Feminine Public Sphere

Megan Smitley is a former ESRC Post Doctoral Fellow, having attained her PhD in History and Economic and Social History from the University of Glasgow

• Introduction1. The organisations2. The 'feminine public sphere’3. Temperance reform and the 'feminine public sphere'4. The women's movement and female temperance reform5. New views of the women's suffrage campaign: Liberal women and regional perspectivesConclusionAppendicesBibliographyIndex

Smitley's concept of a feminine public sphere is an original contribution to the growing body of work that challenges the ideology of separate spheres sharply divided by gender. Although the involvement of women in public action together with their self-representation has been highlighted before, Smitley makes space for women within the public culture of the civic elite, which urban historians, drawing on the early ideas of Jurgen Habermas, have depicted as male territory.Eileen Janes Yeo, Victorian Studies volume 54, No. 2