications, with public feeling being frequently on the wife's side. Loss of custody was supposedly because the mother was unfit, but there have always been injustices in the law. However, Lady Melbourne was only one of many whose children-apart from the first-were not the husband's. Queen Victoria was quite possibly a 'little basket', and Albert was believed to be ! George Eliot and her partner could not marry because he had chivalrously put his name on the birth certificate & thus condoned her adultery so couldn't divorce her for it later. Oops.
How exciting it must have been to be at the first women's universities; Girton, Somerville, Newnham, Bedford , Lady Margaret, Westfield...magic names.I have a great photo of the undergrads at one with symbols ( many scientific) of their fields of study. By the end of the c.19, many professions were open to women ...it was described at the time as being the golden age for women.
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It sounds as if this is a pet subject, Lady H, so I'll wager you would find this book very interesting. Do have a read and let us know your thoughts. Perhaps you'll discover you and the author aren't as much in disagreement as you think!
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Thanks for mentioning Elizabeth Fry! In nursing school she was overlooked by my teachers. We were mainly taught about Flo and her influence in the reforms of nursing and those that followed her. Nursing has such a rich history that it's almost as fascinating as the profession itself. :)
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About being at first women's universities.
Vera Brittain started at Sommerville just before WWI. She managed to squeeze in one year at the university before becoming a VAD nurse in London and France.
Her autobiography "Testament of Youth" includes the story of her preparations for the entrance exam to Sommerville and her first year there.
Most of the book is about being a wartime nurse which ties it with our group read of "Atonement" even though it's about a different war. But, perhaps not surprisingly, the training and treatment of nurses hasn't changed much between the two wars. I suppose it took people a good while to figure out that rules about uniforms and deportment are a wasteful 'luxury' in the time of war.
"Testament of Youth" is a fascinating read even if definitely thickly and quite harrowing at times.
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And about treatment of women.
Check out this website -- A Celebration of Women Writers: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/
It's a subset of University of Pensylvannia online book collection called The Online Books Page.
Here's the link: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
My favorite title is the following by Frances Power Cobbe -- "Criminals, idiots, women and minors"
It's about the rights of women before the Married Women's Property Act of 1871.
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And about typewriting.
This reminded me about "The Odd Women" by George Gissing.
Written in 1893, it's about the women who never got married, for various reasons. One reason was that the number of adult women in the population exceeded that of adult men - hence "odd" or unpaired women.
One character in the book starts a typewriting business and thrives, besides being able to offer employment to other "odd women".
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Just another reason why I love this group and everyone in it. Stopping by AA is like a mini-lesson in history, taught by our literate, passionate members. So refreshing!
I am off to visit the library's web site in hopes of finding this book.
Cheers, darlings!
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I am going to try and find this book, I cannot wait to read it. I've enjoyed the discussion it's raised immensely. Thank you for recommending it!
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I also think Fowles' "The French Lts. Woman" is a pertinent book to read on this subject.....and a fabulous novel to boot.
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On the topic of governesses, I found the following page from the Victorian Web to be very interesting: I will copy a few extracts and the address (once more, I wish it were possible to give links!)
"The Victorian Governess Novel
© Cecilia Wadsö Lecaros, Department of English, Lund University
—]]
"
The governess novel must be connected with the nineteenth-century anxiety concerning middle-class female employment in general, and governess work in particular. The situation of governesses generated a debate which was especially active from the 1840s until the end of the century. A large number of manuals for governesses and their employers were also published all through the nineteenth century. The governess debate focused on terms of employment, salaries, and on the socially intermediate position of the governess. In the novels, this intermediate position functions both as a device of bringing the governess's plight in focus, and to furnish the writer with a framework for female development. By sharing many characteristics regarding e.g. rhetoric and argument with the contemporary governess debate and the manuals, the novels form an important part of that debate.
Although the fictional characterisation of governesses can be traced back to eighteenth-century school stories, novels featuring resident governesses and their relation to employers and pupils did not appear until the turn of the century. Early examples are H.S.'s Anecdotes of Mary; or, the Good Governess (1795) and Maria Edgeworth's "The Good French Governess" (1801). The governess characters in these stories differ from the genre prototype that developed from the 1830s. While most early literary portrayals of governesses have a clearly didactic purpose and present highly appreciated teachers, a noticeable shift in attitude seems to have taken place in the 1830s. From then on, the governess heroine was usually depicted as a victim of circumstances at the mercy of inhospitable or even hostile employers. Economic and social changes in the mid-1800s affected the position of governesses, and those shifts seem to have influenced and intensified the fictional delineation of governesses.
Although different in some respects, novels like Mary Martha Sherwood's Caroline Mordaunt, or, The Governess (1835), Julia Buckley's Emily, the Governess (1836), Miss Ross's The Governess; or, Politics in Private Life (1836), and Marguerite Blessington's The Governess (1839) all represent this new kind of governess novel. Themes like sudden impoverishment, paternal insufficiency, and conflicts with nouveaux riches employers were introduced in the plot. It is with novels like these that the genre started to take shape. Although the books were still didactic in intention, the plots now focused on the working conditions and social position of the governess heroine in a more marked way than those of earlier works.
The governess novel genre must be seen in relation to other contemporary genres. Since the governess heroine could easily be made into an observer of her employers' life, it is not surprising that some governess novels share traits with silver-fork novels. The typical marginalisation of the governess heroine, for instance, could easily be achieved by positioning her against snobbish upper-class employers with little or no understanding of her situation. Towards the middle of the century, when the governess question increasingly became an issue in the social debate, a more dogmatic approach to governess work was seen in governess novels. Dinah Mulock Craik's Bread upon the Waters: A Governess's Life (1852) was published explicitly for the benefit of the charitable Governesses' Benevolent Institution, as was Anna Maria Hall's Stories of the Governess (1852).When new genres like the sensational novel and the detective novel developed, some writers made use of the characteristics of the governess-novel genre, which was well established by this time. One aspect that probably attracted authors was the fact that a governess could easily be portrayed as a woman of whom little, or even nothing, was known. This is the case in novels such as Harriet Maria Gordon Smythies's The Daily Governess; or, Self-Dependence (1861) and Mrs Henry Wood's East Lynne (1860-1861). The characterisation of the governess protagonist in sensational novels and detective stories differs from that in more mainstream governess novels; primarily in that the governess could be made into an enigmatic character, or occasionally an evil schemer, as in the American governess story "Behind a Mask, or, A Woman's Power" (1866) by Louisa M. Alcott.
Even so, the characterisation of the governess, and the kind of situations she faced, was consistent throughout the nineteenth century. It should be stated that a number of 'traditional' governess novels were published during the latter decades of the century, too. The anonymous Margaret Stourton, or a Year of Governess Life (1863), Henry Courtney Selous's The Young Governess: A Tale for Girls (1871), and Irene Clifton's The Little Governess (1900) show little difference in the handling of the governess theme from the novels of the 1830s and 1840s. After the turn of the century, when the extent of governess employment decreased in real life, interest in the governess as a literary character seems to have diminished accordingly. Other occupational spheres opened for women, and literary representations of other kinds of working women broke the governess's near-monopoly as a professional heroine. However, the literary influence of the governess has not entirely vanished. Quite a few modern romances have incorporated characteristics belonging to the Victorian governess novel genre. "
http://www.litgothic.com/LitGothic/general.html
Is there also a tradition of governess novels in American literature?
One example that comes to mind is "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James (1898).
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