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Barbara Bodichon’s
Epistolary Education
Unfolding Feminism
Barbara Bodichon’s Epistolary Education
Barbara Bodichon’s
Epistolary Education
Unfolding Feminism
University of Roehampton
London, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-41440-5 ISBN 978-3-030-41441-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41441-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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Preface
In 1849, after having read John Stuart Mill’s best-selling book, Principles
of Political Economy, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, aged twenty-one,
wrote in her notebook: ‘Philosophers and reformers have generally been
afraid to say anything about the unjust laws both of society and country
which crush women. There never was a tyranny so deeply felt yet borne so
silently, that is the worst of it.’ In an appeal to action, she hoped that there
would be ‘some who will brave ridicule for the sake of justice to half the
people in the world.’ Bodichon was indeed one of those. She wrote and
campaigned in favour of women’s educational, professional, legal and
political rights throughout her life. Publishing in the twentieth century,
her biographers have all lamented that, despite being one of the leaders of
the mid-Victorian feminist movement, little has been written about her.
Having been the object of wide scholarly interest since, Bodichon is cer-
tainly a well-studied figure today. This book seeks to revisit Bodichon with
a view to drawing the attention to the limits of her feminist ‘achieve-
ments’—a dimension of her contribution to the mid-Victorian women’s
movement that Bodichon Studies have tended to overlook.
According to women’s historians, the terms ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’
were not coined in the English language until the 1890s. The expressions
Bodichon and her contemporaries used were ‘woman’s rights women’ to
refer to themselves and ‘the (woman’s) movement,’ ‘the cause’ or ‘the
woman question’ to their cause. In this book I use the term ‘feminist’ and
‘feminism’ as a shorthand to acknowledge Bodichon’s (and her co-
workers’) awareness of women’s unequal position in society vis-à-vis men
and her combat against this discrimination.
v
vi PREFACE
In order to revise Bodichon’s feminism, I explore the significance of

letter-exchange in providing her a daily source of education, understood
here as Bildung—the lifelong process of self-formation.
Throughout this book I deliberately use the terms ‘individual’/
‘individuals,’ ‘man’/‘men’ and male pronouns when referring to
Bildungstheorie to reflect the original masculinist orientation of this
educational concept. Reading Bodichon’s personal correspondence
through the lens of a gender-blind philosophical term can be regarded as
an incompatibility. How can I apply this masculinist educational concept
to a feminist historical study? Throughout this book I argue that Bildung
is a thinking tool that permits underscoring the significance of letters in
the development of Bodichon’s feminism and that a revised reading of this
educational concept permits highlighting its problematic implications.
Seeking to contribute to Epistolary Studies, my study of Bodichon’s
epistolary Bildung is also a theoretical reflection on epistolarity and an
epistemological discussion of letters as sources of historical knowledge
that, I hope, will enhance our understanding of doing historical research.
London, UK Meritxell Simon-Martin

Acknowledgements
To Julio
This book would not have come into being without the support, guidance
and help of institutions, colleagues, family and friends, for which I am
deeply grateful. I would like to thank University Paris IV-Sorbonne,
Winchester University and the European Commission for funding the
research this book is based on. Many thanks to Roehampton University
for hosting my Marie Curie Fellowship (746054BBEB), which has
permitted me to focus on the writing of this monograph. I am indebted
to Katharina Rowold for her mentorship, encouragement, flexibility and
patience throughout my fellowship. Special thanks go to Gloria Jové too
for making possible the turning of my research on Bodichon’s epistolary
education into a most delightful impact research-action undertaking.
Most of all I owe thanks to the Centre for the History of Women’s
Education, which for the past ten years has offered scholarly input,
thorough criticism, and most appreciated encouragement. I am indebted
to Sue Anderson-Faithful, Joyce Goodman, Andrea Jacobs, Camilla Leach,
Helen Loader, Zoe Milsom, Nancy Rosoff and Stephanie Spencer for
offering a rigorous, backing and warm research atmosphere, which has
been most stimulating. Being a doctoral student under the mentorship of
Joyce Goodman and Stephanie Spencer has been a delight and a bliss.
Thank you, Joyce, for suggesting I read letters through the lens of Bildung
in the first place. I would also like to thank my upgrade and PhD viva
external examiners Maria Tamboukou and Frédéric Regard for their con-
structive criticism and Jacques Carré for being the first in believing in and
supporting my study of Bodichon in its earliest stages.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to those academics who at seminars

and conferences have taken the time to express their interest in my work
and have offered their spontaneous feedback. The History of Education
Society Annual Conference, the International Standing Conference for
the History of Education, the Women’s History Network Conference, the
International AutoBiography Association Annual Conference, and the
Sociedad Española de Historia de la Educación have provided me with a
most thought-provoking friendly environment to carry out my research
on Bodichon. Aspects of my research on Barbara Bodichon have appeared
in journal articles and book chapters. I extend my gratitude to the anony-
mous reviewers and the editors of these publications for their insightful
comments.
Thanks to Palgrave Macmillan for endorsing the project of this book.
Particular thanks go to my editors Emily Russell and Joseph Johnson for
their patience and flexibility and for guiding me throughout the edition of
this book. I very much appreciate the anonymous reader who read my
book proposal and my work-in-progress manuscript. Katharina Rowold,
Susanne Spieker and Maria Tamboukou generously commented on differ-
ent aspects of my manuscript. The pertinent questions they brought up
and the inconsistencies they spotted have helped me polish my argument.
I am indebted to the following archives and libraries for granting me
permission to consult their holdings: Beinecke Library (Yale University),
Butler Library (Columbia University), Girton College Archives (Cambridge
University), Hampshire Record Office, Houghton and Schlesinger
Libraries (Harvard University), Library of Congress, London School of
Economics Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, National Art Library,
New York Public Library, West Sussex Record Office and the Women’s
Library. Particular thanks are due to Kate Perry and Hannah Westall from
Girton College Archives for their assistance and interest and for kindly giv-
ing me permission to reproduce the illustrations in this book. Hannah has
been particularly helpful in the challenging process of securing permission
to quote from Barbara Bodichon’s and Bessie Parkes’ letters.
My final thanks go to my family and friends, who have patiently waited
for the completion of this book. My warmest thanks go to Julio Ramos-
Tallada for his intellectual, emotional and material support. He has at once
acted as partner, research fellow, IT helpdesk, psychotherapist, sympa-
thetic listener of my diatribes against sexism, attentive guinea-pig audience
for my unfolding argument, and patient bearer of my roller-coaster
moments of euphoria, concentration, panic, creativity, fatigue and joy. I
dedicate this book to him.
Contents
1 Unfolding Feminism: Letters, Networks and Friendships 1
2 Bodichon’s Epistolary Bildung: Learning, Narratives

and Agency 29
3 ‘A Peculiar Education’: Epistolary Networks, Knowledge

and Critical Thinking 69
4 ‘To Be Happy Is to Work, Work – Work – Work’:

Affection, Creativity and Self-Fulfilment105
5 ‘Improbable That We Should Agree in the Choice

of Husbands’: Love, Marriage and Silences135
6 ‘Slavery is … Allied to the Injustice to Women’: Morality,

Equality and Citizenship167
7 ‘Bringing Home Bamboos to Paint’: Artistry, Aesthetics

and Power203
ix
x Contents
8 ‘Born a Hundred Years Too Soon’: Bodichon’s Agentic

Epistolary Bildung247
Index273
List of Figures
Fig. 7.1 Barbara Bodichon, ‘Ye Newe Generation’ c.1850 (GCPP

Bodichon 8/6, The Mistress and Fellows, Girton College,
Cambridge)221
Fig. 7.2 Barbara Bodichon, epistolary drawing, Algeria, 21 November
8 December 1856 (George Eliot and George Lewis Collection,
Beinecke Library, New Haven) 231
Fig. 7.3 Barbara Bodichon, epistolary drawing, Algeria, 21 November
8 December 1856 (George Eliot and George Lewis Collection,
Beinecke Library, New Haven) 232
xi
CHAPTER 1
Unfolding Feminism: Letters, Networks

and Friendships
On 10 June 2018 tens of thousands of women marched through the

streets of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London to mark the centenary
of women wining the vote. Colourful processions featured hand-made
banners, sashes and period costumes made in purple, white and green—
the colours of the suffragette movement. The posters showcased a wide
array of feminist slogans and claims, ardently advocated in a cheerful
atmosphere. The year 2018 commemorated indeed the 1918
Representation of the People Act, which gave women over the age of
thirty who met a property qualification the right to vote in local and
national elections. The fight for women’s voting rights had started decades
before, when in 1866, capitalizing on a Reform Bill being discussed in
Parliament, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827–1891) stirred up a
group of like-minded friends to gather signatures for a petition in favour
of the female vote, which was presented in the House of Commons by a
sympathetic John Stuart Mill. To make her point, she penned a series of
papers. Among them, Reasons for the Enfranchisement of Women was
enclosed in the petition for signatures and read at the Manchester Social
Science Association conference. Her paper captured the imagination of
Lydia Becker (1827–1890), who was to become one of the leading activ-
ists of the women’s suffrage movement.1
Bodichon had previously mobilized her political acumen, charismatic
personality and economic resources in favour of other feminist claims. She
was the mastermind behind the Married Women’s Property Campaign of
© The Author(s) 2020 1

M. Simon-Martin, Barbara Bodichon’s Epistolary Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41441-2_1
2 M. SIMON-MARTIN
1855–1857—traditionally regarded as the beginning of ‘feminism as an

organised social movement.’2 Making the most of the public interest aris-
tocratic socialite Caroline Norton had aroused after two decades of plead-
ing for the custody of her children from her abusive husband, Bodichon
published in 1854 her first pamphlet, Brief Summary in Plain Language
of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women a readable digest of a
wordy and lengthy book published by legal expert John Jane Smith
Wharton a year before.3 As scholars have outlined, the booklet put for-
ward in a ‘clear,’4 ‘unemotional, indeed rather dull’5 style a ‘concise
description’6 of women’s legal disabilities, the tone being deliberately
‘careful and dispassionate’7 so as to ‘emphasize the reasonableness of the
case and the solidity of its foundation.’8 The pamphlet attracted the atten-
tion of the Law Amendment Society—already discontent with the ineffi-
ciency of existing legislation and the confusion between common law and
courts of equity. Reaping the benefit of this interest, Bodichon gathered
friends around her, including writers Anna Jameson and Mary Howitt,
and drew a petition in favour of a legal reform that would permit married
women to hold property and have direct access to their own earnings.9
From Bodichon’s London home at 5 Blandford Square, the committee
coordinated the collection of 26,000 signatures following the country-
wide chain of letters pattern that was to be put into play in subsequent
campaigns, including the vote10—connecting London-based activists with
Josephine Butler in Liverpool, Ursula Bright in Manchester and Elizabeth
Wolstenholme in Cheshire among many others.11 The provisions included
in the petition presented in Parliament, which sought to make married
women legal entities in their own right, were not fully gained until a series
of Married Women’s Property Acts were passed in the 1880s and 1890s.12
But this first effort involved the creation of informal ‘self-consciously’13
feminist networks across the country that resulted in new sympathizers
and active supporters. In the words of lifelong friend Bessie Rayner Parkes
(1829–1925), ‘people interested in the question were brought into com-
munication in all parts of the kingdom, and the germs of an effective
movement were scattered far and wide.’14 For her decisive contribution,
Lee Holcombe concludes that Bodichon ‘may indeed be called the real
founder of that movement.’15
A positivist persuaded of the unstoppability of progress and man’s
capacity to foster it, Bodichon did indeed fight for women’s rights on
paper and in action from an early age. Following her father’s steps, she
established Portman Hall in 1854—an experimental coeducational and
1 UNFOLDING FEMINISM: LETTERS, NETWORKS AND FRIENDSHIPS 3
undenominational school in London which, attended by infants from dif-

ferent backgrounds, ruptured with the philanthropic tradition of
‘cater[ing] only for delineated social groups.’16 In the words of early
twentieth-century feminist Ray Strachey, it was ‘exceedingly modern,’
where ‘the pupils were taken to museums and picture-galleries, and were
taught to think rather than remember, and its unconventional character
attracted a great deal of notice.’17
Bodichon published her first articles in the local press when she was
twenty-one and established, in collaboration with Parkes, their own maga-
zine in 1858: The English Woman’s Journal, which, being ‘the first femi-
nist journal in Britain,’18 became the ‘official organ of the women’s
movement.’19 ‘[R]epresenting a “liberal feminism”, rooted in political
individualism and political economy,’20 its aim was to provide a space for
the discussion and diffusion of their feminist activities, with employment
being ‘the key issue of the periodical’ as well as ‘the necessity of education
and training’ for women and their commitment to ‘philanthropic respon-
sibilities.’21 With the help of newly recruited supporters they soon
expanded their pursuits in favour of improving the provision of education
for girls and women and opening new employment opportunities for
them. Jessie Boucherett and Adelaide Proctor set up the Society for
Promoting the Employment of Women, where they kept an employment
list and offered advice on training and access to the job market and held
classes in arithmetic and bookkeeping. Maria S. Rye established an office
for copying legal documents and Emily Faithful started up the Victoria
Press, which trained women compositors. Bodichon also gave time and
money to the Female Middle-Class Emigration Society, run by Rye, with
a view to facilitating new working opportunities for women in the British
colonies.22 Their offices at 19 Langham Place also provided a space for a
ladies’ club, which featured a library, a dining room and a coffee shop.23
The location of these offices gave these women’s rights women the name
of the Langham Place Circle—‘the inspiration and focal point of feminist
agitation in England for thirty years.’24
Langham Place became the headquarters from where other feminist
fronts were fought. In 1857 Bodichon published her second pamphlet,
Women and Work, where she made an uncompromising demand for more
training and working opportunities for women, and which, according to
Karen Offen, made the claims for women’s rights to work reach ‘a new
level of radicalism in England.’25 In her pamphlet, she argued for opening
new occupations for women such as clerical work, telegraphy, art and
4 M. SIMON-MARTIN
design, hairdressing, wood engraving, piano tuning, watchmaking, book-

keeping and one of the strongholds of male prerogatives, medicine.
Bodichon indeed warmly welcomed Elizabeth Blackwell—the first woman
in the United States to receive a medical qualification—when she first
came to London in 1850, and supported the series of lectures she gave
across Britain in 1859, entitled ‘Medicine as a Profession for Ladies.’
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917) was inspired by Blackwell’s first
London lecture and Bodichon and her friend Emily Davies (1830–1921)
assisted her in her determined project to enter a medical school.26 In 1860,
the same year Garrett managed to enter the Middlesex Hospital, in her
English Woman’s Journal article ‘Middle-class Schools for Girls’ Bodichon
lambasted the gross disparity between the education received by bour-
geois daughters and the working classes. In her view, systematic thorough
inspections of schools and official examinations would secure adequate
standards in the provision of education for girls of the middling ranks. It
fell to Davies to convince the Senate at Cambridge University to admit
girls to their Local Examinations, which she officially secured in 1865.27
Bodichon’s most well-known educational achievement though was the
foundation, together with Davies, of the first college for women in
England: Girton College (Cambridge University), initially established
in 1869.28
As contemporary author Elizabeth Gaskell acknowledged in a letter to
a friend, Bodichon was indeed ‘A strong fighter against the established
opinions of the world.’29 Writing some decades ago, Jacquie Matthews
stated that Bodichon ‘has all but disappeared from the history of the nine-
teenth century.’30 Biographer Sheila Herstein lamented that although she
was ‘considered by her contemporaries as the leader of the mid-Victorian
feminist movement in the third quarter of the nineteenth century … little
has been written about her.’31 Biographer Pam Hirsch added that she ‘is
much less well-known than one would expect from her achievements.’32
Her ‘name was quickly forgotten.’33 Today though, having been the object
of wide scholarly interest, Bodichon can no longer be regarded as ‘the
most important unstudied figure of mid-[nineteenth-]century English
feminism.’34
Despite heavily drawing on personal correspondence to provide a com-
prehensive portrait of Bodichon as one of the founding figures of the
Women’s Rights Movement in England, the above referenced now classic
books have paid scant attention to the role of letters in fuelling mid-
Victorian feminism as a political theory and as a social movement. In
Becoming a Feminist, Olive Banks, for example, accurately describes the

clusters of reformers and radicals that formed the social and intellectual
fabric of the ‘first wave’ feminism and aptly states that, in addition, the
entrance into feminism ‘often needed the precipitating factor of a personal
contact to bring a woman or man into active involvement in the women’s
movement.’35 She names Bodichon as a central agent, acting ‘as a focus,
drawing other men and women’ towards her group of like-minded reform-
ers. Banks concludes that ‘Feminism as a social movement, therefore, must
be seen on one level as a network of such groups from which in their turn
the organisations of the movement sprang.’36 What Banks does not tackle
in her thorough study of the profiles of these ‘first wave’ feminists is the
essential role letter-exchanges played in permitting the setting up and sus-
taining of these networks.
Hirsch does allot some paragraphs to describe the relevance of letter-
exchanges in allowing the launching and development of the Married
Women’s Property and Women’s Suffrage Campaigns, which resorted to
circulating petitions to gain signatures ‘by the mechanism of a series of
chain letters of friendship’ across Britain.37 For her part, Bonnie Anderson,
who includes Bodichon in her book Joyous Greetings, focuses on the way
in which early nineteenth-century western feminism transcended national
boundaries by means of exchanges of letters that connected feminists in
Germany, France, Britain and North America.38 Likewise, in their edited
book Exchanges and Correspondences: The Construction of Feminism,
Claudette Fillard and Françoise Orazi gather a collection of essays that,
from different and sometimes opposing methodological approaches, study
the feminism-in-the-making that epistolary dialogues reveal, from the
eighteenth century to the present, in Britain, continental Europe and
North America. As I have written in my contribution to Exchanges and
Correspondences, owing to her nomadic lifestyle, being at the centre of the
women’s rights campaigns proved particularly difficult for Bodichon.
Letters permitted her nonetheless to be part of these mobilizations during
her long, regular stays, not only in Algeria, but also in her homes in
Cornwall and Sussex and during her sightseeing traveling and her conva-
lescence stays in health resorts in Britain and abroad. Taking Bodichon’s
participation in the first Women’s Suffrage Committee (1865–1867) as a
case in point, I argued for the logistical role of letters in its creation and
development and in arousing feminist consciousness and constructing
feminism.39
6 M. SIMON-MARTIN
Persuaded of the relevance of the role of letters in fostering feminist

consciousness, thought and action, in this book I explore an alternative
approach to Bodichon studies with a view to re-examining this already
thoroughly studied historical figure. This biographical approach consists
of providing an epistolary portrait of her—a portrait that focuses on the
significance of letter-exchanges in the development of her female/feminist
self and her feminist outlook and lifestyle. To do so, this study of Bodichon’
epistolary feminist becoming concomitantly offers a theorization of letters
as historical data. This conceptualization consists of putting into play the
German neo-humanist educational term Bildung (self- development) with
the aim of contributing to Epistolary Studies. In her influential historio-
graphical reflection History Matters, Judith Bennett asked if, by insisting
on using biographical approaches, we are not ‘in danger of tilting wom-
en’s history too far back toward women worthies.’40 In reply to Bennett’s
relevant question, my contention is that reviewing Bodichon by focusing
on the potential of letters as informal sources of learning and personal
growth—one that concomitantly offers a problematization of letters as
historical evidence—leads to a nuanced understanding of her figure.
1.1 An Epistolary Portrait

I am always rejoiced when I see the facteur plodding up the asphodel field,
and I rush down to seize the fat packet of papers, books, and letters with
great delight. (Bodichon to William Allingham, [July 1862])41
Barbara Bodichon was born in 1827 into a progressive Unitarian fam-

ily, the eldest of five illegitimate children.42 Her father, Benjamin Smith,
was a successful businessman and Liberal MP. Her mother, Anne Longden,
a milliner, died of consumption when Bodichon was seven. Bodichon
grew up in Hastings and London with her father and his sister, Julia Smith,
and received an unusually broad education. When she turned twenty-one
her father endowed her with an independent annual allowance that per-
mitted her to pursue her feminist, philanthropic and artistic interests.
Bodichon built a distinguished career as a watercolourist. She exhibited in
England and in the United States, including several solo exhibitions. A
lover of nature and outdoor activities, she mainly painted landscapes—
inspired by the places she lived in and visited. For Bodichon led a rather
nomadic lifestyle. From an early age, her father took Bodichon and her
siblings on educative day excursions and holiday trips. During her teenage
years she went on painting expeditions with a view to improving her draw-
ing and colouring techniques. Later in life her sketching tours regularly
took her to Wales, Cornwall, the Lake District, and the Isle of Wight and
overseas. As an adult, she was in constant movement.
Following Victorian fashion, she frequented resorts for convalescence,
took sightseeing trips around Britain and abroad to visit friends and rela-
tives or simply with a view to discovering other countries.
At the age of thirty she married a French army doctor settled in
Algiers—Eugène Bodichon (1810–1885) and embarked on an eight-
month honeymoon trip across United States and Canada. For more than
twenty years the couple lived six months in England and six months in
Algeria. In her home country, living between her three homes (in London,
Sussex and Cornwall), she divided her time between her different inter-
ests: the woman question, philanthropy and painting. In Algeria she pri-
marily developed her artistic activities, though she never fully disconnected
from her other social endeavours. Sketching tours, convalescence stays,
sightseeing trips, and visiting friends and relatives formed an integral part
of her active leisured lifestyle, including after the series of strokes she suf-
fered, aged fifty onwards.
Letter-exchange permitted Bodichon to bridge the gap that distance
created between her and the people for whom she cared and the social
projects in which she was engaged. In her letters she enquired after the
health, doings and whereabouts of her loved ones, asked for and conveyed
information about common acquaintances, gave accounts of her own rou-
tine and endeavours, and informed about when and where she was travel-
ling so that letters could be forwarded. Likewise, Bodichon managed to
run her philanthropic projects and be part of the women’s rights cam-
paigns by means of letter-exchange. In her letters she included articles for
The English Woman’s Journal and the Kensington Society,43 enclosed
cheques to finance campaigns, and lobbied influential people to gain sup-
port and raise money for her social endeavours, for example, to set up a
fund for American Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell to open the medical profession
to women in England.44
As the opening quotation evidences, the moment of post-delivery was
an exciting experience, most often delivered by postmen several times a
day. In addition, in bourgeois families letters and notes were also remitted
by the servants when the recipients lived a short distance from each other.45
While away from home, letters were either directed to a temporary address
(a hotel or a host’s postal address, previously indicated) or forwarded.46
8 M. SIMON-MARTIN
Initially, letters were paid by the recipient, but the implementation of the
Uniform Penny Post in 1840 introduced prepaid stamps, paid by the
sender. In addition, it abolished the mileage extras, an ordinary letter
across the national territory costing the fixed rate of one penny.47 The
fixed rate postage did not apply to territories outside Britain but it seems
the prepayment option was available.48
The quotation is also illustrative of the possible components of post
deliveries. Letters were often accompanied by parcels containing books,
newspapers and presents.49 An envelope could also contain enclosed notes
and additional letters. Letters to one addressee could include letters to
another recipient (a sibling or a friend). At other times letter-writers would
include enclosed letters addressed to people whose (temporary) address
was unknown, and who happened to be close to the main recipient.50
Alternatively, short notes were enclosed and addressed to a second recipi-
ent due to lack of time to write a whole letter, expecting the main one to
be circulated.51
Writing and reading letters was a common day-to-day activity among
mid-Victorian middle-class women. A content reading of Bodichon’s epis-
tolarium52 tells us that Bodichon and her correspondents seem to have
written their letters in the drawing-room table, in the morning,53 or at
night, before going to bed, presumably in the bedroom desk54 or using a
writing slope or writing case.55 At other times, they wrote letters timed by
the rhythm of postal services56 or seizing a moment of peace, before or
after having hosted visitors.57 Sometimes the letter was started and fin-
ished on different days, interrupted by domestic duties or distractions.58
Bodichon seems to have had a specific moment in the day for letter-writing
which fitted with her other regular activities (meals, riding, lessons, walks,
drawing and visits). In turn, this pattern was flexible enough to accom-
modate other occasional recreational activities and duties. She tended to
write and read her letters undisturbed in a private setting, though this was
not always guaranteed.
Letter-exchange was a cultural practice constituent of middle-class
female patterns of daily life and it had its own materiality and conventions,
which, as Nigel Hall reminds us, reflected cultural beliefs and values.59 For
the quality and decorative worth of writing paraphernalia ‘was a powerful
way of making a public statement about oneself.’60 Letters were written
with quill or steel pens61 in letter-specific paper (sometimes in decorative-
headed writing paper) or in scraps,62 which was sometimes a matter of
complaint.63 Sometimes the inner side of the top flap of the envelope (even
the whole inside of the envelope) was written over. A sheet of paper could
also be written crossed, that is, the letter turned ninety degrees and writ-
ten over.64 In more formal letters, the written space was limited to one or
two sides, without exceeding the writing space by using the margins or
parts of the envelope or by resorting to crossed-writing. Personal letters to
family and friends and formal business-like letters sent to influential people
differed in content, style and format. Informal letters could be undated,
greeted with a nickname or name initial,65 and ended with an abbreviated
closing66 or without it, and include scribbles or sketches.67 Instead, formal
letters tended to be written in a clear handwriting, with the place or the
name of the institution printed. They included a full date, a formal saluta-
tion and closing, a neat and structured body, and often the name of the
recipient at the end.68 During most of Bodichon’s lifetime, letters were
posted with a stamp (in the case of letters sent within Britain, the Penny
Black) and sealed with wax.
Correspondence also included letters of introduction and notes. Letters
of introduction served to request and receive help from third parties and
were sent both to the person asking to provide assistance and to the ben-
eficiary of it.69 Notes were shorter than letters, written in a small piece of
paper (sometimes a cardboard), usually to send an invitation or an invita-
tion reply, to indicate the day and time for paying a visit, or to inform of
having paid a visit and not having found the person at home. Notes tended
to be delivered by servants (or dropped off by the writer personally).70
Letters were, above all, a means of communication. Telegraph was used
on special occasions.71 They served as news conveyor that reached the
nominal recipient and beyond.72 In the context of the mid-nineteenth
century, letters were expected to be read aloud or shown around unless
otherwise stated.73 On other occasions, in order to reach a wider audience,
letters were either (partially) transcribed or enclosed in a letter sent to a
third party.74 The letter-writer could also address the recipient in the plu-
ral.75 Letter-writers specifically asked not to show their letters by indicat-
ing ‘private’ or ‘burn it’ at the beginning of the letter.76 Letters were also
written collectively (the whole letter or parts of it).77
Letter-exchange was a cultural practice that acted as a means of social
networking. It strengthened family and friendship bonds while it delim-
ited their scope by excluding potential recipients.78 In the case of the
women described in this study, living apart for the most part of the year,
their friendships were fostered and maintained by exchanging letters made
possible by a fairly reliable postal service. Letters were, in the words of
10 M. SIMON-MARTIN
Maria Tamboukou, ‘a bridge between presence and absence, speech and

writing, and act of transgressing space/time boundaries, a discursive tech-
nique of safeguarding solitude while sustaining communication, a paradox
of the social self.’79
Moreover, letters provided women with space for the expression of love
and friendship feelings.80 As a space for (self-)reflexion, Bodichon’s per-
sonal correspondence is full of articulations of anecdotes, emotions, opin-
ions, personal ambitions.81 The act of displaying and sharing one’s
thoughts and feelings could be felt as a need and a relief, letter-writing
being a kind of psychological therapy.82 Moreover, the fact of giving one-
self the time and space to be self-centred by talking about one’s concerns
was a pleasurable means of learning about oneself and gaining self-
confidence.83 In turn, replies were full of advice and words of sympathy,
making letters a reliable and trustful source of understanding, support,
encouragement84 and (constructive) criticism.85 Repeatedly, Bodichon
and her friends acknowledged how they valued their (epistolary) friend-
ship for being uplifting,86 entertaining87 and a source of joyfulness.88
Letter-exchange worked thus as a social and psychological instrument: it
forged bonding, had communicational uses, and functioned as an emo-
tional and psychological outlet for self-expression. My suggestion is that,
in addition, the practice of letter-exchange functioned as a tactic in Michel
de Certeau’ sense.
Seeking to offer a complementary alternative to Michel Foucault’s the-
ory of power, in his book The Practice of Everyday Life de Certeau pro-
poses a line of inquiry to analyse the operational logic of culture that
permits individuals to constantly deflect and resist discipline and authority.
De Certeau acknowledges Foucault’s elaborated understanding of the
pervasive and ubiquitous nature of power89 since, ‘instead of analysing the
apparatus exercising power (i.e. the localisable, expansionist, repressive
and legal institutions), Foucault analyses the mechanisms (dispositifs) that
have sapped the strength of these institutions and surreptitiously reorgan-
ised the functioning of power.’90 However, de Certeau expounds that
Foucault’s theory ‘privileges the productive apparatus (which produces
the “discipline”)’91 to the detriment of analysing the productions of peo-
ple which redefine and challenge this discipline.92 Acknowledging
Foucault’s warning against unhesitant claims about reading everyday hab-
its as evasive and resistant practices that neutralize domination, de Certeau
nonetheless provides a tentative theory of empowerment based on an
analysis of daily life.
Instead of relegating everyday practices (‘“ways of operating” or doing

things’) to ‘the obscure background of social activity,’ his approach con-
sists of bringing them to the foreground of critical analysis and under-
standing ‘the ways in which users – commonly assumed to be passive and
guided by established rules – operate.’93 In his notion of cultural logic—
the logic of disguise and survival94—de Certeau examines the rationale
concealed in the practices of everyday life. In the words of Ian Buchannan,
‘instead of saying that subjects obey an internalised logic they can neither
know nor evade, de Certeau is saying cultural logic is like a menu from
which subjects choose already worked-out actions according to their per-
ceived needs.’95 Based on this understanding of cultural daily practices, de
Certeau explores ‘the obverse side of Foucault’s analyses, looking not for
patterns of resistance, which Foucault postulates anyway, but subtle move-
ments of escape and evasion,’96 which he calls tactics—dispersed and dif-
fuse quotidian gestures ‘that strategy [an entity that is recognised as an
authority – an institution, a fashion, an individual, for instance] has not
been able to domesticate.’97
The Practice of Everyday Life does not address gender. Yet, de Certeau’s
preliminary and tentative work—more an encouraging line of inquiry than
a conclusive theory—can be explored in the context of the culture of
letter-exchange in Bodichon’s time. My point of departure is the belief
that individual actions are never totally reducible to the structures in which
they occur; agency is intrinsic to the human condition. Persuaded of the
appropriateness of searching agency in apparently trivial actions, I read
letter-exchange as a tactic. Apparently anodyne but potentially powerful
daily gestures, tactics are, in the words of Buchanan
as much in danger of being swept away or submerged by the flow of events

as they are capable of bursting through the dykes strategy erects around
itself and suffusing its protected place with its own brand of subversive and
incalculable energy.98
On that account, letter-writing, like cooking, walking in the city or

reading (some of the examples analysed by de Certeau), can be read as an
ordinary everyday literacy practice, opportunistic, ‘constantly in the
swim,’ lacking visibility, rather diffused and dispersed, not in itself subver-
sive, but potentially disruptive of normativity, including gendered notions
of personhood.99 Letter-exchange being a cultural practice constituent of
middle-class female patterns of daily life—an outwardly trivial and
12 M. SIMON-MARTIN
unremarkable action—can be understood as an un/conscious way of

operating—an un/conscious ‘slow tenacious refusal to adapt’—but
‘inventively defiant’100 of strategies. In de Certeau’s vocabulary, letter-
writing was an already worked-out action (the culture of letter-exchange),
available from a menu (with its own history, codes and conventions),
exercised in accordance to the needs of the agent (Bodichon’s and her
recipients’ emotional and intellectual needs). Unlike an act of resistance
(in the sense of a conscious act against domination), letter-writing is a
‘never-quite-heard rambling’101 but in the end challenging cultural prac-
tice. Indeed, letter-exchange, an inadvertent powerful practice, can be
read as a form of exercising female agency. Thus, conceiving letter-
exchange as a tactic, I revisit Bodichon by focusing on her personal cor-
respondence and examining the disruptive potential of such a seemingly
insignificant practice. Within this framework, I study the relevance of
letter-exchange in Bodichon’s developing gendered feminist self and fem-
inist outlook and in putting her becoming into action. To do so, I explore
letters as educational instruments—education understood in the sense of
Bildung.
1.2 Epistolary Education

Together with her publications, Bodichon’s letters largely form the basis
of her biographies. In Hirsch’s own words, letters are the ‘brilliantly’
‘coloured enamel’ fragments of her portrait. Combined with less lustrous
‘Census material, documents from public record offices and legal docu-
ments that have long laid in dusty boxes,’ these pieces constitute the bio-
graphical mosaic of Bodichon’s life.102 As I have written elsewhere, moving
away from this straightforward use of letters as data in historical investiga-
tion Pauline Nestor and Deborah Cherry approach letters (and artworks)
from a new perspective and hence offer a methodologically innovative
revision of Bodichon.103 Likewise, my aim is to bring a new theoretical and
methodological perspective.
Bodichon read books and articles that were deemed inappropriate for
Victorian girls. She had access to the family library and to the journals to
which her relatives were subscribed because her father ‘did not censor
reading and discussion on gender lines.’104 Herstein calls it ‘desultory
reading’105 but Hirsch underlines its positive ultimate implications in terms
of activism. In her study of the topos of the woman reader in nineteenth-
and early twentieth-century Britain, Kate Flint claims that the act of
reading played a prominent role in the self-formation of girls and women.

As a locus of struggle, reading was ‘the vehicle through which an indi-
vidual’s sense of identity was achieved or confirmed,’ providing ‘a site for
discussion, even resistance’ rather than conformity.106 Reading was a site of
struggle107 where women took personalized subject positions.108
Following Flint, Hirsch assesses the impact that Swedish writer
Frederika Bremer’s book Hertha (1856) exerted on Bodichon’s sense of
purpose in life. Hirsch states that ‘the apparently private activity of women
reading at home had potential social implications.’109 For the novel depicts
the author’s own experience of suffering under male guardianship of her
finances and raises the question of women’s poor education provision and
their lack of freedom. According to Hirsch, the heroine inspired in
Bodichon the desire to take action—making of her reading of Bremer’s
novel ‘[o]ne of the crucial moments in Barbara’s development.’110 In addi-
tion to the act of reading itself, Hirsch underscores the significance of
letter-exchange in providing Bodichon with a rich informal source of
learning, pointing out that she and her female friends ‘recommended
books to each other and critically discussed, either face to face or by letter,
everything they had been reading.’111
In her study, Flint focuses on the act of reading as a site for active self-
formation. In this sense, Hirsch’s emphasis on both reading books and
writing letters as enriching Bodichon’s access to education—although
briefly discussed—further advances Flint’s argument. Taking as a starting
point Hirsch’s fleet mention to the act of learning through letters, my re-
examination of Bodichon consists of focusing on exploring personal cor-
respondence as educational instruments. My aim is to shed new light upon
the significance of letter-exchanges in acting as informal sources of educa-
tion for girls and women in the context of English mid-Victorian bour-
geois families. Within this overall aim, my objective is to tease out the
epistolary development of Bodichon’s female/feminist self and her feminist
outlook and lifestyle. For that purpose, I propose the term ‘epistolary
education,’ according to which the act of letter-writing and the cultural
practice of letter-exchange turned out to be a rich source of enculturation
and self-development for Bodichon.
In Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters, Dena Goodman develops a
conceptualization of the term epistolary education.112 She describes late-
eighteenth-century middle-class French women learning the art of letter-
writing through manuals, écrivans and epistolary conversations with older
ladies. Alternatively, my understanding of epistolary education refers to
14 M. SIMON-MARTIN
letters—the act of letter-writing itself—as educational tools: the learning

and self-development forged by means of friendship correspondence. As
such, epistolary education refers not to teaching how to write epistles but
to intersubjective epistolary learning. Within the context of her informal
educational scheme, as a girl and young adult, Bodichon gained further
learning and developed her reasoning skills to a greater extent via the let-
ters she exchanged with her best friends. Taking the form of written intel-
lectual conversations, in their letters these friends recommended and lent
each other books and newspapers and shared their impressions on the
topics they studied with their tutors, on the texts they read on their own,
and on the experiences they had during their stimulating daily activities.
As a result of her nomadic lifestyle, Bodichon maintained these and other
epistolary friendships beyond her childhood and teenage years, which
acted in the same way: as sources of knowledge exchange, critical thinking,
knowledge production, outlook development and self-fashioning.
In order to explore letters as lifelong educational instruments, I read
education in the sense of Bildung—the lifetime process of self-cultivation.
In the context of the German Enlightenment in which it emerged, Bildung
was ‘conceived as a critical and emancipatory enterprise, i.e. as a process in
which human beings became truly free and in which they emancipated
themselves from all kinds of power.’113 However, as Katharina Rowold
writes, ‘as it became increasingly associated with a classical secondary and
university education, the term Bildung acquired an association with social
status.’114 Bildung’s at first sight ultimate inclusive goal—to enhance
humanity through personal self-cultivation—turned out to be a purpose
achieved very often at the expense of certain categories of people. Indeed,
the universal qualities that underpin Bildung’s rationale—the value of
knowledge for its own sake and man’s self-development as an end in
itself—conceal normative implications. For, inadvertently, it takes for
granted a precise understanding of knowledge and human beings as well
as a particular way of attaining these ideals.115
In like manner, originally Bildung was implicitly conceived as a process
of personal growth among Western men. Aagot Vinterbo-Hohr and
Hansjörg Hohr argue that a sexist rationale is constitutive of Bildung. One
of its main theorists, Prussian statesman and scholar Wilhelm von
Humboldt (1767–1835), ‘argues for a complementary relationship
between the sexes in the sense that man and woman represent different
parts of a whole and only in love may reach true humanity.’ Stressing the
complementary roles of the sexes in society implies that women’s role in
society is defined with respect to men’s Bildung project: responsible for a

mere secondary role, the destiny of women is to aid men’s self-
development.116 In 1787, while studying at the University of Frankfurt an
der Oder, Humboldt founded a short-lived small society—Tugendbund—
along with Henriette Herz, a Jewish salonnière.117 To all appearances,
Humboldt’s mixed society would suggest that he regarded women as
capable and worthy of Bildung. Yet, the letters he exchanged with his
friends, where he articulated the first thoughts about his theory of Bildung,
give glimpses of its masculinist rationale, where the ennobling influence of
women in the process of self-improvement is suggestive of the kind of
complementary role attributed to women in helping men’s Bildung.118
On that account Bildung—the initially emancipatory, universal and
inclusive project of self-formation—may be regarded as a fallacy.119 In
Michael Wimmer words, Bildung is ‘nothing but an illusion, an idea or a
promise that even after 200 years, we are still far from seeing realized.’120
In this sense, Bodichon’s epistolary Bildung—her self-development as
articulated in and by means of letters—could be interpreted as an
unachieved (unattainable?) scheme. Instead of regarding Bildung as a
doomed project, my aim is to use this ‘problematic’ concept as a thinking
tool. In The Educated Woman, Rowold examines how the notions of
Bildung, Wissenschaft (scholarship) and Kultur (culture), being ‘central
to the identity and social standing of the educated middle class,’ informed
feminist debates on women’s higher education in nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century Germany.121 She argues that ‘opposition to the prospect
of the female student built up around the idea of the different roles of men
and women in the social organism, and the gendered nature of Bildung,
scholarship, and culture.’122 Challenging this male-dominated notion of
Bildung, female supporters of women’s higher education (regardless of
their particular feminist stance) agreed that ‘women had to be gebildet–
educated in a way that formed their inner selves – for women’s difference
to come to full bloom.’123
Likewise, in Marjanne Goozé’s Challenging Separate Spheres, contribu-
tors explore the way German women writers ‘negotiated, interrogated,
and challenged the gender ideology of separate spheres through their
advocacy and representations of female Bildung.’124 In her contribution
‘The Voice of the schöne Seele: Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Pauline Wiesel
as Readers of Weimar Classicism,’ Laura Deiulio, for example, examines
how the epistolary genre permitted these two well-read German women
to disrupt male-dominated conceptions of Bildung. By discussing the
16 M. SIMON-MARTIN
works of celebrated authors in their epistolary dialogues they became

knowledge creators in their own right. As Deiulio writes, ‘In particular,
the correspondents’ citations of the greatest authors of their day, Goethe
and Schiller, allow[ed] them to display the kind of fluid, developing cul-
tural knowledge implied in the term Bildung.’125
In line with these engagements with Bildung, I put into play a revised
understanding of this educational term which I articulate around three
axes: autonomy, power and harmonious self—three tensions that emerge
in my reading of Bodichon’s epistolary Bildung. This highly charged con-
cept permits Bodichon to be reviewed from a different angle—her episto-
lary education—with the aim of broadening our knowledge of her. For
Bildung stands for an understanding of education that resonates with the
sort of self-development I argue letters acted as sources of: as platforms for
the sharing and further acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of critical
thinking, the development of individual outlooks, the production of new
knowledge, and the forging of subjectivities. Bildung does not focus on
mere knowledge acquisition in the classroom during childhood. Instead,
as an individual and collective project, it encapsulates the holistic forma-
tion of an individual throughout his lifespan as a way of collectively
improving society as a whole. Reading Bodichon’s personal correspon-
dence as a tactic through the lens of this understanding of education per-
mits re-examining her unfolding feminism within the mid- Victorian
women’s rights movement. For, examining the significance of letter-
exchange in the development of her Bildung permits teasing out the mak-
ing of a gendered feminist self and her rather problematic feminist outlook
and hence permits assessing her contribution to mid-Victorian feminism
and her legacy to the New Woman.
Admittedly, de Certeau is not interested in analysing subjects but prac-
tices126—‘modes of operation or schemata of action.’127 He adamantly
refuses ‘to take identity as the locus for meaning in everyday life’ because,
he states, ‘the social individual is far too waywardly heterogeneous (too
networked) to form the basis for an analysis of the everyday as practical
life.’128 In this sense, de Certeau does not examine the politics of identity
since, in the words of Buchannan, he considers this approach as ‘an egre-
gious return to a politics of individuality.’129 Instead, he is interested in the
impersonal, what speaks through the individual. Thus, he devises culture
analysis ‘from the mute perspectives of the body, the cry, and the murmur,
none of which needs to be identified with a specific, knowable individual,
in order to be apprehended.’130 In this sense, de Certeau’s original
challenge lies in the fact that he gives legitimacy to everyday as a resource

for understanding people’s behaviour patterns.131
On the flip side of the coin, in Telling Stories, Mary Jo Maynes, Jennifer
L. Pierce and Barbara Laslett make a strong case that personal narratives
(autobiographies, memoirs, oral history, interviews, diaries, letters) are
important research instruments for understanding precisely the relation-
ship between people and societies, between human agency and social phe-
nomena132—and I would add, for understanding the distinctly gendered
standpoint from which individuals experience life and social phenomena.
In line with Telling Stories, my study of Bodichon’s epistolary Bildung
examines the workings of historical agency: how an apparently anodyne
daily gesture—letter-writing as a tactic—proved to be a source of femi-
nism. To do so, I provide a problematization of the use of letters in histori-
cal investigation, which I put forward in the following chapter.
1.3 Book Structure

The book presents a thematic structure, following the key themes in
Bodichon’s feminism as articulated in her publications: education, work,
marriage, slavery, suffrage and art. Before that, Chap. 2 presents the theo-
retical framework and methodology I develop in these thematic chapters.
Taking Bodichon’s Unitarian education as a point of departure, I develop
my conceptualization of epistolary education, highlighting the novelty of
reading letters through the lens of the German neo-humanist educational
term Bildung. I first explain the intellectual dis/similarities between
Bildung and the Unitarian philosophy of education, and I next move on
to explain the narrative model of Bildung I propose. Drawing on narrative
approaches to identity-formation, I suggest that Bodichon’s epistolary
dialogues reflect the essence of Bildung: they acted as intersubjective plat-
forms where she forged her gendered individuality. This explanation of the
narrative model of Bildung I propose is intertwined with a discussion of
how the ontology of the letter (its materiality, its logistics and the social
codes of letter-exchange) determines the carving out of the epistolary self
and the exercise of narrative agency.133 Teasing out the distinct significance
of the letters written by Bodichon (letters from), those addressed to her
(letters to) and those that refer to her in the third-person or that relate to
her in/directly (letters about), I point up the methodological challenge of
having to study Bodichon’s epistolary Bildung partially by means of how
18 M. SIMON-MARTIN
others understood her. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the

editorial approach I adopt to transcribe and select the letters I quote.
Chapter 3 examines the mid-Victorian feminist claim for better educa-
tion for women as articulated by Bodichon at the intersection of her pub-
lications and letters. I first discuss Bodichon’s most relevant works on this
demand: ‘Female Education in the Middle Classes’ (1858) and ‘Middle-
Class Schools for Girls’ (1860). The chapter moves on to explore the
epistolary unfolding of Bodichon’s stance on the question of religious
education and women’s access to schooling. Hence, in line with Bildung’s
notion of dialogical learning, I explore the pivotal axis epistolary networks
among Bodichon and her female friends played in providing her with a
forum for learning and self-discovery where she acquired knowledge and
exercised her critical thinking. I suggest that Bodichon shaped her own
outlook in the process of epistolary learning stimulated by the activities
she undertook within the framework of her later informal education:
school visiting, traveling and reading. I argue that, in the process, she
began developing her feminist understanding of women needing better
education opportunities as a springboard to achieving equality.
Chapter 4 looks at Bodichon’s take on the question of employment
opportunities for women. I start the chapter by examining Bodichon’s
most relevant work on this theme: Women and Work (1857). I next anal-
yse Bodichon’s feminist viewpoint on women’s training and access to the
job market as she expressed it in her letters. Thus, putting into play
Bildung’s notion of intersubjective creative mimesis, I explore the way in
which Bodichon’s letters to and about provided a propitious platform for
the kind of dialogical and transformative interaction Bildung requires.
Having linked Bodichon’s feminist demands with her friends’ epistolary
narratives, I next analyse Bodichon’s letters from. I incorporate Bildung’s
‘tool’—autonomy—and I tease out Bodichon’s epistolary working out of
her self- determination in her own epistolary narratives. I do so by draw-
ing the attention of the pivotal axis feelings of friendship and affection
among Bodichon and her female friends played in providing her with an
epistolary forum for learning and self-discovery, where she justified wom-
en’s work in terms of creativity and self-fulfilment.
Chapter 5 explores the themes of love and marriage. I start off by dis-
cussing Bodichon’s most relevant works on these topics: most notably A
Brief Summary (1854), Women and Work (1857). I analyse the signifi-
cance of epistolary networks in offering Bodichon an intimate space of
dialogical self-understanding and self-definition where she verbalized her
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whenever the cage is cleaned, and in addition the pan should be
washed in hot water from time to time. Lime on the perches may be
removed by means of a scraper made of a bit of tin fastened to a
wire or tacked at right angles to a stick small enough to pass easily
between the wires of the cage. Cages with bottom attached should
be provided with a sand tray that slides in and out through a slot in
the front. This serves to catch droppings, seed hulls, and other
waste, and may be easily pulled out, cleaned, and refilled with fresh
sand.
INDOOR AND OUTDOOR AVIARIES.
Those who keep birds for pleasure, and who do not care to breed
them for exhibition or to maintain any particular standard, may
receive much enjoyment from aviaries in which numbers of canaries
are kept in one inclosure. The size of the aviary or bird room will be
governed wholly by circumstances, as it may range from an entire
room to a small screened inclosure or part of a conservatory. A room
large enough for the owner to enter without unduly frightening the
occupants makes an ideal indoor aviary, and where space permits it
may be fitted up without great expense. The floor should be covered
to the depth of half an inch to an inch with clean sand or sawdust.
Small evergreen trees planted in large pots furnish suitable
decorations, and may be replaced from time to time as they are
destroyed by the inmates of the aviary. A branching dead tree and
one or two limbs nailed across corners at suitable heights furnish
more artistic perches than straight rods. In addition, pegs 4 or 5
inches long may be driven or nailed to the walls to furnish resting
places.
Seed should be supplied in self-regulating hoppers, preferably
attached to the wall, and water given in self-feeding fountain
containers. These become less dirty than open dishes placed on the
floor. Sand must be furnished in a box or dish where it is not used on
the floor. Soft foods and green foods may be supplied on little
shelves or a small table. At the proper season nesting boxes may be
hung on the walls, and nesting material supplied in racks or in open-
mesh bags hung to some support. A shallow pan of water may be
kept constantly on the floor or, better, may be inserted for an hour
each day for bathing. A screened flying cage may be built on the
outside of a window and the birds admitted to it in pleasant weather.
Perches, if of natural wood, should have smooth bark or should be
peeled, as crevices often harbor mites. Plants and other decorations
should not be placed so near the wall that birds may be trapped
behind them.
Aviaries constructed out of doors, like bird rooms, may be made
simple or elaborate, large or small, according to circumstances.
Where there is sufficient ground available a small frame structure
may be built and covered with strong galvanized wire screen of
small-sized mesh. Part, at least, of the roof should be covered as a
protection against stormy weather, and two sides should be boarded
up to afford protection from cold winds. Where the winter climate is
severe it is necessary to build a closed addition with board or cement
floor and a connecting door, in which the birds may be protected
during the cold season. Canaries when acclimatized, however, can
withstand moderately cold weather as well as native birds.
The open portion of the aviary should have a board or cement
base sunk to a depth of 8 to 10 inches around the bottom to prevent
entrance of rats, mice, or larger animals. If a fence with an overhang
at the top is not constructed to keep out animals, it is best to make
the screen walls double by nailing screen wire to both sides of the
wooden frame, so that birds clinging to the wire may not be injured
by cats or dogs. Where space does not permit an elaborate structure
a lean-to may be built against another wall to make an inclosure
large enough for a number of birds. Where needed, the sides of the
aviary may be fitted with windows that can be put in place in winter.
The entrance to the outdoor aviary should be through a small porch
or anteroom that need be merely large enough to permit entrance
through an outside door, with a second door leading into the aviary
itself. The outside door should be closed before the inner one is
opened, so that none of the birds can escape.
The fittings of the outdoor aviary may be adapted from those
described for the indoor bird room. With an earth floor it is possible
to grow evergreen and deciduous shrubs for shelter and ornament.
Where space permits a hedge of privet along the open side of the
aviary furnishes a shelter in which birds delight to nest. To avoid
overheating in hot weather shade should be provided for part of the
structure.
In aviaries birds pair more or less at random. To avoid constant
bickering or even serious fighting in the breeding season it is usual
to regulate the number of males so that the females outnumber them
two to one.
FOOD.
The food requirements of canaries are simple. Canary seed to

which have been added rape seed and a little hemp is a staple diet
that persons who keep only a few birds usually purchase ready
mixed. Canary seed alone does not furnish a balanced food, but
forms a good combination with hemp and summer rape. Much of the
rape seed in prepared seed sold in cartons is of a species that even
wild birds do not eat, as it is pungent and bitter in flavor, but all relish
the mild taste of true summer rape. Seed is given in little cups that
are fastened between the wires of the cage.
In addition to a seed supply lettuce or a bit of apple should be
placed between the wires of the cage frequently. And those properly
situated may, in season, vary this menu by the addition of
chickweed, dandelion heads, thistle and plantain seeds, and the
fruiting heads and tender leaves of senecio and shepherd’s purse.
Watercress, wild oats, knot grass, and other grasses are relished,
especially in spring and early in summer.
Bread moistened in scalded milk, given cold at intervals, is
beneficial. Soft foods must not be made too wet. With bread, enough
liquid to soften the food but not to run or render it a paste is
sufficient. Supplies of moist foods must be kept strictly fresh and
clean or sickness may result. Special dishes, known as food holders,
or slides that slip through the wires of the cage are often used in
giving softened bread and similar supplies. Cuttle bone should
always be available.
When canaries do not seem to thrive it is well to crack open a few
of the seeds to make certain that empty husks alone are not being
fed. Hemp, while a valuable addition to the diet, should not be given
in excess, as it is fattening and may make birds so lethargic that they
cease to sing, or in exceptional cases may even cause death. When
canaries cease to sing from the effects of overfeeding it is well to
supply some of the stimulating foods known as song restorers, or
other prepared foods that may be obtained from dealers.
During the time of molt a few linseeds added to the seed supply
are believed to give gloss and sheen to the new feathers. Linseeds
should be given in small quantity, as they are injurious if eaten in
excess. Meal worms fed occasionally are beneficial for birds that are
not thriving. A craving for animal food may be satisfied by bits of raw
steak, but it is not well to continue feeding raw meat for any length of
time, as it may cause a foul odor about the cage. Delicate birds may
be fed canary, rape, and hemp seed soaked in cold water for 24
hours, rinsed, and then drained. Maw seed (poppy seed) is favored
by English canary fanciers as a stimulant, but its use must be
guarded, as it may be poisonous to other animals, including man.
During the breeding season egg food must be given daily as soon
as the birds are paired. This is prepared by mincing an entire hard-
boiled egg or passing it through a sieve, and adding to it an equal
quantity of bread or unsalted cracker crumbs. This may be given to
unmated birds as well at intervals of a week or so. When female
canaries begin to incubate, egg food may be fed every three or four
days or even less frequently. Addition of brown sugar in small
quantity to the egg food is supposed to prevent egg-binding in young
females. When the young hatch, egg food should be supplied at
once. Some recommend that the yolk of a hard-boiled egg be given
alone for the first day. Bread crumbs are added to this daily until on
the third day egg food as ordinarily prepared is supplied. Attempt
should be made to regulate the supply of egg food or other soft food
so that it will be eaten without waste. The actual quantity will vary in
individual cases. The usual seed supply should be present, no
matter what other food is given. Egg food must be given until the
young are fully grown and able to crack seed for themselves.
Cracked seed may be fed to lighten the labor of the parents, but it is
well to eliminate hemp from such a supply, as the hull of hemp seed
contains a poisonous substance that occasionally kills young birds.
Drinking water should be available to canaries at all times.
BATHING.
Under normal conditions most birds probably bathe daily, and

canaries in captivity should be allowed the same opportunity. In open
wire cages in common use for singing birds the base is removed and
the cage placed over a small dish containing water. In open-front
cages in which the bottom is not detachable small bath cages which
fasten at the open door are used. These are only a few inches wide
but serve to hold a dish for water. Many birds are notional in bathing
and at times ignore the offered bath. Usually the process of cleaning
the cage and renewing the seed and water will excite in them a
desire for bathing, and often when a bath is not provided the bird will
do its best to perform its ablutions in the small supply of water in the
drinking cup. When individual birds obstinately refuse to enter the
water, if enough clean sand to cover the bottom is placed in the dish
they bathe more readily. After the bath the water may be drained
carefully and the sand left to dry in the dish for use another time.
Birds brought into strange quarters may refuse to bathe for the first
few days. When water is offered they either ignore it or sitting on a
perch go through the motions of bathing and drying, fluttering wings
and tail with a great whirring of feathers. The bath should be offered
whenever the cage is cleaned, and if left alone the birds will act
normally after a few days.
Small china or earthenware dishes that are not too deep make
good bathing pans. When a bird becomes accustomed to one dish it
will usually refuse to bathe in another of different shape or color. In
winter the water should be warmed until tepid. Even in warm weather
very cold water is not advisable. If the room, ordinarily warm,
becomes cold temporarily, birds should not be allowed to bathe. With
the plumage wet and bedraggled there is increased susceptibility to
cold drafts. During molt the bath should be given not more than twice
each week. If the bird is molting on color food, one bath each week
is sufficient. The female canary should not be allowed to bathe from
the time the eggs hatch until the young are 3 or 4 days old.
MOLT.
Canaries renew their covering of feathers once each year. In

adults this molt occurs late in summer, and the first sign of it may be
the presence of a wing or tail feather on the bottom of the cage.
These large feathers are shed in pairs, so that one from either wing
or from either side of the tail is dropped at approximately the same
time. Never in ordinary circumstances does the canary have the
wing and tail entirely devoid of large feathers. This provision is of no
particular significance in a cage bird, but enables wild birds to
maintain their powers of flight. The bodily covering is renewed
piecemeal as well, so that except about the head there is normally
no extensive area wholly devoid of feathers at any time. Some birds
drop a few of the body feathers all through the year, a symptom that
need cause no anxiety.
With breeding birds the molt usually comes immediately after the
breeding season and may begin as early as the latter part of July.
Normally it comes during August, and on the average should be at
its height in September. Young birds molt the juvenal body plumage
after leaving the nest, but retain the first growth of wing and tail
feathers for a year. In healthy birds the entire molt requires about two
months.
Canaries usually need no special care during molt. Though in an
abnormal bodily state at this time, healthy individuals will come
through the period in good condition. Birds are somewhat dull and
stupid when molting and should be disturbed as little as possible.
Bathing may be permitted once or twice each week, but if birds do
not wish to bathe they should not be sprayed with water. It is well to
add egg food or moistened bread to the ordinary fare once or twice
each week during molt. For ailing birds a very slight quantity of
sulphur may be added to the egg food, or a weak saffron tea given
instead of pure drinking water. A few linseeds in the seed supply give
a gloss and sheen to the new feathers not otherwise obtainable.
When canaries fail to molt at the proper season molt may
sometimes be induced by covering the cage with a dark cloth and
placing it in a warm protected place where the bird will not be
disturbed.
Old birds or those weak in physical vigor often fail to renew their
entire feather covering, a condition for which little remedy may be
offered. Usually this incomplete molt is a sign of extreme age or
breakdown, though if the bird lives, a supply of nutritious, easily
assimilated food and careful protection during the next molt may
result in improvement.
A great change in temperature or a sudden chill may check the
progress of molt and occasionally cause serious trouble. If a bird
shows signs of distress, it should be placed at once in a warm,
protected place. Ten drops of sweet spirits of niter and a few shreds
of saffron added to the drinking water are beneficial.
COLOR FEEDING.
That the color of canaries may be deepened or intensified by

certain foods given during the molt is well known and has attracted
much interest. Turmeric, marigold flowers, saffron, cochineal,
annatto, mustard seed, and other agents rich in natural color are
often used for this purpose, ordinarily in combination with red pepper
as a base. For a long time methods of preparing and feeding color
foods were kept secret, but now they are outlined in many manuals
on canary feeding.
In selecting canaries for experiments in color feeding preference
should be given to strong, vigorous, male birds. During digestion and
assimilation the concentrated food used puts more or less of a strain
upon the system, and birds that are old or constitutionally weak may
not thrive, or may even succumb under the treatment. Color food
may be given young canaries at the age of 7 or 8 weeks to produce
a deep color at their first molt. Birds with color that is naturally full
and rich should be selected. Those having greenish markings or
those descended from a male parent well marked with green are
preferable. Pale birds seldom color well.
A standard color food may be prepared as follows: To the ordinary
egg food (one hard-boiled egg chopped fine with an equal bulk of
bread crumbs or unsalted cracker crumbs) add a teaspoonful of
ground sweet red pepper. Mix until the food shows an even reddish
tint throughout. Care should be taken to see that the supply of
ground sweet pepper used is fresh and clean and that it is not
artificially colored. Each bird to be experimented upon should receive
one small teaspoonful of the prepared food daily. The quantity of
pepper in the mixture is increased gradually, until two heaping
teaspoonfuls are used. Addition of a little brown sugar and a few
drops of pure olive oil is beneficial, and a small quantity of hot red
pepper gives a better flavor. The food should be prepared fresh each
day, and in mixing allowance must be made for variation in the size
of eggs used.
Some breeders increase the proportion of sweet red pepper until 4
teaspoonfuls are added to the usual quantity of egg food. Half a
teaspoonful of this concentrated food is allowed each bird. This
method may be used during a short, quick molt. The usual supply of
seed must be kept in the cage, for canaries can not subsist on the
color food alone.
Those who do not care to use such an elaborate preparation in
color feeding may substitute pieces of the common sweet red
peppers sold in fresh vegetable markets for the bits of lettuce
ordinarily given as green food. Canaries eat these readily, and from
the effect of this food eaten during molt become noticeably deeper
and richer in color.
Color feeding to be successful must be started as soon as the
canaries are ready to molt, and feeding must be continued until no
more pin feathers can be found anywhere on the body when the
feathers are carefully blown aside. The color food actually supplies
an enriched color element that otherwise is lacking. Until the artificial
color is firmly fixed in the matured feather it fades easily when
exposed to strong light. The birds chosen for color feeding should be
kept in a dim light away from the windows and with the cages
shaded. Open-front cages are easily provided with a screen of paper
or cloth, but care must be taken to leave space for ventilation. Direct
sunlight must be avoided. Bathing must not be permitted more often
than once a week, and the birds should be disturbed as little as
possible.
Should a bird refuse the color food, the seed supply may be
removed for a short time morning and evening and the color food
substituted. Usually in a day or two the stimulating food will be eaten
eagerly. Linseeds should be given (as during the regular molt) to
impart a gloss to the new feathers. With proper care there will be
little trouble in producing fine, healthy birds with rich, highly colored
plumage. The enhanced color lasts only during the continuance of
the growth of feathers, and if color feeding is not resorted to at the
next molt the canary will again be plain.
BREEDING.
The breeding season for canaries begins properly in March.

Though birds often show signs of its approach as early as January, it
is better, because of the effect of changing weather conditions upon
callow young, to postpone nesting activities until later, if possible.
Some canary fanciers keep canaries paired throughout the year, but
the more common practice is to separate the sexes except when
breeding. The beginning of the mating season is marked by ringing,
vigorous song among male birds, accompanied by much restless
activity. Females, indifferent until now, respond with loud call notes,
flit their wings, and otherwise evince their interest. Birds may be
paired without these preliminary signs, but usually this tends only to
lengthen the breeding season without material benefit. The instinct to
breed may be stimulated when necessary by the addition of egg food
and green stuff to the diet.
Canaries in captivity are polygamous when opportunity offers, and
many breeders place two or even three females with each male.
Others, however, keep canaries in pairs, as they are more readily
handled, and when the young are hatched the male is able to assist
in caring for them. Where two females are kept with one male the
birds should be placed in a cage divided by slides into three
compartments. The male is placed in the middle, and a female on
either side. During half the day the male is thrown with one female
and during the remainder with the other. This arrangement
necessitates the use of three sets of seed and water cups in each
cage. When the females begin to incubate the male is removed or
excluded from both.
A cage suitable for one pair of canaries should be equipped with a
sliding wire partition. The male and the female are placed one in
either compartment and the two left to make acquaintance. The male
will begin to feed the female through the wires in a day or two, or
perhaps at once, and when this is observed the slide may be
withdrawn and the birds kept together. If a cage is used that has no
slide, there is usually some bickering between the birds at first, but
birds are rarely found that do not in the end agree. A cage thus used
without a slide should be new to both birds, in order that neither may
resent the presence of an intruder in a cage which it has been
accustomed to consider its own.
Soon after pairing the female will be seen carrying feathers in her
bill or searching about the bottom of the cage. If a little nesting
material is given her she will be content to arrange and rearrange it
for a few days. As soon as she shows serious intention of building,
enough material for actual nest construction may be supplied. If a
considerable quantity is furnished at first it is merely wasted. The
material may be held in a small wire rack suspended on the outside
of the cage or placed inside. Bits of string, cotton, slender blades of
dried grass, dried moss, cow’s hair, or other soft material will serve
well. No long strings or long hairs should be given, as these may
cause trouble later by entangling the feet and legs of mother and
young. Everything furnished should be clean and free from dust.
Some canaries are expert nest builders, while others construct a
slovenly structure that barely serves to contain the eggs. Some
fanciers prefer to construct nests for their birds, and with certain
birds this is necessary as some females may refuse to build.
Canaries build in anything that offers support. A nest box of wood,
or, better, an earthenware nest pan, may be fastened to the side or
back of the cage midway between the two perches. The rush or
willow nests sold by many dealers, while serviceable, may harbor
vermin. The earthenware nest pan is best, as when the breeding
season is over it is readily cleaned and put away for another year.
Failing this, a box 1¼ inches or more deep made of thin wood may
be used. The nest box or pan should have a lining or bottom
covering of felt. This may be pasted in the earthenware pan, and
may be soaked loose without trouble when it is desired to renew it.
The nest receptacle, of whatever description, should be suspended
an inch above the level of the perches. This prevents the young from
leaving the nest too soon. The receptacle should not be near enough
to the top of the cage to interfere with the movements of the
occupants. If the nest is not too near the perches the male is not so
likely to be obtrusive during incubation.
The first egg will be deposited from a week to a month after the
birds are paired. Normally it is laid in about two weeks. The number
of eggs in a sitting may vary from three to six, with four or five as the
usual number. The eggs should be removed as soon as laid. This
may be done readily with a teaspoon, with care not to injure the
delicate shells. They should be kept in a cool place, slightly
embedded in fine corn meal or bran or cared for in some other
manner that does not allow them to roll about or touch each other.
On the evening of the day on which the third egg is laid all may be
returned to the nest.
Removing the eggs and then replacing them postpones incubation
and development in those first laid and makes the time of hatching
more even. The normal period of incubation is 14 days.
Egg binding sometimes causes trouble and may be dealt with as
follows: The vent may be oiled carefully with a drop or two of
warmed castor oil and the bird returned to the cage. If the egg is not
deposited within half an hour the canary should be held for a few
minutes with the vent over the steam of hot water. A good method is
to fill a narrow-necked jar or bottle with hot water and cover the
mouth of the receptacle with cheese cloth; the female is then held
carefully for a minute or two in the rising steam. Often the egg will
drop at once and be caught in the cheesecloth, or it may be
deposited in the normal manner after the bird is returned to the cage.
The male canary is ordinarily a model husband and parent, giving
no trouble, but if he should annoy the female during incubation or
attempt to injure the young he should be removed at once. It is the
natural instinct of an incubating bird to conceal itself as much as
possible, and though canaries are tame, this tendency should be
recognized and respected. This does not mean that they are to be
neglected. Each breeding cage should be equipped with a sand tray
which should be cleaned at least every other day. In no other way
can it be hoped to rear numbers of birds successfully. Except for this
necessary care and the provision of food, water, and bathing
facilities, the birds should be bothered as little as possible.
Sometimes trouble is caused by inability of the young to free
themselves from the shell or egg membrane, a condition for which
there is usually no remedy at the time. With succeeding settings the
difficulty may be obviated by sprinkling the eggs slightly with water
each evening. Some breeders when the young canaries are 8 days
old place them in a new nest, a practice that may be necessary
when the old nest is infested with parasites. In such instances a little
insect powder should be sprinkled over the body before the young
birds are placed in their new quarters.
The young birds leave the nest when 20 to 30 days old. They may
be left with the parents as long as they are fed and should never be
removed entirely until it is found that they are able to crack the seeds
upon which they must feed. It is advisable to continue the use of egg
food for a time and gradually to decrease the amount given to get
the birds accustomed to a diet of seed alone.
Canaries often rear two or three broods a season and the female
may be ready to breed again when the young are three weeks old. It
is only necessary to provide a second nest and nesting material and
let her proceed. The care of the young will then devolve on the male.
Nesting material should be provided at once or the female may pluck
the feathers from her growing young. If this can not be stopped the
young should be placed in a small nursery cage suspended from the
side of the breeding cage in a manner that will allow feeding
between the wires. When the young are finally removed they must
not be placed with birds older and stronger for a time. They should
be watched carefully the first day, and if any one does not feed it
must be returned to the parents at once. Though most of the losses
among canaries come at this time, with care in food and cleanliness
there should be little trouble.
SEX AND AGE.
To determine sex and age in living canaries is difficult and is to be

attempted only by one who has had long experience as a canary
fancier. The external characters denoting sex are not easily
described. In nearly all cases a male may be recognized by his
proficiency as a songster, but occasionally female birds also possess
a clear, full song. When in breeding condition the sex may be
determined readily by examining the vent. In males it is protuberant,
while in females it does not project below the level of the abdomen.
By daily observation the canary breeder is generally able to
distinguish the sexes through slight differences in carriage and
mannerisms not apparent to one not familiar with them.
In judging age the feet offer the only characters easily seen, but
even these can not always be relied upon. Birds a year old or less
usually have the skin and scales covering the feet and tarsi smooth
and of fine texture. In older birds they appear coarser and
roughened. Very old birds usually have had the claws trimmed until
they appear blunt or rounded rather than sharp and pointed (see p.
19).
Canaries have lived many years when cared for regularly. Dr. C.
W. Richmond, Associate Curator of Birds in the United States
National Museum, relates that two birds, hatched in the same brood
and kept entirely separated after they left the nest, lived 18 years,
dying within a few weeks of each other. Another case is on record in
which a canary was known to be at least 34 years old when it died,
and even this advanced age may have been exceeded. Usually with
advancing years birds molt irregularly or lose part of the feathers
entirely. Often their eyesight is impaired. It is said that canaries that
have not been paired live much longer than those allowed to breed.
VERMIN.
Canaries are affected by two forms of external parasites. The

larger of these, a bird louse[2] known usually as the gray louse, is an
insect with a slender, elongate body and a large head armed with
strong jaws. This pest feeds upon the feather structure of the bird’s
outer covering, and though it does not suck the blood of its host, its
sharp claws irritate the skin and cause discomfort to the bird. The
eggs of the gray louse are attached to the feathers by a gum and are
not easily removed. The young insects resemble the adults and in a
few weeks after hatching are fully grown. They are best combated by
blowing insect powder (pyrethrum) into the plumage of the affected
bird with a small bellows or blower. This treatment should be
repeated two or three times at intervals of a week to insure the
destruction of any young lice hatching in the meantime.
The other parasite of canaries is a small mite,[3] a minute
spiderlike creature that when fully grown is barely visible to the
unaided eye. Its natural color is whitish, but nearly always it is filled
with blood sucked from the body of the unfortunate bird harboring it,
so that it appears bright red. These mites are nocturnal, and except
in cases of severe infestation are seldom found upon the body of
their host during the day. They are often found in the slits at the ends
of the perches or in the round piece of metal forming the support at
the top of the ordinary wire cage. In wooden cages they hide in
cracks, nail holes, or crevices, and their presence is betrayed upon
close examination by minute white spottings. If unnoticed, they
multiply rapidly and sap the strength of the bird by sucking its blood.
When their presence is suspected a little coal oil, or kerosene,
applied freely to the cage with a brush may be sufficient to kill the
pests. Or the bird may be removed temporarily and the cage cleaned
thoroughly with a solution of 1 ounce of commercial carbolic acid in a
gallon of water, applied with a small brush, taking care to reach all
crevices. In severe infestations it may be necessary to immerse the
cage for several minutes in water that is boiling hot. Insect powder
may be used as for the gray louse.
Where facilities for frequent bathing are offered and the cage is
kept clean, there is usually little trouble with either mites or bird lice.
When a bird is sick and neglects its customary bathing, cleaning,
and preening, it is surprising to see how rapidly these pests multiply.
With care, however, they may be completely eradicated, though
fresh outbreaks are likely to occur when new birds are obtained. In
wooden cages cracks in the boards that have harbored mites may
be closed with glue to prevent a return of the pests.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Docophorns communis Nitzsch. Order Mallophaga.

[3] Dermanyssus avium De Geer, closely allied to the chicken
mite D. gallinae De Geer.
CARE OF FEET AND BILL.
As a canary grows old it will be noticed that its claws become long
and catch on the perches and wires as it hops about the cage. In a
state of nature the activities of the bird as it moves about on the
ground or among twigs and limbs keep the claws properly worn
down. Confined in a cage the canary is less active, and while the
claws have the same rate of growth they are here subject to much
less abrasion. It is necessary, therefore, to trim them with a pair of
sharp scissors every few months. It is important to watch the
condition of the claws carefully, as by catching they may cause a
broken leg. In each claw a slender blood vessel extends well down
toward the tip. This is indicated in Figure 6 by the letter A, and may
be seen on close examination through the transparent sheath of the
bird’s claw. In trimming cut well beyond this canal (at the point B in
the figure) and take special care not to break the leg while handling
the bird.
Fig. 6.—Diagram of foot of canary with

overgrown claws. A, Terminal blood
vessel; B, point at which claw may
be trimmed without injury.
In cage birds the horny covering of the bill, as well as the claws,
sometimes becomes distorted through growth without sufficient
wear. The tips of the mandibles may be pared down with a sharp
knife, but care must be taken not to cut deep enough to reach the
quick.

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Barbara Bodichon s Epistolary

Education Unfolding Feminism

Quantitative Methods in Proteomics 2nd Edition Katrin

The Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure

Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st

Technology in Education. Innovative Solutions and

Understanding the Montessori Approach Early Years

Gender, Management and Leadership in Initial Teacher

Observer s Guide to Variable Stars Martin Griffiths

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ISBN 978-3-030-41440-5 ISBN 978-3-030-41441-2 (eBook)

Cover illustration: History collection 2016 / Alamy Stock Photo

In order to revise Bodichon’s feminism, I explore the significance of

London, UK Meritxell Simon-Martin

I would like to express my gratitude to those academics who at seminars

1 Unfolding Feminism: Letters, Networks and Friendships 1

2 Bodichon’s Epistolary Bildung: Learning, Narratives

3 ‘A Peculiar Education’: Epistolary Networks, Knowledge

4 ‘To Be Happy Is to Work, Work – Work – Work’:

5 ‘Improbable That We Should Agree in the Choice

6 ‘Slavery is … Allied to the Injustice to Women’: Morality,

7 ‘Bringing Home Bamboos to Paint’: Artistry, Aesthetics

8 ‘Born a Hundred Years Too Soon’: Bodichon’s Agentic

Fig. 7.1 Barbara Bodichon, ‘Ye Newe Generation’ c.1850 (GCPP

Unfolding Feminism: Letters, Networks

On 10 June 2018 tens of thousands of women marched through the

© The Author(s) 2020 1

1855–1857—traditionally regarded as the beginning of ‘feminism as an

undenominational school in London which, attended by infants from dif-

design, hairdressing, wood engraving, piano tuning, watchmaking, book-

Becoming a Feminist, Olive Banks, for example, accurately describes the

Persuaded of the relevance of the role of letters in fostering feminist

1.1 An Epistolary Portrait

Barbara Bodichon was born in 1827 into a progressive Unitarian fam-

Maria Tamboukou, ‘a bridge between presence and absence, speech and

Instead of relegating everyday practices (‘“ways of operating” or doing

as much in danger of being swept away or submerged by the flow of events

On that account, letter-writing, like cooking, walking in the city or

unremarkable action—can be understood as an un/conscious way of

1.2 Epistolary Education

reading played a prominent role in the self-formation of girls and women.

letters—the act of letter-writing itself—as educational tools: the learning

society is defined with respect to men’s Bildung project: responsible for a

works of celebrated authors in their epistolary dialogues they became

challenge lies in the fact that he gives legitimacy to everyday as a resource

1.3 Book Structure

others understood her. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the

The food requirements of canaries are simple. Canary seed to

Under normal conditions most birds probably bathe daily, and

Canaries renew their covering of feathers once each year. In

That the color of canaries may be deepened or intensified by

The breeding season for canaries begins properly in March.

To determine sex and age in living canaries is difficult and is to be

Canaries are affected by two forms of external parasites. The

[2] Docophorns communis Nitzsch. Order Mallophaga.

Fig. 6.—Diagram of foot of canary with

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London, UK Meritxell Simon-Martin

1 Unfolding Feminism: Letters, Networks and Friendships 1

2 Bodichon’s Epistolary Bildung: Learning, Narratives

3 ‘A Peculiar Education’: Epistolary Networks, Knowledge

4 ‘To Be Happy Is to Work, Work – Work – Work’:

5 ‘Improbable That We Should Agree in the Choice

6 ‘Slavery is … Allied to the Injustice to Women’: Morality,

7 ‘Bringing Home Bamboos to Paint’: Artistry, Aesthetics

8 ‘Born a Hundred Years Too Soon’: Bodichon’s Agentic