Contemporary Context
1861 – “Miss Emily Faithfull”
Context
This article, published in The Illustrated London News on November 30, 1861, describes Emily Faithfull’s efforts to found a printing press run and staffed by women. Notably, this essay appeared during a time when popular sentiment about women’s employment was beginning to shift. Of course, women had long been working to earn a living, but many of the avenues open to them were in ‘domestic’ trades—being a servant, laundress, or lacemaker among them. Professions in the “public sphere”—including positions in law, medicine, or the navy, were generally seen as out-of-bounds for women because of a fear that they would neglect their duties to their families. In this article, we can see a distinction between the domestic labor open to women and the so-called “skilled labor” that many felt was unsuitable for women.
If you are interested in reader history, this article may give you a sense of some of the dominant attitudes that a middle-class Victorian woman might face—or challenge—during the late 1850s and early 1860s. Some questions you might consider:
- Are there any moments in this article when the writer seems to be describing Emily Faithfull in particularly gendered ways (masculine or feminine)?
- What strikes you as significant about the arguments in favor of women learning this trade?
- Do you see any common themes arising in the titles of the tracts that her press publishes?
- Are there any attitudes depicted in this article that affect your thoughts about Marian Halcombe’s portrayal in The Woman in White? If so, how do they do so?
Miss Emily Faithfull
This lady, whose Portrait, engraved from a photograph by Mr. Herbert Watkins, we this week present to our readers, is the youngest daughter of the Rev. Ferdinand Faithfull, Rector of Headley, Surrey, where she was born, on the 27th of May, 1836. Although she is only in her 26th year, she has for some time led a life of active public usefulness, and has already laid the foundation of an establishment the social importance of which it is difficult to overrate.
When the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women was established, in August, 1859, she became a member of the first committee, and she subsequently acted as secretary and superintended the practical working of the society. Early in the year 1860 the council of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science appointed a committee to “consider and report to the council on the best means which the association could adopt to assess the present movement for increasing the industrial employment of women.” The members of this committee were the Right Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Hon. A. Kinnaird, M.P., Mr. E. Ackroyd, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Horace Malin, Mr. W. S. Cookson, Mrs. Jameson, Miss Parkes, Miss Adelaide Proctor, Miss Bouchet, Miss Craig, and Miss Emily Faithfull.[1]
As the labors of the committee proceeded it became evident to all the members, but especially to Miss