For her eyes only:
Nineteenth-century ladies’ newspapers
Introduction
The nineteenth century witnessed the rise of newspaper titles created with a ‘new’, or rather, previously untapped audience in mind: women. Increasingly, editors recognised an opportunity to market magazines and newspapers exclusively to female readers for the first time. This blog explores several titles available in the Social History Archive that pioneered this sector of the press, sourced from the British Library.
English newspapers for elite women
The Lady’s Newspaper was one of the earliest publications produced for an exclusively female readership in England. Published in London, it ran between 1847 and 1863, albeit subject to various name changes as it merged with other titles (including The Lady’s Newspaper: with which is incorporated the Pictorial Times and The Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times).
Its opening issue from 2 January 1847 stated that its mission was to make women ‘acquainted with all the leading events of the day, without fatiguing or disgusting you with lengthy disquisitions’. This proposition seemingly empowered women by placing them at the centre of the publication’s rationale and by bringing news and current affairs, often outside of the traditional sphere devoted to women, to the forefront. However, it was still underpinned by the idea that women could not or would rather not be presented with ‘painful details’, ‘heart-rending particulars’, or ‘dull speeches’, which were deemed more appropriate for other publications.
The newspaper’s opening statement also reflected the prevalent nineteenth-century standards of female domesticity and gender roles, discussing the ‘decadence of English mothers’, which this publication aimed to ‘help remedy’, as shown by the extract below.
The Lady’s Newspaper provided a combination of practical advice, features on fashion, needlework patterns, serialised fiction, cultural events, current affairs, and political analysis. The heterogeneity of this publication is exemplified in the page below, with articles ranging from ‘Hints to Young Mothers’, ‘England and its Parliament’, and ‘The Duke of Buckingham’s Estates’, all while including illustrations of London’s latest fashion trends. This publication progressively evolved away from current affairs into more domestic matters, finally merging in 1863 with The Queen.1
This pioneering title was followed by the appearance of The Lady’s Own Paper, published between 1866 and 1872; The Gentlewoman, between 1880 and 1926; and The Mother’s Companion, between 1887 and 1896. All of these publications had in common that they were written with women at the centre of their focus and were met with incredible success, so much so that this genre of publication soon extended beyond England.
The Lady of The House
One of Ireland’s most significant titles for elite women was The Lady of The House. This publication’s mission, stated in its opening issue on 1 September 1890, was to address the ‘long-felt want’ of high-class Irish women for a journal ‘solely devoted to fashion, the beautifying of the home and person, scientific cookery, the toilet, the wants and amusements of children, the garden and conservatory, and the hundred-and-one matters which interest educated women’. Like its English counterparts, this title aimed to provide a female-only readership with topics of interest, with a particular domestic focus.
Among the many fascinating insights into Victorian daily life and the advice provided to the female audience of this publication is the cover of the December 1919 issue, in which the opening heading reads: ‘One Day in Bed: The oldest, newest, least expensive medicine for tired nerves and tired bodies’. This captivating article claimed that ‘lying in bed for a day now and then is a high adventure, fraught with immense restorative possibilities’,2 and was accompanied by a charming illustration encouraging readers not to shy away from using plenty of pillows and detailing the ideal position to spend a day in bed, shown below.
Interestingly, this over-a-hundred-year-old advice echoes the concept of ‘bed-rotting’, a term popularised by Gen Z and recently added to the online repository Dictionary.com as ‘relating to or engaged in the practice of spending many hours in bed during the day as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress’.3 Moreover, the benefits (and detriments) of ‘bed-rotting’ or ‘spending one day in bed’, using The Lady of the House’s own words, have been explored in recent years in the lifestyle section of national publications such asThe Guardian and Mirror.4
This connection highlights not only the valuable insights provided by nineteenth-century newspapers for historians of daily life, gender studies, and cultural and social history, offering glimpses into Victorian culture and the health advice directed at women, but also how they can often provide poignant connections to the present as well.
Conclusion
Nineteenth-century ladies’ publications provide researchers and academics with a valuable window into a wide array of topics crucial for exploring and understanding Victorian culture and society. They shed light not only on themes such as fashion, daily life, and current affairs but also on the discourse of femininity and the topics deemed of interest to a feminine audience, reinforcing and creating gender roles and expectations of domesticity. This series is particularly significant not only to historians but also to scholars studying the development of press culture and audiences, and is the result of our longstanding partnership with the British Library and British Newspaper Archive.
Footnotes
- (1)HMD Newspapers: Lady’s Newspaper’, British Library, https://blogs.bl.uk/files/ladys-newspaper-history.pdf, accessed 22 January 2025; Rose Staveley-Wadham, ‘Hot Off the Press – New Titles This Week’, British Newspaper Archive, 22 July 2019,https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2019/07/22/22-july-2019-new-titles/, accessed 22 January 2025.
- (2)‘Lady of the House’, 15 December 1919, The Social History Archive, https://www.thesocialhistoryarchive.com/image-viewer?issue=BL%2F0004836%2F19191215&page=14&article=042&stringtohighlight=one+day+in+bed, accessed 21 January 2025.
- (3)‘Bed rotting’, Dictionary.com, 2024, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bed-rotting, accessed 22 January 2025.
- (4)‘Bed rotting: why is it time to embrace your quilt –without the guilt’, The Guardian, 5 June 2023,https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/05/bed-rotting-why-it-is-time-to-embrace-your-quilt-without-the-guilt, accessed 22 January 2025; Eva Wiseman, ‘Forget the beach bod and embrace “bed rot”’, The Guardian, 9 July 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/09/forget-the-beach-bod-and-embrance-bog-man, accessed 22 January 2025; Charlotte Smith, ‘Bed rotting trend can cause stroke, high blood pressure, obesity and depression’, Mirror, 7 November 2024,https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/bed-rotting-trend-can-cause-34060796, accessed 22 January 2024.
Author
Dr Paula Del Val Vales is Editorial Associate at the Social History Archive. With a background in women’s history, comparative studies, and archival research, she is responsible for the curation of thematic collections at the Social History Archive.