{{Short description|Defunct feminist magazine}} {{Infobox magazine | title = Shafts | logo = | logo_size = <!-- default is 180px --> | image_file = Shafts 1(1), 1892.png | image_size = | image_alt = | image_caption = Cover of ''Shafts'' issue 1 (November 1892) | editor = Margaret Sibthorp | category = Feminism | frequency = Weekly, monthly, bi-monthly | format = | circulation = | publisher = | paid_circulation = | unpaid_circulation = | circulation_year = | total_circulation = | founder = Margaret Sibthorp | founded = | firstdate = {{Start date|1892|11}} | finaldate = {{End date and age|1899|10}} | finalnumber = | country = United Kingdom | based = | language = English | issn = | eissn = | oclc = }}
'''''Shafts''''' was an English feminist magazine produced by Margaret Sibthorp from 1892 until 1899. Initially published weekly and priced at one penny, its themes included votes for women, women's education, and radical attitudes towards vivisection, dress reform, women's control of their sexuality, child care, and vegetarianism.
==History== thumb|Cover of ''Shafts'' issue 8 (December 1892)
The first issue of ''Shafts'' was published in November 1892.{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=1|ps=none}} It was founded and edited by Margaret Sibthorp and was initially funded by an anonymous friend.{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|pp=5–6|ps=none}} By June 1893, however, Sibthorp had begun to appeal to readers for financial support. Owing to a lack of funds, ''Shafts'' became a monthly publication in 1893, having initially been published weekly. Sibthorp was forced to downsize the magazine's London offices near the Strand—which had once been the location for women's classes, lecture courses and meetings—to a single room, before relocating to her home in suburban West Hampstead in 1895.{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|pp=6–7|ps=none}}
In 1898 the frequency of publication was slowed from monthly to bi-monthly, and in 1899, following an announcement that it would henceforth become quarterly, ''Shafts'' ceased publication altogether,{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=6|ps=none}} with the final issue being published in October.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Sibthorp |first=Margaret |date=October 1899 |title=October–December 1899 |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/shafts.-oct-dec-1899/145721 |magazine=Shafts |volume=7 |issue=3}}</ref> The magazine's decline has been attributed to Sibthorp's refusal to follow the emerging {{"'}}New Journalism' formula of information, gossip and entertainment", which led to ''Shafts''' loss of readers to competing publications.{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=6|ps=none}}
''Shafts'' was sold for one penny and was targeted towards lower-middle class women. Most of the magazine's correspondents and contributing writers—with Sibthorp as a notable exception—were published under pseudonyms.{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=7|ps=none}}
==Content== ''Shafts'<nowiki/>'' themes included votes for women, women's education, and "radical" attitudes towards vivisection, dress reform, women's control of their sexuality, child care, and vegetarianism.{{sfnp|Brake|Demoor|2009|pp=568–69|ps=none}} In 1897, in the regular section titled "What the Editor Means", Sibthorp described the magazine's mission:<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Sibthorp |first=Margaret |date=January 1897 |title=What the Editor Means |magazine=Shafts |volume=5 |issue=1 |page=[https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/shafts.-jan-1897/144964 1]}}</ref><blockquote>The aim of ''Shafts'' is to awaken thought; to induce people to ask why, to question—Is the condition of things I see around me right and just? Is this that I have believed, spiritually, morally, socially, the truth? Am I justified in remaining content with this or that, because my grandparents and parents saw no harm in it, or is it my duty to look into my light, and if I find it but dim, to search humbly and determinedly for a truer and brighter light by which to study my daily tasks?</blockquote>It published literary criticism, including works about Shakespearean characters, feminist poetry, and book recommendations for young women.{{sfnp|Youngkin|2007|p=25|ps=none}} Sibthorp was a member of the Theosophical Society, which was reflected in ''Shafts''' extensive coverage of occult and psychical topics.<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Hall |first=Lesley A. |contribution=Sibthorp, Margaret (1835/6–1916) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004 |edition=online |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57831 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/57831 |accessdate=9 October 2012}} </ref> As noted by Claudia Nelson in her book ''Invisible Men'', ''Shafts'' "offered little factual reportage" and instead largely consisted of opinion pieces, correspondence columns, short stories, and poetry.{{sfn|Nelson|2010|p=214}}
In an August 1893 editorial, Sibthorp stated that ''Shafts''' purpose was to promote knowledge amongst women: "that women must first ''know'' all things, ere they can judge of an evil, or any proposed remedy for an evil".{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=4|ps=none}} Articles and editorials encouraged women to pursue "an education that might emancipate them from patriarchal assumptions".{{sfnp|Beaumont|2006|p=8|ps=none}} Kate Flint notes in her book ''The Woman Reader, 1837–1914'', that ''Shafts'' was one of few feminist periodicals at the time that promoted the furthering of women's rights through education in traditionally male-oriented domains, rather than through protection and control.{{sfnp|Youngkin|2007|p=20|ps=none}}
The cover of ''Shafts'' depicted a woman with a bow shooting an arrow ("shaft") labelled "wisdom", "truth" and "justice".{{sfnp|Youngkin|2007|p=1|ps=none}}
==References==
===Citations=== {{reflist|30em|refs=}}
===Bibliography=== {{refbegin}} *{{citation |first=Matthew |last=Beaumont |title=Influential Force: Shafts and the Diffusion of Knowledge at the Fin de Siècle |year=2006 |journal=Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century |volume=19 |issue=3 |url=http://www.19.bbk.ac.uk/index.php/19/article/viewFile/449/309}} *{{citation |editor1-last=Brake |editor1-first=Laurel |editor2-last=Demoor |editor2-first=Marysa |contribution=Shafts (1892–1899) |title=Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism |year=2009 |publisher=Academia Press |isbn=978-90-382-1340-8}} *{{citation |title=Invisible Men: Fatherhood in Victorian Periodicals, 1850–1910 |last=Nelson |first=Claudia |year=2010 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-3711-1}} *{{citation |last=Youngkin |first=Molly |title=Feminist Realism at the Fin de Siècle: The Influence of the Late-Victorian Woman's Press on the Development of the Novel |publisher=Ohio State University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8142-1048-2}} {{refend}}
== External links ==
* ''[https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/documents?filter_21=Shafts&applyState=true Shafts]'' archive at the LSE Digital Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Shafts}} Category:1892 establishments in the United Kingdom Category:1899 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Category:Bi-monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Defunct feminist magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Defunct English-language magazines Category:Feminism in England Category:Magazines disestablished in 1899 Category:Magazines established in 1892 Category:Magazines published in London Category:Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Weekly magazines published in the United Kingdom Category:Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom Category:Dress reform