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In literature and social activism, Victorian women used gift exchanges to establish kinship and political alliances. In
Giving Women, Jill Rappoport argues that through intimate gifts, they achieved both personal and public agency, mobilizing networks outside of marriage and the market to advance legal, scientific, and religious reforms.
List of contents
- INTRODUCTION
- I. Women Giving
- II. Gifts of Writing
- III. Organization of the Book
- PART I Balanced Accounts
- CHAPTER 1 Literary Offerings
- I. Benevolent Books, Receptive Readers
- II. Gifts of Freedom
- III. Alliance and Exchange
- CHAPTER 2 Fictions of Reciprocity in Jane Eyre and Aurora Leigh
- I. Jane's Inheritance
- II. "An[other] Undowered Orphan"
- III. Blind Economies
- CHAPTER 3 Conservation in Cranford:
- Sympathy, Secrets, and the First Law of Thermodynamics
- I. The Science of Giving
- II. Secrets in Circulation
- PART II Much Obliged
- CHAPTER 4 The Price of Redemption in "Goblin Market"
- I. Sisterhood "Beyond the Reach of Any Remuneration"
- II. Lizzie's Silver Penny
- III. The Safest Investments
- CHAPTER 5 Service and Savings in the Slums
- I. "Lower Still": Sacrifice and Sistering the Slums
- II. Cupboards, Chairs, and Conversion
- III. "Coming Down" in order to Rise Up: Risk and Asset
- IV. Writing the Slums
- CHAPTER 6 The Give and Take of "New-Woman" Eugenics
- I. Consuming Women, Selfish Mothers
- II. Bio-Altruism
- III. The Sacrifice of Motherhood
- EPILOGUE Homemade Jams and Militant Martyrs:
- Politics of Generosity in Campaigns for Women's Suffrage
- I. Appealing for the Vote
- II. Dying for the Vote
- III. A Politics of Generosity
- WORKS CITED
About the author
Jill Rappoport is Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky.
Summary
In literature and social activism, Victorian women used gift exchanges to establish kinship and political alliances. In Giving Women, Jill Rappoport argues that through intimate gifts, they achieved both personal and public agency, mobilizing networks outside of marriage and the market to advance legal, scientific, and religious reforms.
Additional text
Giving Women is scrupulously researched, with abundant use of archival materials, cogently argued, and beautifully written. Its impressive breadth and range will make it essential reading among literary, historical, and feminist scholars of the period.
