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Bas Bleus, Divorceuses, Deceitful Prostitutes Or “Live Allegories” Of Change? Parisian Working-Class Women And The Revolution Of 1848, Natasha A. Gardonyi

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis acts as both a history of the roles that Parisian working-class women played as writers, society members and insurgents during the revolutionary year of 1848, and an analysis of why they were vilified in the press as bas-bleus, divorceuses, deceitful prostitutes and more extensively as the individuals responsible for the failure of the revolution. It argues that women became “live allegories” of the changes that Paris was experiencing in the first half of the nineteenth century, particularly when a small minority of women radicalized from late April to June. These women galvanized anxieties that men and the upper …