# Bluestocking

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Term for an educated, intellectual woman

For other uses, see [Bluestocking (disambiguation)](/source/Bluestocking_(disambiguation)).

1778 painting of the [Blue Stockings Society](/source/Blue_Stockings_Society)

1815 caricature of bluestockings by [Thomas Rowlandson](/source/Thomas_Rowlandson)

**Bluestocking** (also spaced **blue-stocking** or **blue stockings**) is a term for an educated, [intellectual](/source/Intellectual) woman, originally a member of the 18th-century [Blue Stockings Society](/source/Blue_Stockings_Society) from England led by the hostess and critic [Elizabeth Montagu](/source/Elizabeth_Montagu) (1718–1800), the "Queen of the Blues", including [Elizabeth Vesey](/source/Elizabeth_Vesey) (1715–1791), [Hester Chapone](/source/Hester_Chapone) (1727–1801) and the [classicist](/source/Classics) [Elizabeth Carter](/source/Elizabeth_Carter) (1717–1806). In the following generation came [Hester Lynch Piozzi](/source/Hester_Lynch_Piozzi) (1741–1821), [Hannah More](/source/Hannah_More) (1745–1833) and [Frances Burney](/source/Frances_Burney) (1752–1840).[1] The term now more broadly applies to women who show interest in literary or intellectual matters.[2]

Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes.[3] It was later applied primarily to intellectual women and the French equivalent *bas bleu* had a similar connotation.[4] The term later developed negative implications and is now often used in a derogatory manner.[*[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)*] The reference to blue stockings may arise from the time when woollen [worsted](/source/Worsted) [stockings](/source/Stocking) were informal dress, in contrast to formal, fashionable black silk stockings.[*[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)*] The most frequent such reference is to a man, [Benjamin Stillingfleet](/source/Benjamin_Stillingfleet), who reportedly lacked the formal black stockings, yet participated in the Blue Stockings Society.[5][6] As Frances Burney, a Bluestocking, recounts the events, she reveals that Stillingfleet was invited to a literary meeting by Elizabeth Vesey but was told off because of his informal attire. Her response was "don't mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!".[7]

## History

The [Blue Stockings Society](/source/Blue_Stockings_Society) was a literary society led by [Elizabeth Montagu](/source/Elizabeth_Montagu) and others in the 1750s in England. Elizabeth Montagu was a social anomaly in the period because she took possession of her husband's property when he died, allowing her to have more power in her world.[8] This society was founded by women, and included many prominent members of English society, both male and female, including [Harriet Bowdler](/source/Harriet_Bowdler), [Edmund Burke](/source/Edmund_Burke), [Sarah Fielding](/source/Sarah_Fielding), [Samuel Johnson](/source/Samuel_Johnson), and [Frances Pulteney](/source/Frances_Pulteney).[9] *[M.P.](/source/M.P._(opera))*, an 1811 [comic opera](/source/Comic_opera) by [Thomas Moore](/source/Thomas_Moore) and [Charles Edward Horn](/source/Charles_Edward_Horn), was subtitled *The Blue Stocking*. It contained a character, Lady Bab Blue, who was a parody of bluestockings.

A reference to bluestockings has been attributed to [John Amos Comenius](/source/John_Amos_Comenius) in his 1638 book, where he mentioned ancient traditions of women being excluded from [higher education](/source/Higher_education), citing the [Bible](/source/Bible) and [Euripides](/source/Euripides).[*[clarification needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify)*] That second reference, though, comes from Keatinge's 1896 translation and is not present in Comenius's Latin text.[a] The name may have been applied in the 15th century to the blue stockings worn by the members of the *[Compagnie della Calza](/source/Compagnie_della_Calza)* in [Venice](/source/Venice), which then was adopted in Paris and London; in the 17th century to the [Covenanters](/source/Covenanter) in [Scotland](/source/Scotland), who wore unbleached woollen stockings, in contrast to the bleached or dyed stockings of the more affluent. In 1870 Henry D. Wheatley noted that Elizabeth Montagu's coterie were named "blue stockings" after the blue worsted stockings worn by the naturalist [Benjamin Stillingfleet](/source/Benjamin_Stillingfleet).[b]

[William Hazlitt](/source/William_Hazlitt) said, "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society...she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her".[10]

## Recent use

In Japan, the literary magazine [*Seitō*](/source/Seit%C5%8D_(magazine)) (also known by its translated title *Bluestocking*) was launched in 1911 under the leadership of [Raichō Hiratsuka](/source/Raicho_Hiratsuka). It ran until 1916, providing a creative outlet and political platform for [Japanese feminists](/source/Feminism_in_Japan) even as it faced public outcry and state [censorship](/source/Censorship).[11]

Founded in 2008 at [Oxford University](/source/University_of_Oxford), *Bluestocking Oxford* is a feminist magazine that publishes fortnightly profiles on women's intellectual and artistic achievements throughout history. The magazine was revived in 2023 and it has since expanded to host intellectual discussion events in a traditional salon format at [Christ Church](/source/Christ_Church%2C_Oxford).[12] Since 2024 the Editor in Chief has been Olivia Hurton,[13] author, poet and London theatre critic, who has edited the letters of original Bluestocking hostess, Elizabeth Montagu. The magazine's patron is renowned historian [Lady Antonia Fraser](/source/Antonia_Fraser).[14]

## Notes

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Comenius cites Euripides' tragedy *Hippolytus*, where Hippolytus says, "I detest a bluestocking. May there never be a woman in my house who knows more than is fitting for a woman to know", to which Comenius answers: "These opinions, I opine, stand in no true opposition to our demand. For we are not advising that women be educated in such a way that their tendency to curiosity shall be developed, but so that their sincerity and contentedness may be increased, and this chiefly in those things which it becomes a woman to know and to do; that is to say, all that enables her to look after her household and to promote the welfare of her husband and her family." John Amos Comenius (1633–1638), *Didactica Magna (The Great Didactic, translation by M. W. Keatinge, London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896)*, p. 220

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** 'Benjamin Stillingfleet, the celebrated naturalist, who is described by [Thomas] Gray as living in a garret in order that he might be able to support some near relations, died at his lodgings opposite to Burlington House on 15 December 1771 at the age of sixty-nine. It was his blue worsted stockings that gave the name "blue stocking" to the ladies of Mrs Montagu's coterie.' Henry D. Wheatley, *Round About Piccadilly And Pall Mall*, London: Smith Elder (1870), p. 42.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Tinker, 1915.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["Bluestocking | British literary society"](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bluestocking-British-literary-society). *Encyclopedia Britannica*. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Carol Strauss Sotiropoulos (2007), [*Early Feminists and the Education Debates: England, France, Germany, 1760–1810*](https://books.google.com/books?id=80e-gY-4VY8C&pg=PA235), p. 235, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-8386-4087-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8386-4087-6)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** [Hannah More](/source/Hannah_More) (1782), *The Bas Bleu, or, Conversation*

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** [James Boswell](/source/James_Boswell), *The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, Comprising A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; And Various Original Pieces of His Composition; With a Chronological Account of His Studies and Numerous Works*, p. 823

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** Ethel Rolt Wheeler, *Famous Blue-Stockings*, p. 23

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Wills, Matthew (4 April 2019). ["The Bluestockings"](https://daily.jstor.org/the-bluestockings/). *JSTOR Daily*. Retrieved 26 April 2020.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Beckett, J. V. "Elizabeth Montagu: Bluestocking Turned Landlady." Huntington Library Quarterly 49, no. 2 (1986): 149–64.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** Louis Kronenberger, *Kings and Desperate Men*, p. 75

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** Elizabeth Eger (2010). [*Bluestockings: women of reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism*](https://books.google.com/books?id=LFomAQAAMAAJ). Palgrave Macmillan. p. 206. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780230205338](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780230205338).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** S. L. Sievers (10 November 1998), ["The Bluestockings"](https://books.google.com/books?id=nGSQjPqD-X4C&pg=PA276), *Meiji Japan*, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-415-15618-9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-415-15618-9)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** [https://cherwell.org/2024/04/25/theyre-side-notes-in-history-in-conversation-with-bluestocking-oxford/](https://cherwell.org/2024/04/25/theyre-side-notes-in-history-in-conversation-with-bluestocking-oxford/)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** [https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/olivia-hurton](https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/olivia-hurton)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** [https://blue-stocking.org.uk/about-us/patrons/](https://blue-stocking.org.uk/about-us/patrons/)

## Further reading

- Burns, William E. "Bluestockings 18th and 19th centuries" in *Reader's Guide to British History* (2003). [online](http://www.credoreference.com/entry/routbrithistory/bluestockings_18th_and_19th_centuries)

- Heller, Deborah. "The Bluestockings and Virtue Friendship: Elizabeth Montagu, Anne Pitt, and Elizabeth Carter." *Huntington Library Quarterly*, vol. 81 no. 4, 2018, p. 469-496.

- [Demers, Patricia](/source/Demers%2C_Patricia). *The World of Hannah More* (University of Kentucky Press, 1996)

- Myers, Sylvia Harcstark. *The Bluestocking Circle: Women, Friendship and the Life of the Mind in Eighteenth-Century England* (Oxford University Press, 1990)

- Robinson, Jane. *Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education* (Penguin, 2010)

- Tinker, Chauncey Brewster (1915). [*The salon and English letters: chapters on the interrelations of literature and society in the age of Johnson*](https://archive.org/details/salonandenglish03tinkgoog). Macmillan. full text online

- ["Bluestocking"](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Bluestocking). *[Encyclopædia Britannica](/source/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_Eleventh_Edition)*. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 91.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Bluestocking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestocking) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestocking?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.