1 Day: Overview of Eighteenth-Century Periodical Studies
Powell, Manushag N. “New Directions in Eighteenth-Century Periodical Studies.” Literature Compass, vol. 8, no. 5, 2011, pp. 240–57.
and/or
Ezell, Margaret. “Introduction: Early English Periodicals and Early Modern Social Media Forms.” Early English Periodicals and Early Social Media. Cambridge University Press, 2024, pp. 1-15.
1 Day: Editor OR Author?
*Students answer an anchor question[1] of their choice for each of the selections:
Female Tatler (1709):
“A Lady that Knows Everything” (No. 1, July 8)
“On Poets” (No. 45, October 17)
“People that have an Itch for Scribbling” (No. 41, October 7)
“Arabella’s Day” (No. 67, December 7, 1709)[2]
Tatler (1710):
“The Political Upholsterer Addicted to News” (April 6)
“Antidote for News-Addiction” (May 30)
Spectator: “The Spectator is not a Newspaper” (December 31, 1711)
“On Women Proprietors of Coffeehouses and Shops” (August 28, 1711)
“From the President of the Widows Club” (July 28, 1714)
1 Day- Editor AS Author
Haywood, The Female Spectator
*Students answer an anchor question of their choice for each of these selections
“The Author’s Intent” (Vol 1, No. 1, April 1744)
“Taste” (an exchange between FS and Philo-Natura) [No. 15, June 1745] (Includes: “Letter from Philo-Natura,” “Haywood’s Response to Philo-Natura,” “Haywood’s Response to Mrs. Sarah Old Fashioned,” “Letter from Leucothea,” “Haywood’s Response to Leucothea”) (from “Selections from The Female Spectator by Eliza Haywood.” ed. Patricia Meyer Spacks, OUP, 1999)
1 Day-From Periodical Essay to Magazine: Five Lady’s Magazines by 1770
The Lady’s Magazine; or, the Compleat Library (No.18, October 7, 1738) (on ECCO)
The Lady’s Weekly Magazine (No. 1, February 19, 1747)
The Ladies Magazine; or, the Universal Entertainer (No. 5, December 30, 1749) (on
ECCO)
The Lady’s Magazine; or, The Polite Companion (No. 1, September 9, 1759)
The Lady’s Magazine; or, Entertaining Companion (No. 1, August, 1770) (on ECCO)
Skim each and compare format, style, and types of topics.
Then, answer a different anchor question for three issues to report in class.
6 Total Days: The Magazine as Curriculum:
Lady’s Museum (1760-1)https://ladysmuseum.com/
and
Lennox, Charlotte. Sophia. Ed. Norbert Schürer. Broadview Press, 2008.
• 1 Day: “Introduction,” “Trifler I,” “Of the Studies Proper for Women” “Philosophy for the Ladies,” “To the Author of the Ladies Museum,” “Of the Importance of the Education of Daughters”
*Students answer an anchor question of their choice for each of the selections
• 2 Days: Sophia-students look for connections in content with selections above.
• 2 Days: Imperialism in the Lady’s Museum: “Triflers 2, 3, 5,” “The Original Inhabitants of Great Britain,” “History of the Princess Padmani,” “Philosophy for the Ladies Concluded”
*Students answer anchor questions they have not previously answered.
• 1 Day: “Intellect versus Politeness: Charlotte Lennox and Women’s Minds.” Karenza Sutton-Bennett. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 35, no. 3, July 2023, pp. 375–96.
1 Day: Marketing to and Constructing Gender: A Comparison
Compare using anchor questions:
The Gentleman’s Magazine, or Trader’s Monthly Intelligencer 1779 https://archive.org/details/sim_gentlemans-magazine_1779-09_49_9
and
The Lady’s Magazine; or Entertaining Companion 1779
2 days: Using Periodicals for Publicity: Phillis Wheatley Peters (PWP)
PWP’s Campaign to Publish Poems:
Compare “An Ode of Verses on the much-lamented Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield” (broadside, 1770) (https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2007757 ) with “On the Decease of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield” (Derby Mercury, March 22, 1771)
Compare “On Recollection” and accompanying anecdote in the London Magazine, March 1772, Vol. 41, pp. 134-5 (https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-london-magazine-or-_1772_41/page/n155/mode/2up?view=theater) with the Gentleman’s Magazine September 1773, p. 456
Review the contents of these two magazine issues to consider the context in which readers read PWP poems:
“Hymn to the Morning,” London Magazine, September 1773, p. 456
“To Maecenas” Scots Magazine, September 1773, 484
Full page spread for “This Day was published [Poems]” with biography, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” and “Thoughts on the Works of Providence,” London Chronicle, September 16,1773, p. 277
Final Project: Eighteenth-century readers made commonplace books by cutting out texts from magazines to paste into their own personally designed books that included drawing and writing by the creator and by her or his friends. Create your own commonplace book and write a Critical Introduction that engages with scholars of eighteenth-century periodicals to explain how you ordered the entries and designed your book, as well as what you learned about eighteenth-century magazines, women’s roles, and their similarities or differences with today’s social media.
[1] Potential Anchor Questions:
*What does this piece assume about readers’ gender, class, and culture and does it in some way ask for change?
*Is this piece working in an activist capacity? If so, how?
What comparisons can you make between eighteenth-century magazines and today’s social media?
*What percentage of these articles/an entire magazine offer(s) intellectual rather than moral improvement? In which cases is a piece suggestive about which gender is more interested in one type of improvement over another?
*How does this magazine/article make particular assumptions about its readers’ class, interests, knowledge…what else? Where do we see illusions to trans identity/culture?
*Does the content engage with transgender, intersex (“hermaphrodite” was used but is misleading and stigmatizing) or cross dressing (“transvestite” was used, but is dated and offensive) people?
*How do authors seem to be using magazines to make their own marks on their societies and to imagine, and even prod into existence, a better world? And when they do so, what better world are they imagining?
In courses where the main topic does not lend itself to comparisons with social media, different types of questions could be posed, such as: What does the magazine form offer that other eighteenth-century texts do not?
[2] Annotated editions of “People that have an Itch for Scribbling” and “Arabella’s Day” can be found at:
https://websites.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/female_tatler/issue41.html and https://websites.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/female_tatler/issue67.html
[1] Open access and other subscriber resources include: ECCO, Adam Matthew’s Eighteenth-Century Journals portal, and Archive.org