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Research topic:bluestocking

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bluestocking

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition

bluestocking derisive term originally applied to certain 18th-century women with pronounced literary interests. During the 1750s, Elizabeth Vesey held evening parties, at which the entertainment consisted of conversation on literary subjects. Eminent men of the day were invited to contribute to these conversations. Hannah More , Elizabeth Montagu , and Elizabeth Carter , among others, continued this tradition. Boswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, states that these "bluestocking clubs" were so named because of Benjamin Stillingfleet, who attended in unconventional blue worsted stockings rather than the customary black silk stockings. In time the name bluestocking was applied solely to women of pedantic literary tastes.


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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press

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bluestocking
bluestocking • backing , blacking, packing, sacking, tracking, whacking • ranking , spanking •nerve-racking...politicking • liking , Viking • self-cocking , self-mocking, shocking, stocking •stonking • bluestocking • Hawking •sleepwalking • ... Read more
bluestocking
bluestocking an intellectual or literary woman. The term is recorded from the late 17th century and was originally used to describe a man wearing... Read more
Bluestocking
...ordinary worsted stockings he was wearing at the time. The word bluestocking came to be applied derisively to a woman who affects literary or learned interests. Bluestocking Bluestocking Bluestocking Read more
bluestocking
blue·stock·ing / ˈbloōˌstäki ng / • n. often derog. an intellectual or literary woman. Read more
Bourke‐White, Margaret
...and successful photojournalists, Margaret Bourke‐White remains a controversial figure. Born in New York City to a bluestocking mother and an engineering‐inventor father, Bourke‐White married in her teens, divorced, took up photography... Read more

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