Moving Beyond Boundaries:Discovering Georgian Women

What do we know about the Georgian Period?

Activity

What do you know about Georgian Britain? (Guesses are okay! What comes to mind?)

Working in pairs, write 5 things down in 5 minutes.

Georgian Women in the Media

How does the media represent Georgian Women?

What is Advice Literature?

A written piece (usually a book, pamphlet, or article) meant to instruct an individual how to behave, what to wear, etc.

In the case of women in the Eighteenth Century, advice literature was a genre intended to “form” the perfect and ideal woman.

What kinds of things might they have recommended?Do things like this exist today?

Activity

Guessing Game:

Listen to some pieces of advice given to women from various sorts of sources.

Is what you’re hearing from the 21st or 18th century?

Activity

On your posters, describe an “ideal” Georgian woman.

Use pictures, words, mind-mapping, whatever you prefer to get your ideas across!

(10 minutes)

Take a Break!

Activity

Quick-fire Challenge! We’ll present for 5 minutes on a specific topic

that affects the lives of Georgian women.

After our 5 minutes are up, you get to work on your posters for five minutes, responding to

what you just heard.

Get ready, set…!

Home Life

Five Minutes!

What was “real” about a Georgian woman’s

home life?

Write/draw/mind-map on your poster!

Education

Five Minutes!

What was “real” about a Georgian woman’s

education?

Write/draw/mind-map on your poster!

The Wider World

Religion and Politics

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

Mary Bosanquet Fletcher

Elizabeth Fry

Politics

Five Minutes

What was “real” about a Georgian woman’s

interaction with politics and religion?

Write/draw/mind-map on your poster!

Feedback Time

• Have your perceptions about Georgian women changed, and if so, how?

• Did you find anything you learned today surprising?

• How do you think being a woman in the eighteenth century compares to being a woman today?