American Studies Commons^™

“A Very Dangerous Talent”: Wit For Women In Hannah Webster Foster's The Boarding School, Yvette Piggush

English Faculty Publications

Hannah Webster Foster's eighteenth-century novel The Boarding School shows how conduct literature and the republican culture of politeness create gender expectations for women's humor in the early United States. Foster teaches readers about the social effects of wit and guides them in using satire and irony to influence public opinion.