‘Women in Conference’: Reading the Correspondence Columns in Woman 1890–1910

Abstract

To date it has been extremely difficult to establish anything very tangible about the real readers of nineteenth-century popular periodicals (see Ellegård, 1957). Archival resources, such as company records or subscriber lists are scarce, if not non-existent, and few biographies or memoirs mention such ephemeral reading matter as women’s weeklies. The publication of names and addresses of readers participating in Woman’s weekly competitions offers a unique, if limited, research tool. Exhaustive work on several hundred names has to date resulted in the following information: names and addresses would appear to be genuine; certain names appear regularly and over extended periods of time. Woman’s claim to be read by the middle- and upper-class woman seems to be upheld during the 1890s, although by the 1900s there is evidence of a shift away from the more affluent areas of London, and the emergence of many ‘care of addresses implies a downward swing in social class of the readership. This information, however, represents only one section of the readership and so it must be treated with caution. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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