Early Modern Notes

NB: I posted this way back in 2005, and haven’t checked that all the links still work. It doesn’t hurt to dust these things off from time to time. Do I have any more specific reason than that? Hmmm.

Some women have never lacked historians: usually unusual women of high social status (who had some influence on the ‘male’ political world): queens, mistresses of kings, that kind of thing: what Gerda Lerner called ‘compensatory history’. The goal of women’s history as practised today, however, is to attend to and assert the validity of the experiences and roles of many kinds of women; to challenge perceptions that these were somehow a) ahistorical (biologically determined, therefore unchanging) and b) unimportant, not Real History.

Still, it should be remembered that women’s history is not something invented in the 1970s. (At Oxford University around 1960, a young early modernist, Keith Thomas, offered a series of undergraduate lectures on the history of women. His colleagues found the idea bizarre; the students stayed away in droves. Yet it must have seemed practicable to him - and he was prepared to try.)

To stick with research since the 19th-century emergence of the academic discipline of history, the ‘first wave’ of western feminism was accompanied by important work on the history of women in the early 20th century: in Britain alone, for example, work by Eileen Power (medieval history), Alice Clark and Ivy Pinchbeck (women’s work), Ray Strachey and Sylvia Pankhurst (the women’s suffrage movement). Yet much of this was neglected for decades until the take-off of women’s history associated with the ’second wave’ of feminism and, more broadly, with the expanding horizons of history writing from the 1960s. That brought research on an unprecedented scale, and with larger ambitions to achieve a fundamental rewriting of all History.

There have been a wide variety of approaches to the history of women, and nearly all have had to grapple with particularly acute problems of evidence and interpretation: discovering new or neglected sources, approaching old ones in new ways, often borrowing methods and techniques from other disciplines. The growth of social history, another challenge to the primacy of political history narrowly defined (states, rulers, governments) cannot be disentangled from this; it offered new methods and perspectives, and often emphasised subjects of key importance to women’s history. (This was true in the early 20th century as well as the 1960s and 70s, although what we’d now think of as social history was then usually called economic history; this was long before the statisticians got in on the act.)

Some key ’second wave’ pioneers of women’s history, like Sheila Rowbotham, were socialists as much as feminists. But the relationship was not always an easy one; social history could all too easily continue to marginalise women. Labour history, for example, could be overwhelmingly masculine, narrowly focused on institutions; defining ‘work’ and ‘labour’ in particular ways, this kind of labour history tended to overlook the vital contributions of female labour, the variety and significance of the paid work that women have always done, and to entirely exclude any consideration of their unpaid work. And the relationship between Marxism and feminism was strikingly summed up as an unhappy marriage.

An important strand in women’s history has documented their struggles to win admittance to the ‘public sphere’ and to be placed on equal terms with men when it came to legal status, work opportunities, voting rights. This is a key constituent of what was dubbed ‘herstory’: retelling history from women’s perspectives, aiming to recover women’s experiences, ‘women’s cultures’, to document a distinctive female past. Women had been, in Rowbotham’s words, Hidden from History, and it was time to put that right. It’s still going strong too! And it was, and still is, also often about personal reclamations of history far beyond the academy.

Still, while it went far beyond the biographical ‘women worthies‘ or ‘compensatory history’ type of approach, herstory still tended to focus on histories of exceptional women, forms of rebellion against patriarchal norms, whether ‘public’ political activism or ‘private’ feminine desires and friendships. And how were ‘women’s worlds’ to be related to the world of mainstream history? It was not so clear how this approach could (on its own) ever be more than a supplement to Real History, all too easily ignored or, at best, accorded a token presence around the margins.

There was another problem. Who were these ‘women’ in ‘women’s history’? White, middle-class women? Women are not all alike (and no woman is only a woman). What of the influence of class, race, religion, nationality, sexuality, other social/cultural group identities, on women’s historical experiences?

The identification of these issues fostered the rise of ‘gender history’. Gender, it needs to be noted, is a concept that can be used in more than one way. Sometimes, it can simply refer to studying the relationships between women and men, and the ways in which ‘gender roles’ are socially conditioned. But there is a more theoretical/intellectual history approach, associated with ‘poststructuralism’, and perhaps most famously formulated by Joan W Scott, who argued that gender was a key ‘category of historical analysis’, and that it was vital to study how ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ were culturally constructed in relation to each other in different societies. The category ‘women’ itself had to be deconstructed (as did that of ‘experience‘).

The enquiry was no longer so much ‘What did women experience, and what did women, do in xth century in y culture?’ but rather ‘How (and by what processes) in xth century in y culture did gender help construct distinct masculine and feminine meanings and identities?’ [link may be dead: try archive version if it doesn’t work]

This was both stimulating and controversial, for much the same reasons that poststructuralist or postmodernist theories applied to history have been stimulating/controversial more generally. But it was, perhaps, felt to be particularly threatening to a field of history that was relatively new and politically engaged:

The deconstruction of the term ‘women’ and the emphasis on the differences between women at the expense of what they have in common, denies the existence of women as a political category and as a subordinate class.

Other concerns about gender history focused on the decentering of women as its subject. The history of masculinities is a fast-rising field; some (like Joan Hoff) worried that this lets men take over centre-stage again and that women’s history will get lost in the process. (I personally think that Hoff did not help her cause by calling male feminists ‘Tootsie men’.) Others disagree with those fears (I agree with them). The new histories of men are not like the old history of men; histories of women continue to be written; the boundary between ‘women’s history’ and ‘gender history’ is not a clearly-defined one, and nor (as this blogger would attest) do these varying approaches exclude each other.

It is impossible to summarise what’s going on in women’s history or gender history right now; it’s just too vast and diverse. Just take a look at the TOCs of some main journals and you’ll soon see what I mean. I think that in my area, early modern social history, there is currently a particular interest in ‘agency’ - exploring the ways in which ordinary women lived their lives within the constraints placed upon them, survived, negotiated with the system for a better deal without rebelling against it - and how ‘practice’ related to ‘prescriptions’. We ask about both ‘experiences’ and ‘meanings’. There have been some marvellous recent studies of early modern English masculinities; of crime and gender; splendid surveys unashamedly about women; and textbooks that make no mention of women or gender in the title at all - but they’re in there.

I’ll leave you some links to explore, anyway.

And feel free to contribute in comments (or indeed to blog about this yourself?)…

… What’s the current state of affairs in your own subject areas? (Period, place etc)
… Thoughts on your own research/teaching practice
… What are your favourite books? Which do you think are the most important, must-read works for people interested in learning more about women in the past and/or about the development of women’s history? I may well put together a bibliography of some kind.
… Favourite online resources and blog posts

………

Gateways and general stuff

BBC Women’s history
SOSIG: Women’s history
History in Focus: Gender
About Women’s history
Women’s history teaching resources

Essays, debates, etc

Myth and memory: old passions, new visions
History, she wrote
The challenge of opinionative assurance
Raising Clio’s consciousness: the writing of women’s history in the US
Integrating men’s history into women’s history: a proposition
Leeds gender studies e-papers
A group of one’s own: filling the gaps in women’s history
To feel a part of history: rethinking the US history survey
Women’s History Review (all issues more than 2 years old are free to access)
Gender as a postmodern category of paralysis (by Joan Hoff)
Unravelling postmodern paralysis
Mistrials and diatribulations: a reply to Joan Hoff
A reply to my critics (Joan Hoff)
Women’s history and poststructuralism
Women’s history: continuity, change or standing still?
History, feminism and gender studies [try archive version if that link doesn’t work]
How did Women’s History Month come about?

Intersections: gender, history and culture in the Asian context
Recovery and revision: women’s history and west Virginia
Gendering modern German history: rewritings of the mainstream
Feminist knowledge (African women’s history)
Feminist history in Japan

Bibliographies, reading lists

Short bibliography
ViVa bibliography of women’s history
Feminist history bibliography
Annotated bibliography of feminist historical theory
Women’s history bibliography

Book reviews

Writing women’s history since the Renaissance
Gender in history
Worlds between: historical perspectives on gender and class

Courses, syllabi

MA in women’s history (Liverpool)
MA in Women’s history (Royal Holloway)
Women’s history, feminist history and gender history (course unit)

… And bloggers!

Women’s History of Philosophy (Siris)
The search for agency (East Asian history) (Muninn)
This one’s for Dr Crazy (student whines spark great discussion), (New Kid on the Hallway)
Women, studying of (The Little Professor)

[Also, don’t forget EMN’s Women/Gender category archive and EMR’s Gender category.]

Someone I didn’t quite manage to fit in during my women’s history week and was reminded of when doing the women writers’ meme the other day, Moll Cutpurse/Mary Frith is fascinating as a figure on the borders between history and myth. There have been many sensationalised and fictionalised versions of her life; the fragments of court records unearthed by historians, documenting her many encounters with the law, can tell a slightly different story - though still a remarkable one.

Moll Cutpurse
Mary Frith otherwise Moll Cutpurse
The Roaring Girl

Wikipedia biography of Mary Frith
The case of Moll Frith: women’s work and the “all-male” stage
Cross-dressing in The Roaring Girl, especially The issues and Historical perspective
Clothing and society in The Roaring Girl

And will the real Mary Frith please stand up?…
Women burglars of the Old Bailey
Women on the early modern stage

Well, hardly ever. But after all, rules is made for broken.*

This is the five early (pre-1800) women authors meme, picked up from Philobiblon…

Already in:

Bardiac’s Starter:
Behn, Aphra - Oroonoko
Christine de Pisan (aka Pizan) - The Book of the City of Ladies
Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love
Locke, Anne (aka Ane Lok, etc) - A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner
Marie de France - The Lais of Marie de France

Dr. Virago:
The Paston Women - The Paston Letters
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe
Anonymous - The Floure and the Leafe (Her reasoning for this is on her blog)
Lady Mary Wroth - Poems

La Lecturess :
Anne Askew - The Examinations of Anne Askew
Mary Sidney - Psalms
Anne Finch - Poems
Katherine Phillips - Poems
Teresa of Avila - Life

Amanda:
Bradstreet, Anne: collected poems
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Fama y obras póstumas
Lanyer, Aemilia: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum
Wroth, Lady Mary: Urania

Medieval Woman:
Trotula - The Diseases of Women
Female Troubador Poets:- La Comtessa de Dia - “A chantar m’er” & other Trobairitz poetry excerpted.
Hrostvitha of Gandersheim (c.930-c.1002) - Plays Gallicanus & Dulcitius

Heo Cwaeth:
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum
Rachel Speght (1597 - Some time after 1621) Mouzell for Melastomus and Mortalities Memorandum
Anna Comnena (1093-1153) The Alexiad
Frau Ava (1060-1127) First named German poetess. “Johannes,” “Leben Jesu,” “Antichrist,” “Das Jüngste Gericht”
Dhuoda (9th century, inexact dates) Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman’s Counsel for Her Son

Philobiblon’s additions:
Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, extracts here and here
Eliza Haywood The History of Miss Betsey Thoughtless (1751)
Chen Tong, Tan Ze and Qian Yi, authors of The Peony Pavilion (1694)
Isabella Whitney, A Letter… in meeter by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her unconstant lover (1567) and A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy (1573)
Elizabeth Elstob, The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (1715).

And I’ll add these for you:

Mary Sidney Herbert, The triumph of death (c.1600) (translation of Petrarch)
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, The atomic poems (1653)
Jane Sharp, The midwives book (1671) (If you have access: Full text from EEBO)
Sarah Fyge Egerton, The female advocate (1686)
Mary Collier, The woman’s labour (1739)

…………

*Except the one about blogging while drunk.

Plenty of history bloggers wrote something about women during Women’s History Month: these are just the ones I’ve noted so far. They’re in no particular order, except that I’ve divided them into posts about women’s/gender history (issues, methods, sources) and posts about individual women. If you know of something I’ve missed, just leave a link in the comments…

Women’s history
Why medieval women writers belong in the canon
Women philosophers in the SEP
Women, stereotypes, 1950s
Feminists, historians, fiction
Sources for women’s history
Researching early modern women online

Sor Juana, 1651?-1695
I like medieval women (especially queens)
All the usual slanders against a queen
Europe’s first professional writer?
Christine de Pizan
Aethelflaed
Chrodield and Basina
Hilda of Whitby
Hrotswith von Gandersheim
A young lady makes a decision
Dr Lamb’s darling
Linda Phillips
Sarah Fyge Egerton
Sarah Throckmorton
Martha Ballard
Judith Leyster
Anne Cranford and Anne Stanbury
The cuckold’s wife
Lizzie Borden
Roman Women’s History Month (first in a series)

Anne Stanbury was charged with theft from Mary Cranford of Hampstead on 30 December 1745. References to pawning, borrowing and credit are (whether true or not!) quite common in thefts of domestic goods involving women.

Anne Cranford [prosecuting]. Anne Stanbury was with me as a Charewoman. Upon the 30th of December when I went up to Bed, I found a Pillow upon my Bed more than my own. I thought she might take it away from her Lodging. I reckon’d upon her coming in the Morning as usual. There were three Boxes of my Grand Mother’s, which she had left in my Care, when my Mother died. When I got up in the Morning, and came to go down Stairs, one of these Boxes was like to fall down: They were up two Pair of Stairs, between two Rooms. One of the Boxes I found uncorded and open’d; then I mistrusted this Anne Stanbury had robb’d me. I went to her Lodgings after her, early next Morning, but she had discharged her Lodgings and had not been home all Night. About the 3d of January I found her in Bunnel-Row. So I asked her how the Pillow came upon my Bed, and why she did not come as usual. My Dear Mistress, she answer’d, I knew I had wrong’d you and I was asham’d to see you. I told her of the Boxes: Indeed, my dear Mistress, says she, I was in Liquor and I uncorded them; but I will tell you what I have done with the Things, And she said, she would go with me to the Pawn-broker and fetch them out, if I would not let the Pawn-broker give her Trouble. So I went the next Morning to one Mr. Kiese’s, Pawn-broker in Cheek-Lane. I went with her to another Pawnbroker, and she called for two Parcels more, at one Sharp’s on Saffron-Hill. Then she said, she had given me all. I told her I could not release her ’till I had seen whether these were all the Things. Then I sent for my Mother; when she came there was nor half the Things. Then I went with her to the Alderman, and she sent to Kiese’s for a Holland Apron, the same Pawn-broker she was at before. Then says she, my dear Mistress, I can tell you of more, but you cannot have them, for I have sold them out-right to a Pawn-broker in the Strand. She often used to say to me, she question’d not, but there were a great many good Things in these Boxes.

Q. You have got part of these Things then?

Anne Cranford . Yes.

Q. (to Mary Cranford of Hamstead.) Have you look’d on these Things that were pawn’d, and in the Custody of your Grand-Daughter?

Mary Cranford . Yes. They are mine, I left them at my Grand-Daughter’s.

Q. How many Boxes were there?

Mary Cranford . Three, and the Goods I have mention’d were in one of these Boxes.

Q. (to the Prisoner.) What have you to say for yourself?

Prisoner. My Mistress us’d to lend me Money, I being under Necessity. My Mistress order’d me to pawn them.

Q. (to Anne Cranford .) She therefore pawn’d these Things at your Desire?

Anne Cranford . No indeed, please you my Lord, I should not have bidden her break these Boxes open; I have, indeed, lent her Money; 10 s. a Week she has had of me.

(Convicted, sentenced to transportation.)

Why they stole: women in the Old Bailey 1779-1789
Clothing, cloth and cloth-theft in Defoe’s England
Crime and law bibliography
Women and crime in early modern Seville

Judith Leyster, ‘Self-portrait’, c.1635

Judith Leyster at Web Gallery of Art
Judith Leyster Online (links to online pictures)
Profile
Wikipedia article
Judith Leyster, lost and found

Women artists of the 17th/18th centuries
History of women artists (wikipedia)
Women and art in the Renaissance

Judith Leyster, ‘A boy and a girl with a cat and an eel’

(And forgot to note that Aussie readers in Sydney can see the self-portrait right now in the major Self-portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary exhibition on until May.)

Martha Ballard was a midwife, healer, mother and diarist in late-18th-century Maine. This was Martha’s week, 220 years ago…

March 27 - April 2, 1786

27
raind Last night, Snowd ys [this] morn. [ye] dam broke ys morn. mr Ballard & Brooks [had] Some uneasyness. I am unwell. Isaac Savage to Breakfast here, had some phisick for his Dafter hannah. ye Northern Light appears this Evinng. Cyrus & Eph[rai]m ointing for ye itch.
28
A frosty morn. I finnisht kniting Cyruss Buskins, the Girls washt. I was Calld to Eliab Shaws at half after 5/O Clock PM, his wife in Travil, & Shee was Safely Delivrd between 6 & 7 of a Son, her 4th Child. I Slept at mr Browks. [in margin: XX Birth. Eliab Shaws Son.XX]
29
I Came home from mr Shaws at 10h / [morn]. mr Cowen & others Brought Loggs to ye mill. I went to See Polly Hamlin, Shee is unwell. old mrs Hardin Sleeps here.
30
mrs Hardin wnt from here. mr Ballard went to attend town meeting. mr Sual Sent a man to attend me to his hous to hear Mr Pother speak. after meeting I went to See mrs Weston. Shee being unwell. I Rode hom, found mrss Becke, Lidia Bisbee, Polly Hamlin & Polly Adams here. Ephm is 7 years old ys day.
31
A Stormy day. Mr Ballard Left home for Sebestakuk. mrs Farly here, says her famely are in Sufering Circumstances. I cardid Tow for Hannah & Dolly to spin.
1
A Cloudy, Cold Day. thee ground frose. I have been at home Carding Tow.
2
it began to Snow at one O Clok ys morn, a tedious Storm till 4 ys afternoon. Mr Ballard not Returnd. Ye Severest Storm we have had this winter.

Midwifery and herbal medicine resources
Pregnancy and childbirth bibliography
Early modern midwives (book review)
Women in early modern medicine
Diaries
The diary network in early modern England

Will of Sarah Throckmorton (from OTDS electronic resources for early modern history).

In the name of God amen, I Dame Sarah Throckmorton of Tyrley alias Trynley in the Countie of Gloucester widdow, late wife of Sir William Throckmorton knight & Baronett, being sick & weake of bodie but of perfect minde and memorie (thanks be given to God) doe make this my last will and Testament in manner and forme following. First I bequeath my soule into the handes of almighty God my maker firmly trusting yt [that] by his mercies & by ye merittes of Jesus Christ the same shalbe eternallie saved & my bodie I committ to be buried in the parish church of Tyrley afor-said. Item I give and bequeath unto my brother Giles Hall the sum of fortie shillinges if he shall come & demand it within six years after my death. Item I give & bequeath unto my sister Hester Knight the wife of Nathaniel Knight the like sum of twenty shillinges. Item I give and bequeath unto my sister Hanna Hall the summe of twenty shillinges. Item I give to my daughter Mary Throckmorton my best gowne, & my best peticoate, together with my cloke & safeguard & pilldon & all other my furniture therunto belonging. Item I give unto my daughter Frances my second best gowne & second best peticoate. Item I give and bequeath unto my brother John Hall the summe of Three pounds whom I make and ordain my Executor (in trust) of this my last will and Testament. Item I doe make my beloved friendes Edmunde Graile of the Cittie of Gloucester gent, and my brother-in-law Nathaniel Knight to be the Overseers of this my last Will and Testament and in recompense of their paines Taken I doe give unto either of them tenn shillinges. All the rest of my monies, goodes and Chattles movable & unmovable (excepting befor given and bequeathed) my debtes and legacies being first paid, and funerall expenses discharged) I give and bequeath to my fower children George, John, Mary & Frances to be equally divided amongst them & if one or more of them shall happen to die befor they be of lawfull age, my will is that all remaine to the survivers. And my will is that the lease of Pancre house & the orchard be sold, and that the remainder of the monie (my brother John Hall & my brother-in-law Nathaniell Knight being discharged from their ingagementes for me) be equally devided amongst my fower children. In wittnesse wherof I have her-unto putt my hand and seale the seventh day of May 1635.

Sarah Throckmorton

Item I give unto my Brother John Hall a Cort cubbort ye best
It. I give & bequeath to my sister Hanna Hall a trunk in the kitchin chamber. …

NB:
“safeguard” - an outer skirt, worn for riding etc
“pilldon” - could be a variant/misspelling of “pillion”, a kind of side-saddle - this would fit with “furniture”, used to refer to a horse’s harness and other trappings

Widows as marginal women in medieval and early modern Europe
Widowhood in medieval and early modern Europe (book review) (and another)
Reading list
Bibliography of medieval and early modern wills and probate inventories
Death and dying in early modern England
Interpreting the probate records of early modern England (book review)

Yesterday, I posted some links to online sources for early modern women. I’ve decided to post examples from those resources for the rest of the week.

First up, from Emory Women Writers’ Resource Project, extracts from Sarah Fyge Egerton, ‘Female Advocate or, an Answer to a Late Satyr Against the Pride, Lust and Inconstancy, &c. of Woman’ (1686). (Apparently she was 14 years old when she wrote the poem.)

To the Reader.

That which makes many Books come abroad into the World without Prefaces, is, the only Reason that incites me to one, VIZ. the Smalness of them; being willing to let my reader know why this is so: For as one great commendation of our Sex, is, to know much, and speak little, so my Virgin Modesty hath put a Period to the intended Length of the ensuing Lines, lest censuring Criticks should measure my tongue by my Pen, and condemn me for a Talkative, by the length of my Poem. Tho’ O confess the illustrious Subject requires (nay commands) an enlargement from any other Pen than mione (or those under the same Circumastances) but I think it is good Frugality for young Beginners to send forth a small Venture at first, and see how that passes the merciless Ocean of Criticks, and what Returns it makes, and so accordingly adventure the next time. …

(more…)

A quick round-up of last month’s posts on things women and gender related.

The International Women’s Day Extravaganza (!)
Anne Bradstreet
Queen Elizabeth I
Susan Owen
Women petitioners
Katherine Phillips
Gluckel of Hameln
Sojourner Truth
Julian of Norwich
International Women’s Day

Women’s History Month
Women’s history and gender history: what and why
Alice Clark, working women’s historian
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
The woman’s labour
Huh? (yep, imaginative and informative title there; it was mostly about early modern ritual cross-dressing as part of a little rant over English insularity/bad popular history)
Sex, yawning and XX

In this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual sight of His homely loving.

I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.

Also in this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little[ness]. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall [last] for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.

In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover, — I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.

It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures and to hold as nought all-thing that is made, for to love and have God that is unmade. For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, wherein is no rest, and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise, All-good. For He is the Very Rest. God willeth to be known, and it pleaseth Him that we rest in Him; for all that is beneath Him sufficeth not us. And this is the cause why that no soul is rested till it is made nought as to all things that are made. When it is willingly made nought, for love, to have Him that is all, then is it able to receive spiritual rest.

Also our Lord God shewed that it is full great pleasance to Him that a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For this is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy Ghost (as by the understanding that I have in this Shewing): God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask anything that is less, ever me wanteth, — but only in Thee I have all.

And these words are full lovely to the soul, and full near touch they the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness comprehendeth all His creatures and all His blessed works, and overpasseth without end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself, and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed love; and all this of His Goodness.

Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1416).

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

Biography
Sojourner Truth Institute

Narrative of Sojourner Truth