{{Short description|Social and educational movement}} {{Use British English|date=January 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}} [[File:Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel.jpg|thumb|1778 painting of the society's members, including [[Anna Letitia Barbauld]], [[Elizabeth Carter]], [[Elizabeth Griffith]], [[Angelica Kauffmann]], [[Charlotte Lennox]], [[Catharine Macaulay]], [[Elizabeth Montagu]], [[Hannah More]] and [[Elizabeth Ann Sheridan]]]]
The '''Blue Stockings Society''' was an informal women's social and educational movement in [[England]] in the mid-18th century that emphasised education and mutual cooperation. It was founded in the early 1750s by [[Elizabeth Montagu]], [[Elizabeth Vesey]] and others as a literary [[discussion group]], a step away from traditional, non-intellectual women's activities. Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher [[Benjamin Stillingfleet]], who, due to his financial standing, did not dress for the occasion as formally as was customary and deemed "proper", in consequence appearing in everyday, blue [[worsted]] stockings.
The society gave rise to the term "[[bluestocking]]", referred to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation rather than fashion,<ref name=Schnorrenberg>{{Cite ODNB |first=Barbara Brandon |last= Schnorrenberg |title=Montagu, Elizabeth (1718–1800)|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/19014}}</ref> and, by the 1770s, came to describe learned women in general.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Bluestockings Circle |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2008/brilliant-women/the-bluestockings-circle |publisher=National Portrait Gallery, London |access-date=4 June 2023|quote=While the term 'bluestocking' was first associated with the intimate social groupings that met at the salons of Montagu, Vesey and Boscawen, by the 1770s the name came to apply to learned women more generally. This larger eighteenth-century resonance, which is investigated in the next section of the exhibition, stands testament to the high profile that bluestockings achieved in an age when women had few rights and little chance of independence.}}</ref>
==History== [[File:II Lansdown Crescent, Bath, Somerset, UK 2.jpg|thumb|right|The centre house, 16 [[Royal Crescent]], Bath, was used as a residence and to host Blue Stockings Society events by [[Elizabeth Montagu]]]]
The Blue Stockings Society of England emerged in about 1750, and waned in popularity at the end of the 18th century. It was a loose organization of privileged women with an interest in education to gather together to discuss literature while inviting educated men to participate. Led and hosted by [[Elizabeth Montagu]] and [[Elizabeth Vesey]], the women involved in this group generally had more education and fewer children than most Englishwomen of the time. During this period, only men attended universities, whereas women were expected to master skills such as [[needlework]] and [[knitting]]: it was considered “unbecoming” for them to know Greek or Latin, almost immodest for them to be authors, and certainly indiscreet to admit the fact. [[Anna Laetitia Barbauld]], a member of the club, was merely the echo of popular sentiment, contrary to the general opinion of the Blue Stockings, when she protested that women did not want colleges. She wrote, “The best way for a woman to acquire knowledge is from conversation with a father, or brother, or friend.” However, by the early 1800s, this sentiment had changed, and it was more common to question “why a woman of forty should be more ignorant than a boy of twelve”,<ref name="CareyAndHart">{{cite news |last=Smith |first=Sydney |date=1810 |title=Female Education |url=https://archive.org/details/worksofrevsydney00smitrich/page/79 |work=Edinburgh Review}}</ref> which coincided with the waning of the Blue Stockings’ popularity.
[[File:Breaking up of the blue stocking club. - estampe - Rowlandson Del. - btv1b108441879.jpg|thumb|1815 caricature of the Blue Stockings Society by [[Thomas Rowlandson]]]]
The group has been described by many historians and authors (such as Jeanine Dobbs)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dobbs |first1=Jeannine |title=The Blue-Stockings: Getting It Together |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |date=Winter 1976 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=81–93 |doi=10.2307/3346172 |jstor=3346172}}</ref> as “having preserved and advanced [[feminism]]” via the advocacy for [[Female education|women's education]] and the social complaints regarding women's status and lifestyle in their society, as seen and exemplified in the writings of the Blue Stockings women themselves:
{{Blockquote|In a woman's education little but outward accomplishments is regarded ... sure the men are very imprudent to endeavor to make fools of those to whom they so much trust their honour and fortune, but it is in the nature of mankind to hazard their peace to secure power, and they know fools make the best slaves.|[[Elizabeth Montagu]]<ref name="Schnorrenberg"/> 1743}}
The name “Blue Stockings Society” and its origins are highly disputed among historians.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news |title=Origin of the Blue-Stockings |work=The New York Times |date=17 April 1881 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623141454/https://www.nytimes.com/1881/04/17/archives/origin-of-the-bluestockings.html |archive-date=2018-06-23 |url-status=live |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1881/04/17/archives/origin-of-the-bluestockings.html}}</ref> There are scattered early references to [[bluestocking]]s including in the 15th-century ''Della Calza'' society in [[Republic of Venice|Venice]], [[John Amos Comenius]] in 1638, and the 17th-century [[Covenanter]]s in Scotland. The society's name perhaps derived from the European fashion in the mid–18th century in which black stockings were worn in formal dress, while blue stockings were daytime or more casual wear, emphasizing the informal nature of the club’s gatherings. Blue stockings were furthermore very fashionable for women in [[Paris]] at the time. Alternatively, many historians claim the term for the society was coined when [[Elizabeth Vesey]] first advised [[Benjamin Stillingfleet]], the aforementioned learned gentleman who had distanced himself from higher society and did not have clothes suitable for an evening party, to “come in [his] blue stockings”. Stillingfleet became a frequent and popular guest at the Blue Stockings Society gatherings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bebbington |first=William George |title=An English Handbook |publisher=Schofield & Sons Ltd |location=Huddersfield |year=1962 |edition=6th |pages=252–3 |chapter=Blue-Stocking}}</ref>
There are several sources linking Stillingfleet to the blue stocking appellation. Samuel Torriano uses the sobriquet ''blew stocking'' for Stillingfleet in 1756<ref>{{citation|title=Letter from Sam Torriano to Elizabeth Montagu|date=13 November 1756|url=https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p16003coll18/id/12789|quote=[[Messenger Monsey|Monsey]] swears he will make out some story of you and [[Benjamin Stillingfleet|him]] before you are much older; you shall not keep blew stockings at Sandleford for nothing.|access-date=15 May 2025|archive-date=11 May 2025|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250511070118/https://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p16003coll18/id/12789|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> and Elizabeth Montagu refers to his ''blue stockings'' in 1757.<ref>{{Citation | quote = I assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off his old friends, and his blue stockings and is at operas and gay assemblies every night;|publisher=Matthew Montagu|title=The Letters of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu|date=1825|page= 116 |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersmrseliza02montgoog/page/n126/mode/2up?q=stillingfleet+blue+stockings&view=theater}}</ref> This letter also suggests that by that time he may have stopped attending her soirees. He died in 1771 and in 1881 [[Samuel Johnson]] has to remind his friends of the origin of the Blue-Stocking Club name and the role of Stillingfleet.<ref>{{citation|title=The Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD |year=1791 |author=James Boswell |url=https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-life-of-samuel-johns_boswell-james_1791_2/page/392/mode/2up?q=blue+stockings&view=theater |quote=These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs, the origin of which title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was Mr. Stillingfleet, whose dress was remarkably grave, and in particular it was observed, that he wore blue-stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be said, “We can do nothing without the blue-stockings ; and thus by degrees the title was established.}}</ref> Later [[Edward Boscawen|Admiral Boscawen]]<ref>{{citation|title=An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D |year=1791 |author= William Forbes |url=https://archive.org/details/accountoflifewri01forb/page/210/mode/2up?q=stocking&view=theaterq=blue+stockings&view=theater |quote=Mr Stillingfleet being somewhat of an humourist in his habits and manners, and a little negligent in his dress, literally wore grey stockings, from which circumstance, Admiral Boscawen used, by way of pleasantry, to call them the " Blue-Stocking Society ;" as if to indicate, that when these brilliant friends met, it was not for the purpose of forming a dressed assembly. A foreigner of distinction hearing the expression, translated it literally, " Bas bleu," by which these meetings came to be afterwards distinguished}}</ref> and Mrs Vesey.<ref>{{citation|title=Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, Vol I |year= 1842 |editor= Charlotte Barret |url=https://archive.org/details/diarylettersofma01burn/page/632/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Vesey |quote=Mrs Vesey was the lady at whose house the celebrated ''bas bleu'' meetings of the time were first held ; and indeed with her the phrase itself is said to have originated. It is related that, on inviting Mr. Stillingfleet to one of her literary parties, he wished to decline attending it, on the plea of his want of an appropriate dress for an evening assembly. "Oh — never mind dress," said she; "come in your blue stockings !" — which he was wearing at the time. He took her at her word, and on entering the room, directed her attention to the fact of his having come in his ''blue stockings'' ; and her literary meetings retained the name of ''bas bleu'' ever after.}}</ref> would separately be credited with the first mention of the name.
==Purpose== The Blue Stockings Society had no membership formalities nor fees, and conducted small to large gatherings in which talk of politics was prohibited but literature and the arts were of main discussion. Learned women with interest in these educational discussions attended as well as invited male guests. Tea, biscuits and other light refreshments would be served to guests by the hostesses.
''[[The New York Times]]'' published an article on 17 April 1881, a century after the events in question, which describes the Blue Stockings Society as a women's movement combatting the “vice” and “passion” of gambling, the main form of entertainment at higher society parties. “Instead however, of following the fashion, Mrs. Montagu and a few friends Mrs. Boscawen and Mrs. Vesey, who like herself, were untainted by this wolfish passion, resolved to make a stand against the universal tyranny of a custom which absorbed the life and leisure of the rich to the exclusion of all intellectual enjoyment... and to found a society in which conversation should supersede cards.”<ref name="nyt"/>
Many of the Blue Stockings women supported each other in intellectual endeavours such as reading, artwork, and writing. Many also published literature. For example, author [[Elizabeth Carter]] (1717–1806) was a Blue Stockings Society advocate and member who published essays and poetry, and translated the works of [[Epictetus]]. Literature professor Anna Miegon compiled biographical sketches of these women in her ''Biographical Sketches of Principal Bluestocking Women''.<ref name="Miegon"/>
==Notable members== {{Columns-list|colwidth=22em| *[[Anna Laetitia Barbauld]] *[[James Beattie (poet)|James Beattie]] *[[Frances Boscawen]]<ref>{{cite odnb |first=Elizabeth |last=Eger |date=2004 |id=47078 |title=Boscawen, Frances Evelyn (1719–1805)}}</ref> *[[Henrietta Maria Bowdler]]<ref>{{cite odnb |first=M. Clare |last=Loughlin-Chow |date=2004 |id=3028 |title=Bowdler, Henrietta Maria [Harriet]}}</ref> *[[Edmund Burke]] *[[Frances Burney]] *[[Elizabeth Carter]] *[[Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland]] *[[Hester Chapone]] *[[Mary Delany]] *[[Sarah Fielding]] *[[David Garrick]] *[[Samuel Johnson]]<ref>Boswell's ''Life of Johnson'', ed. G. B. Hill (1887), vol. IV, p. 108</ref> *[[Catharine Macaulay]]<ref name=Miegon>{{cite journal |last=Miegon |first=Anna |title=Biographical Sketches of Principal Bluestocking Women |journal=The Huntington Library Quarterly |volume=65 |issue=1/2 |date=2002 |pages=25–37 |jstor=3817729}}</ref> *[[Elizabeth Montagu]]<ref name="Schnorrenberg"/> *[[Hannah More]] *[[Amelia Opie]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johns |first1=A. |title=Bluestocking Feminism and British-German Cultural Transfer... |date=2014 |publisher=University of Michigan |page=173 |isbn=9780472035946 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u_MXBAAAQBAJ&dq=Amelia+Opie+blue+stocking+society&pg=PA173 |access-date=4 June 2023 |quote=....Amelia Opie and Mary Wollstonecraft herself...}}</ref> *[[William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath]]<ref>{{cite odnb |first1=Stuart |last1=Handley |first2=M. J. |last2=Rowe |first3=W. H. |last3=McBryde |date=2004 |id=22889 |title=Pulteney, William, earl of Bath}}</ref> *[[Clara Reeve]]<ref name="Miegon"/> *[[Joshua Reynolds]] *[[Sarah Scott]]<ref name="Miegon"/> *[[Catherine Talbot]]<ref>{{cite odnb |first=Rhoda |last=Zuk |date=2004 |id=26921 |title=Talbot, Catherine}}</ref> *[[Hester Thrale]] *[[Elizabeth Vesey]] *[[Horace Walpole]] *[[Anna Williams (poet)|Anna Williams]] *[[Mary Wollstonecraft]] }}
==Modern play== ''Ladies'', a play by [[Kit Steinkellner]], is a fictional account of four members of the Blue Stockings Society, and their impact on modern-day feminism. It had its world première at [[Boston Court Pasadena Theatre Company|Boston Court Pasadena]] in [[Pasadena, California|Pasadena]], [[California]] in June 2019, with direction by [[Jessica Kubzansky]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bostoncourtpasadena.org/events/ladies/ |title=Ladies |website=Boston Court Pasadena |accessdate=17 June 2019}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Nuttall|title=Blue-stocking}}
==Further reading== ;Primary Sources *Kelly, Gary. ''Bluestocking Feminism: Writings of the Bluestocking Circle, 1738–1790''. London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999. {{ISBN|9781851965144}}
;Studies
*Clarke, Norma. ''The Rise and Fall of the Woman of Letters''. London: Pimlico, 2004. {{ISBN|9780712664677}} *Eger, Elizabeth. ''Bluestockings Displayed: Portraiture, Performance and Patronage, 1730–1830''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0521768801}} *Eger, Elizabeth. ''Bluestockings: Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. {{ISBN|9781137018472}} *Eger, Elizabeth. ''Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings''. New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|9781855143890}} *Gibson, Susannah. ''The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women's Movement''. London / New York: Hachette / Norton, 2024. {{ISBN|9781529369991|9780393881387}} *Johns, Alesa. ''Bluestocking Feminism and British-German Cultural Transfer, 1750–1837''. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014. {{ISBN|9780472035946}} *Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. ''The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. {{ISBN|978-0198117674}} *Pohl, Nicole and Betty A. Schellenberg. ''Reconsidering the Bluestockings''. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library Press, 2004. {{ISBN|9780873282123}} *Tinker, Chauncey Brewster. "The Bluestocking Club". ''The Salon and English Letters''. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1915. 123–183. at [https://openlibrary.org/books/OL13498264M/The_salon_and_English_letters Open Library]
==External links== *[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b045c0h9 In Our Time The Bluestockings] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20141220013228/http://www.katelynludwig.com/masters/ Reinventing the Feminine: Bluestocking Women Writers in 18th Century London] *[http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-blu1.htm Details on origin of term] at World Wide Words *[http://www.faculty.umb.edu/elizabeth_fay/archive2.html Bluestocking Archive] *[http://www.bartleby.com/221/1502.html Mrs. Vesey, Cambridge History of English and American Literature] *[http://www.npg.org.uk/live/wobrilliantwomen.asp Brilliant Women exhibition] at the [[National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom)|National Portrait Gallery]] *[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/07/22/the-bluestockings-susannah-gibson-book-review Essay, as review of Susannah Gibson's book] by [[Margaret Talbot]] in the ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'', July 22, 2024<ref>{{Cite news |last=Talbot |first=Margaret |date=2024-07-22 |title=The Original Bluestockings Were Fiercer Than You Imagined |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/07/22/the-bluestockings-susannah-gibson-book-review |access-date=2024-07-20 |work=The New Yorker |pages=60–64 |language=en-US |volume=100 |issue=21 |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>
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[[Category:18th century in England]] [[Category:1750s establishments in England]] [[Category:Organizations for women writers]]