Sacred to Female Patriotism

Missing from much of the scholarship on 18th century British politics is recognition of the extensive participation of aristocratic women. Fortunately, as a literate and self-conscious group, these women created and preserved vast manuscript collections now available to historians. In Sacred to Female Patriotism, Judith S. Lewis taps into these sources to demonstrate how the social and political worlds of Georgian Britain interacted to give women an influential voice in politics that was previously unimagined. The result is a lively, powerful, and important story that challenges many of our comfortable stereotypes of the past while providing us with a better understanding of 18th century electoral politics in general.

Judith Lewis is an Associate Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Introduction 1. The Political Agronomy of the Nation 2. The Ruinous Genius 3. All Those Ties and Obligations 4. The Ornament of Society 5. No More Than Woman 6. Reform Thyself Conclusion