Blue Stockings Society

Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who, due to his financial standing, did not dress for the occasion as formally as was customary and deemed “proper”, in consequence appearing in everyday, blue worsted stockings.

The society gave rise to the term “bluestocking”, referred to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation rather than fashion,[1] and, by the 1770s, came to describe learned women in general.

During this period, only men attended universities, whereas women were expected to master skills such as needlework and knitting: it was considered “unbecoming” for them to know Greek or Latin, almost immodest for them to be authors, and certainly indiscreet to admit the fact.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld, a member of the club, was merely the echo of popular sentiment, contrary to the general opinion of the Blue Stockings, when she protested that women did not want colleges.

[5] There are scattered early references to bluestockings including in the 15th-century Della Calza society in Venice, John Amos Comenius in 1638, and the 17th-century Covenanters in Scotland.

[6] The Blue Stockings Society had no membership formalities nor fees, and conducted small to large gatherings in which talk of politics was prohibited but literature and the arts were of main discussion.