Research Catalog

Title

Stolen daughters, virgin mothers : Anglican sisterhoods in Victorian Britain / Susan Mumm.

Author

Mumm, Susan, 1961-

Publication

London ; New York : Leicester University Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 304 pages; 24 cm

Summary

• This book is the first real study of the social history and cultural significance of the sisterhoods which sprang up in Victorian Britain. It looks at those women who abandoned the domestic sphere to become the precursors of the modern social worker, while pushing back the boundaries of what women could do within the structures of the Anglican Church.
• Based upon years of research into the archives of twenty-eight religious communities, the book has a unique breadth of coverage which offers a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the movement than has previously been possible. Above all, it shows that the sisterhoods were not refuges for women who failed to find husbands, rather, they attracted women who were moulding careers. They became so successful in recruiting women and attracting publicity that, by the 1860s, they threatened to undermine the hegemony of the ideal of the domestic life as the proper sphere for women.

Subject

• Church of England > History > 19th century
• Church of England
• 1800-1899
• Monasticism and religious orders for women > Anglican Communion > History > 19th century
• Monasticism and religious orders for women > Anglican Communion
• Nonne
• Anglikanische Kirche
• Anglicaanse Kerk
• Nonnen
• Victoriaanse tijd
• Vrouwenkloosters
• Geschichte 1832-1902
• England > Church history > 19th century
• England
• Großbritannien

Genre/Form

• Church history.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 268-299) and index.

Contents

pt. I. Overview : -- 1. 'Those Wicked Nuns': The Forgotten Story of the Sisterhood Movement -- pt. II. The Reality of Sisterhoods : -- 2. 'The Eager Life Here Just Suits Me': The Attractions of Convent Life for Victorian Women -- 3. 'A Free Person in a Community of Equals': The Government and Daily Life of Sisterhoods -- 4. 'We have Heads and Hands': Sisterhood Work among the Urban Working Class -- pt. III. Popular Perceptions of Sisterhoods : -- 5. 'They will not Obey': The Clerical Response to Sisterhoods -- 6. 'A Bombshell to Public Opinion': Popular Perceptions of Sisterhoods in Victorian Britain -- Conclusion: 'A Field Wider than Private Life': The Place of Anglican Sisterhoods in Victorian History -- Appendices : -- 1. Anglican Sisterhoods Established 1845-1900 -- 2. Parental occupations listed in profession rolls -- 3. The case of a single-order community : the Community of St Mary the Virgin, Wantage -- 4. Clothing and profession rates in two communities -- 5. Rates of growth in the first 25 years after founding : selected communities -- 6. Professions by decade : 1840s-1890s -- 7. Attrition in communities -- 8. CRJBS : convent account for 1906 -- 9. The sisters of the church : principal works, as reported to Archbishop Bension in 1894

ISBN

• 0718501519
• 9780718501518
• 0718502698
• 9780718502690

LCCN

97034291

OCLC

• ocm37432856
• 37432856
• SCSB-577286

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library