Section I:
Conduct & Politeness
- AvailableSection II:
Domesticity & the Family - AvailableSection III:
Consumption & Leisure
- AvailableSection IV:
Education & Sensibility
- Summer 2006Section V:
The Body
- Summer 2007
Key features

This new online project aims to bring together approximately 60,000 images of original documents, both manuscript and printed materials, including a strong core of document images from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Each image is chosen for its clarity, relevance and quality.

This is structured in five sections, each containing c.10,000 images of original source material. This can then be used as an undergraduate resource and in the classroom and will also direct students towards the much larger resource that exists on microfilm.

Each section features thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Gender Studies. The essays will relate directly to the source material covered by the online publication with approximately fifty hypertext links per essay to documentary evidence. The project offers high quality, meaningful content that academics can readily integrate into their courses. The thematic essays introduce students to the material, suggest possible approaches, and place the documents within a broad historical, literary and cultural context.

The keyword search facility allows users to search by document title, topic, name of individual, organisation or date. All source material in this project is well indexed in this manner.

SECTION I: CONDUCT AND POLITENESS
Consultant Editors:

Dr David Turner, Controlling Bodies Project,
School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Glamorgan
(Conduct and Politeness in the Early Modern Period)

Dr Vivien Jones, School of English, University of Leeds
(Conduct and Politeness in the Eighteenth Century)

Dr Ainslie Robinson, Faculty of Arts, University of Western Australia
(Manners and Conduct in the Nineteenth Century)

There has never been any shortage of advice given to women. How should they behave? How can they fulfil themselves? What counts as fulfilment? The assumptions and goals of conduct literature change over the five centuries covered by this collection. To what extent do these changes inform theories of separate spheres? To what extent do these challenge conventional notions of the development of women during this period? When did notions of modesty, politeness and submissiveness begin? To what extent were these derived from male chivalric codes? What were the expectations placed on young men in terms of civility, gallantry and manners, and to what extent were these fulfilled? The essays and texts featured here explore all of these issues and more. They deal with the behaviour of young women seeking to attract suitors, and differing gender roles in the marriage market. They look at personal conduct as a means of engineering social stability. They look at consumption, sexuality and excess as evils, often associated with the aristocracy, to be overcome.

SECTION II: DOMESTICITY AND THE FAMILY
Consultant Editors:

Professor Toni Bowers, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania
(Domesticity and the Family in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

Professor Christopher Kent, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan
(Masculinity and the Family in the Victorian Period)

Dr Jane Long, Head of Women’s Studies, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Western Australia (The role of the Victorian Mother)

Dr Lisa O’Connell, Department of English, Johns Hopkins University
(Gender, Sexuality and the Family: Women's Writing, Language and Readership in The Lady’s Magazine, 1770-1832)

Section II frames gendered behaviour within the context of the family. How did households evolve over five centuries? Where did the power lie? Was the patriarchal head of the household always in place? The essays and texts explore the position of men within the family. They also look at relations between siblings and the role of women. They look at household management and the control of family budgets. They emphasise the importance of defined roles for all family members, which were all the time being subverted.

SECTION III: CONSUMPTION AND LEISURE
Consultant Editors:

Dr Sara Mendelson, Arts and Social Programme, McMaster University
(Gender Issues and Consumer Behaviour in the Early Modern Period)

Dr Claire Walsh, The Open University
(Gender, Shopping and Consumption in the Eighteenth Century)

Professor Jeremy Black, Department of History, University of Exeter

(Gender and Leisure, 1750-1910, with special reference to the John Johnson Collection of Ephemera, Bodleian Library, Oxford)

Professor Erika Rappaport, Department of History,
University of California at Santa Barbara
(Gender, Shopping, Advertising and Consumer Culture in the Victorian Period)

Section III provides primary source documents to facilitate a gendered approach to topics such as consumption, consumer culture, advertising, leisure, sport and entertainment. The study and analysis of gender, leisure and consumer culture has now become one of the most vibrant areas of social, cultural and intellectual research, transcending history, literature, sociology, education and gender studies programs. This cultural approach has become a focus for many new projects, conference papers, graduate seminars and undergraduate teaching.
To provide contextual help with this complex, but intriguing area, we feature three essays on Gender, Consumer Culture and Behaviour. The other essays cover sport in a domestic and imperial context, and offer a critical examination of gender attitudes to leisure pursuits. There is also material from the John Johnson Collection of ephemera from the Bodleian Library Oxford, which provides insights into many leisure pursuits, such as Cinema, Theatre, Circus, Music Hall, Sport, Tourism, Fairs and Festivals 1750-1910.

A wide range of documents (from the early modern period through to the end of the Victorian and Edwardian era) enable researchers to examine these themes from both a masculine and feminine perspective. How did male behaviour and perceptions of masculinity influence these social activities? How did gender orientation influence consumer and leisure preferences? Who decided? What were men and women most interested in? How were gender roles and preferences perceived? How did public opinion and advertising affect behaviour? What were separate activities for men and women? What tasks were pursued jointly or in consultation? What about unmarried men and women? Many different questions can be explored. Diaries, advice literature, manuscripts, pamphlets, printed works and other sources, which provide strong visual content, as well as social and cultural context are included here to provide illustrations of gender behaviour, preferences, perceptions, and changes over time. These help us define gender, whether it is in terms of shopping, consumer choices, attending the cinema, the music hall or circus, or watching or playing sport.

Original Content included within Section III

John Johnson's collection of ephemera makes up c3,800 images of Section III focusing on:

• Consumer Culture
• Taste in terms of food, drink, fashions, design
• Entertainment (Cinema, Circus, Music, Concerts)
• Leisure Pursuits (e.g. Saloons, Taverns, Fairs, Hunting, Theatre, Opera, Freak Shows)
• Sport
• Pageants
• Seaside Resorts, Spas, Lakes, Holiday Destinations
• Commodities: Coffee, Tea, Silver, Jewellery, Silks, Furniture, Medicine

For the Medieval and Early Modern period:

• Manuscript Account books of Francis Kynnesman, 1690-1703
• Manuscript Receipt books from the Brockman papers, including Anne Glydd recipe book of c1650
• Manuscript Egerton 2214: Medieval and Cookery receipts, 1672-1680

For the Eighteenth Century

• Theatre Periodicals
• Women's Diaries
• Newspapers and Periodicals with material on shopping
• Illustrative material on Entertainments, Shopping, Fashions and Society Life

For the Nineteenth Century

• Women's Travel Journals and Diaries
• Empire Magazines showing the roles of men and women in the Empire
• Material on Gender, Sport and Empire
• Periodicals and Newspapers with material relating to shopping and consumer culture

SECTION IV: EDUCATION AND SENSIBILITY
Consultant Editors:

Dr Martyn Bennett, Department of History, Nottingham Trent University
(Women’s Writing; 1500-1700)

Dr Sarah Winter, Department of English, University of Connecticut, Storrs
(The Education of Men and Women, c.1760-c.1912)

The education of women was always a contentious issue and was linked with the prospect of women gaining employment and independence as a result. There is much on the dangers of reading the ‘wrong sort’ of literature. Rousseau, Wollstonecraft and Edgeworth all advocated a more progressive attitude. Hannah More put her ideas into practice - establishing a school for girls. The education of men is also explored. There are worries that certain teachings will feminize and weaken them. There are also texts exploring the teaching of young men in order to create servants of Empire. The role of sport and physical exercise is seen as being as important as the need to inculcate discipline and respect for order.

SECTION V: THE BODY
Consultant Editors:

Dr Elizabeth Harvey, Department of English, Univerity of Toronto
(Gender, Midwifery and the Body in the Early Modern Period)

Professor Jeanne Peterson,
Department of History & Gender Studies Program, Indiana University
(Gender and the Body, c.1830-1910)

Dr Laura Runge, Department of History, University of South Florida
(Beauty and the Body, 1650-1820)

Dr Cathy McClive, Northern Centre for the History of Medicine, Durham University
(The Body and Gender in Medical Writings, c1700-1830)

Dr Rosemary Betterton, Institute for Women's Studies, Lancaster University
(Art and the Body)

The five contextual essays help us evaluate gendered perceptions of the body and allow comparisons within, and between, different time periods. We include evidence from medical journals, periodical literature, conduct books, printed and manuscript texts. All the documents included in this section enable researchers to study changing views and ideas about the body in literature and history. How did attitudes, behaviour, concerns, discussions, actions and writings on this topic alter over time? This material looks at gender issues in relation to fashion, medicine, midwifery, the mind, different parts of the body, beauty, the body and religion, sex, work, race, appearance and advertising. It also touches upon ground which is of strong interest to people working in a wide range of different academic disciplines, from history, sociology, literature and gender studies to the social history of medicine, psychology, philosophy, religious and cultural studies.

Key Features:

• Undergraduate use of primary sources. This project will feed the demand from students to do more work with primary sources and will plug into the increasing use of computers and the internet in teaching. Given that the access will be by IP recognition and/or password, students will be able to access the material from anywhere on campus.

• A joined-up strategy for library resources. We still believe in books. We still believe in microforms. We also believe in online resources. All of these media provide appropriate solutions for different needs. We will continue to publish microfilm sets covering complete archives which are still the most cost effective way to provide in-depth resources for post-graduates and senior scholars. Our online projects are more streamlined and are suited to classroom use. They introduce undergraduates to the use of primary source materials and point them towards the larger microfilm sets held by libraries.

• Freedom to network. We want the material to be used. We do not want to penalise users by charging prohibitive networking costs. In fact, we do not charge networking costs at all! We are happy for you to use the resource across your entire university system and we can often be persuaded to let you use the resource across an agreed geographical area or co-operative network.

• No subscription charges. Libraries are right to be wary of subscription charges that have the potential to consume future budgets. As such, we charge a straightforward one-off price, or give you the option to pay an agreed amount over a period of several years.
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• Guarantee access until 2015 and archival back-up copies. Technology continues to change, but libraries need to have a guarantee that what they are paying for today will have a reasonable shelf life. We guarantee that any online project that we publish will be maintained and available for at least ten years from the date of publication - if not we will refund a pro-rated percentage of the purchase price. We will also provide libraries with back-up versions of the PDF images and XML data.

• User Protection Licence Agreement. The text of a standard licence agreement covering freedom to network, ten-year access guarantee and one-off payment price is available for perusal on our website. It also covers fair use of print copies for research and course packs, archival back-up copies, support and help files, guaranteed continuous seven days a week access with an average of at least 98% up-time per month. Server capacity and connectivity are to industry standards. This agreement will be renewed automatically with customers every ten years. This online publication has an intuitive MS Windows format with Recall Plus TM software and search engine.