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Women's Studies
An inter-disciplinary journal
Volume 22, 1993 - Issue 3
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Original Articles

Religious bases of eighteenth‐century feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Quakers

Pages 281-295 | Published online: 12 Jul 2010

Notes

  • Todd , Janet and Butler , Marilyn , eds. 1989 . “ A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ” . In The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, , 7 vols. , 264 – 65 . New York : New York University Press . 5
  • Fell , Margaret . 1666 . Womens Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures London
  • Bevan , Joseph Gurney . 1790 . A Summary of the History, Doctrines, and Discipline of Friends, , 3rd ed. , 14 – 15 . London : Phillips . Later sources include
  • Clarkson , Thomas . 1806 . A Portraiture of Quakerism, , 3 vols. , 256 – 62 . London : Longman . 2
  • Gurney , Joseph John . 1860 . Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, , Edited by: 2nd American from the 7th London . 181 – 89 . New York : Wood .
  • Tuke , Henry . 1805 . The Principles of Religion, as professed by the Society of Christians, usually called Quakers , 84 – 91 . London : Phillips and Farden . Bevan, Gurney, and Tuke were Quakers; Clarkson was not
  • Jones , Rufus M. 1921 . The Later Periods of Quakerism, , 2 vols. , London : Macmillan . The standard history of eighteenth‐century Quakerism is still
  • 1825 . The Life of Mary Dudley , 30 – 31 . London : Arch .
  • Edkins , Carol . 1980 . “Quest for Community: Spiritual Autobiographies of Eighteenth‐Century Quaker and Puritan Women in America,” . In Women's Autobiography, , Edited by: Jelinck , Estelle C. Bloomington : Indiana UP .
  • Schofield , Mary Anne . 1987 . “'Womens Speakingjustified’: The Feminine Quaker Voice, 1662–1797,” . Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, , 6 : 61 – 77 . ; and (most prominently) Felicity A. Nussbaum
  • 1989 . The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth‐Century England , Baltimore : Johns Hopkins UP .
  • 1991 . Women's Studies, , 19 : 223 – 37 . In “Teaching About Gender and Spirituality in Early English Quakerism”
  • Bacon , Margaret H. 1980 . “Quaker Women and the Charge of Separatism,” . Quaker History, , 69 : 23 – 26 .
  • 1991 . "A Quaker Woman on Women's Roles,” . Signs; , 16 : 590
  • 1802 . Extracts from the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London, , 2nd ed. , 116 London : Phillips . From 1782, in
  • 1818 . Epistles from the Yearly Meeting of Friends…from 1681 to 1817, inclusive , 491 London : Graves . From 1797, in
  • 1760 . A Collection of Testimonies concerning Several Ministers of the Gospel Amongst the People called Quakers, Deceased , London : Hinde .
  • Bond , Donald F. , ed. 1965 . The Spectator, , 3 vols. , 198 – 99 . Oxford : Clarendon . 1
  • Boswell's . 1934 . Life of Johnson, , Edited by: Hill , George Birkbeck and Powell , L. F. 6 vols. , 463 Oxford : Clarendon . Johnson from 1763, in, 1
  • 1991 . “'Remarkable Experiences in the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge’: Portraying the Public Woman in Spiritual Autobiography,” . Women's Studies, , 19 : 271 – 81 . Cristine Levenduski argues that in America, at least, the old anti‐Quaker sentiment lingered well into the eighteenth century, in
  • 1804 . Monthly Magazine, , 12 : 14
  • Bage's . 1810 . Man as He is Not; or, Hermsprong , : ii – iii . Introduction to vol. 48 of The British Novelists,
  • 1793 . Monthly Review, , : 297 – 98 . Manas He Is was reviewed in the
  • 1795 . European Magazine, , 28 : 324 (by Thomas Holcroft); the
  • 1796 . Analytical Review, , 24 : 398 – 99 . and the
  • Life of Johnson , 3 284 – 99 .
  • 1791 . The Lady's Magazine, , 22 : 489 – 91 . But later in the century, Mrs. Knowles published her own version in The Gentleman's Magazine (1791) and
  • 1792 . Lady's, , 23 : 141 a letter writer comments that here “the celebrated Samuel Johnson appears to the gratest [sic] disadvantage I have ever known him”
  • Sheils , W. J. and Wood , Diana , eds. 1990 . “Quakerism and Its Implications for Quaker Women: The Women Itinerant Ministers of York Meeting, 1780–1840,” . In Women in the Church, , Studies in Church History no. 27 403 Oxford : Basil Blackwell . For example, Sheila Wright privileges the “original verve and vigour” of early Quaker women's ministry over the “more seemly and ‘quiet’ style” of later “Quaker ladies, for ladies they were,” in
  • Allinson , William J. , ed. 1849 . Memorials of Rebecca Jones , 64 – 67 . Philadelphia : Longstreth . For example, in 1784, a group of women pressed for establishment of a Women's Yearly Meeting (described in Jones, 1:113–118; also, which includes a letter by a man who opposed the change)
  • Janes , R. M. 1978 . “On the Reception of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” . Journal of the History of Ideas, , 39 : 293 – 302 . The Vindication includes only the tiniest hint about the right to vote (217) or to go into business (218–19). Wollstonecraft far more often emphasizes women's “peculiar” (maternal) duties
  • The Works of Mary Wollstonecruft, , 5 33
  • Thomas , D. O. 1977 . The Honest Mind: The Thought and Work of Richard Price , Oxford : Clarendon .
  • 1898 . A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman , 46 – 66 . London : Longmans, Green . Almost a century ago, Emma Rauschenbusch‐Clough traced Wollstonecraft's religious views, although she believed Wollstonecraft had become less religious by the time of the Vindication
  • “Letter on the Character of the French Nation,” . Works , 6 441 – 46 . Others see Wollstonecraft losing faith later, during the Terror, as expressed in her
  • Flexner , Eleanor . 1972 . Mary Wollstonecraft. A Biography , 142 – 45 . 159 – 62 . New York : Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan . As for the Vindication itself, see
  • Mell , Donald C. Jr. , Braun , E. D. and Palmer , Lucia M. , eds. 1988 . “Wollstonecraft versus Rousseau: Natural Religion and the Sex of Virtue and Reason” . In Man, God, and Nature in the Enlightenment, , 65 – 73 . East Lansing, MI : Colleagues Press . Melissa A. Butler sees Wollstonecraft's criticism of Rousseau as fundamentally theological, in
  • Nicholson , Mervyn . 1990 . “The Eleventh Commandment: Sex and Spirit in Wollstonecraft and Maltims,” . Journal of the History of Ideas, , 51 : 401 – 421 . especially 415–18
  • Works , 7 60 62 Necker review from the Analytical, 1789, reprinted in
  • Wardle , Ralph M. , ed. 1979 . Collected letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, , 149 Ithaca : Cornell University Press . letter from
  • Miller , Eugene F. , ed. 1987 . “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” . In Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, , 78 Indianapolis : Liberty Classics . See Hume's essay
  • 1798–1799 . Monthly Magazine , : 5 – 7 . Both the
  • Wilson , Rachel . 1769 . “A Discourse delivered on Saturday, the 10th Day of August, 1769 at the Friends Meeting‐House in Beekman's Precinct [New York]” . 13 16 Newport : Southwrok[?] . Sermons by Quakers were only very occasionally transcribed by a listener for publication; this is the only one I have found by a woman
  • A Vindication of the Rights of Men, . Works , 5 34
  • Eley , Geoff and Hunt , William , eds. 1988 . “The Prophet and Her Audience: Gender and Knowledge in the World Turned Upside Down,” . In Reviving the English Revolution: Reflections and Elaborations on the Work of Christopher Hill, , 139 – 152 . London : Verso . For Quaker vocabulary of the passive vessel, see for example Mary Dudley, pp. 24,27. Phyllis Mack makes a similar distinction between seventeenth‐century Quakers and the more rationalistic Diggers in
  • Ruether , Rosemary Radford . 1990 . “Prophets and Humanists: Types of Religious Feminism in Stuart England,” . The Journal of Religion, , 70 : 1 – 18 .
  • Barker‐Benfield , G. J. 1978 . “Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth‐Century Commonwealth‐woman,” . Journal of the History of Ideas, , 39 : 293 – 302 .
  • Works , 7 350 From a review of A View of England towards the Close of the Eighteenth Century, by Fred. Aug. Wendeborn, reprinted in
  • Hampson's , Daphne . 1990 . Theology and Feminism , Oxford : Basil Blackwell . Mary Daly would represent the first position, Rosemary Radford Ruether the second., is a fine introduction to recent arguments

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