Women's History Commons^™

Privilege, Power, And Patronage: Examining The Lives And Afterlives Of Three Tudor Noblewomen, Caroline Elizabeth Armbruster

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation uses the lives of Catherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk; Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset; and Jane Guildford, Duchess of Northumberland to examine various aspects of their experiences as noblewomen and as members of privileged family groups. By focusing on these three women, whose lives and careers spanned eight decades, this dissertation demonstrates the centrality of such women to Tudor politics. Catherine, Anne, and Jane were born into powerful, landowning families. Their successful marriages allowed them to climb the ranks of the Tudor aristocracy and paved the way for their entry into the Tudor political arena. They served as …

The Englishwoman’S Domestic Magazine’S Influence On Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class Women, Amber Cook

History Undergraduate Theses

Depictions and study of women’s fashion from mid-nineteenth-century England have largely focused on upper-class women and suffragettes. The purpose of this research is to highlight another group, middle-class women, and their fashion choices through analysis of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. This magazine not only gave fashion advice and instruction but guided middle-class women’s choices on what materials to purchase and where to purchase them. The fashion columns steered women into building a new middle-class identity that was unique and set them apart from the extravagant upper class.

By examining the articles printed in the magazine I was able to …

Transnational Nationalists: Cosmopolitan Women, Philanthropy, And Italian State-Building, 1850-1890, Diana Moore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Transnational Nationalists: Cosmopolitan Women, Philanthropy and Italian State-Building, 1850-1890” is a study of Protestant and Jewish transnational reforming women who took advantage of a period of fluidity to act as non-state actors and impact Italian unification and liberation, a process known as the Risorgimento, and subsequent Italian state-building. Inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini’s spiritual brand of romantic cosmopolitan nationalism, as well as Giuseppe Garibaldi’s military campaigns, and believing that women had a god-given duty to provide education, morality, and uplift to oppressed groups, they worked to provide Italy not only with physical unification but also moral regeneration. Through an examination of …

The Shifting Dynamics Of Midwifery In Urban Seventeenth-Century England, Virginia E. Taylor

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Midwives have been unfairly represented in contemporary studies about the profession in urban Early Modern England. Midwives were actually quite intelligent and capable women beyond their skills in the environs of the birthing chamber. These women contributed significantly to their surrounding community in public and private spheres from the birthing chamber to the courts of law. Most urban midwives were highly skilled and knowledgeable in their craft based upon their many years of hands-on education in comparison to the university and book-learned preparation of male-midwives or physicians. These trained women were also literate and openly defended their profession against the …

Anne Boleyn: Living A Thousand Lives Forever, Amanda S. Nicholson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Writers and historians from earlier centuries imagined Anne Boleyn as a villain; a forward and evil woman intent on destroying Henry VII and his image. Modern accounts have been more accommodating, offering that she was misunderstood due to the constraints of the times. In an attempt to discover the historical Anne, I will be comparing and contrasting how she has been perceived in fiction and non-fiction literature, and will examine how the perception of Anne has shifted through time.

Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that with the rise of the middle-class, Victorian England saw the development of a power model in which middle-class men, middle-class women and disenfranchised bodies of children and lower-class women suffered from the demands of bodily domination. Because the bodily health of middle-class men was believed to represent national health, it was imperative that he dominate his body, particularly with regard to sexual urges. Consequently, the bodies of women with whom he sought sexual release suffered from forms of bodily domination as well. Through an analysis of journals and private writings of those living in Victorian England, …

Finding The Witch’S Mark: Female Participation In The Judicial System During The Hopkins Trials 1645-47, Shannon M. Lundquist

Departmental Honors Projects

Between the years of 1645 and 1647 in East Anglia, a series of witch trials known as the Hopkins Trials took place. In all, 250 witches were accused and 100 hanged. The ability to convict a person of the crime of witchcraft relied heavily on evidence which was hard to come by given the nature of the crime of witchcraft. Tangible proof of an intangible crime was needed; this came in the form of witch’s marks. To the learned population, marks were a symbol of the witch’s covenant with the devil. To the lay person, they were called ‘teats’ and …

Changing Magic : Evolving Conception Of Witchcraft In Essex County, Elizabeth Kiel Boone

Honors Theses

In 1579, a court in Essex, England arraigned thirteen-year-old Thomas Lever for acting as an assistant to William Randall, a conjurer suspected of leading a group of male witches. The court claimed young Thomas “mixed potions and was familiar with all [of Randall’s] workings.”1 Yet for Raphael Holinshed, the commentator on the trial, the case was unique only in the age of the defendant. Holinshed gives a stark example of a common view of the witch trials by noting “That her Majesty is sore oppressed by these witches and devil- mongers is now common knowledge, but that a child should …