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Samuel Beeton - Founder and Creator of the "Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine"

The History of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was established in an age where most literary pieces revolved around men. This often would cause women to have a lack of interest in reading, since there were rarely ever any women. This opposition to reading all changed in 1812, when Samuel Beeton created the magazine with the help of his wife, Isabella. Together they published magazines that appealed to a female audience, which included a large array of topics such as taste, home, fashion, and many more

Sam Beeton’s magazine was extremely successful in targeting women, specifically the younger middle-class. He achieved this success by filling the magazine with a plethora of topics that struck the interest of women of the era. The main topics included general news, correspondence with readers, French fashion plates, dressmaking paper patterns, designs for fancy-work, recipes, novels, and articles relating to topics of employment, education, as well as divorce and marriage (Diamond 6). The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazines success gave way for several other magazines. Some examples of these magazines included, “The Boy’s Own Magazine,” “Le Moniteur de la Mode, ”“The Queen,” and “The Young Englishwoman” (Diamond 6). Aside from the magazine’s immense success, some readers were slightly bothered with some sections, in particular the “feminist” aspects. This was due to the fact that feminists usually have a more radical view of their place in society. Women who read the magazine would get irritated with being associated with feminism issues. Another aspect of the magazine that caught the attention of readers was the monthly essay competitions. These competitions allowed women the opportunity to send in an essay on a set topic. One of the most frequent winners of these was Maria Susan Rye.

Maria Susan Rye was a woman who consistently wrote for the Beeton’s magazine. She often raised women’s issues including employment opportunities and married women’s property (Diamond 7). This caught the attention of a feminist group, the “Langham Place Group,” which was a well known feminist group during this era (Diamond 8). This group was inspired by Maria’s writings in the magazine about employment opportunities and married women’s property and began the “English Woman’s Journal” (Diamond 7). Maria wrote for both the journal and the magazine and supported herself through her writings. In her writings, a common theme she brought up was the idea of domesticity. This topic included subtopics such as how people live and work, lifestyle, manners, food, clothing, building styles, account of wages and prices, and technological changes in agriculture, industry, transport, and warfare through the years (Diamond 9). She wrote for the magazine up until 1866.

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine came to an end in 1866 when Sam Beeton became bankrupt. He was forced to sell his journals and copyrights due to the Overend, Gurney & Co financial crisis (Moja). Aside from the sad ending to Beeton’s magazine, it was very influential during this time period and attracted attention from those that appreciated Maria Susan Rye’s debate on women’s issues, bridged the gap between women and feminist groups, and allowed for women to finally have literature that was specifically for them (Diamond 13).

Corseting and Fashion in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine

The Englishwoman’s Magazine was considered an essential tool for any Victorian woman looking to fit into society and keep up with the times, especially in terms of fashion. Beeton even followed up The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine with other journals, some specifically on Victorian fashion. Titled “Le Moniteur de la Mode” and “The Queen” (both appearing in 1861), these stand-alone journals emphasized what was already made very important in the EDM. The Magazine was also used as a way for readers to write in and explain their own lives and remedies for problems in their own homes. It could be used as an encyclopedia of information, a correspondence between readers, and a place for women to share their thoughts on everyday issues such as tight-lacing and stays. In fact, this discussion of corsets and tight-lacing is one of the most prevalent conversations that the EDM wished to explore.  Tight-lacing was used as a way to enhance a women’s figure, as it gradually tightened her waist to make it smaller over time.  Some women would even sleep in their corsets in hopes of being able to tie it tighter in the morning. The EDM had a correspondence column called, “The Corset Correspondence” and, “under Ward, Lock and Taylor publishment, the two columns “Cupids Letter-Bag” and “Englishwoman’s Conversazione” were combined into “The Conversazione””. The editors “decided to create some detached volumes about the themes due to the profit that this topic brought in. The Corset and the Crinoline (later republished as The Freaks of Fashion) and a History of the Rod”. The EDM had slowly evolved into an empire of information for Victorian women. This empire, however, did spark some controversy, especially in terms of fashion and the pressures it put on women to look a certain way in a society obsessed with appearances. Corsets had become all the rage. Yet, young girls, sometimes under the age of ten, were forced to tighten their waists before puberty hit them. For instance, “The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine of September 1872 included a patter and sketch for a garment called baby’s stays, which were not boned but all too often were tied very tightly”. In a sense, these young girls were no more than babies themselves, hence the name. “L. Thompson, a correspondent in the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, not only recommended putting young girls in stays at an early age, but suggested that it was actually the common practice: ”It is seldom that girls are allowed to attain the age of fourteen or fifteen before commencing stays. The great secret is to begin their use as early as possible, and no…severe compression will be requisite. It seems absurd to allow the waist to grow large and clumsy, and then reduce it again to more elegant proportions by means which must at first be more less productive of inconvenience””. The idea was to inhibit proper growth of a girl’s body so as to minimize the possibility of growing into an improper body type for the time period. As previously discussed, the EDM was used as a correspondence paper where readers could send in their thoughts on the hot topics of the day. This issue of corseting girls and the health (mental and physical) problems it could create was a constant discussion point. “In 1867 an innocent letter from a mother worried about the use of corsets in her daughter’s school sparked a long discussion, in which the connection between tight-lacing, torture and pleasure was made explicit. Right when the “corset correspondence” ended, a more sadistic subject rose, concerning the habit of whipping to control female servants and girls”.  Furthermore, “a letter, which started the long discussion of tight-lacing, came from a mother complaining that she had left her “merry, romping girl” in a “large and fashionable boarding school near London” when she went abroad. On her return four years later she saw a “tall pale young lady glide slowly in with measured gait and languidly embrace me”; her absurdly small waist explained her change in demeanor”. The need to be accepted as ‘beautiful’ by society greatly outweighed the need to be healthy in the Victorian Era, and the corsets were a major factor in this mindset.

The Ideology of Domesticity: Regulation of the Household Economy in the Victorian Women's Magazine

Between the 1820s-1860s, the ideology of domesticity demonstrated the rise of womanhood. This created a prevailing value system differentiating among the upper and middle classes during the 19th century. This had a huge impact on the way of life in the role of women, especially in their own homes. During this time, women in particular were heavily portrayed upon doing household duties as society of that era asserted that it was the only job they had. The idea of domesticity became so pervasive during the Victorian period in literary and representational practices. [1] The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine also emphasized women in every aspect. Kay Boardman, the author of this volume, wanted to represent women and how life was portrayed during that era.

[2] This exhibits that the leadership role was prevalent in the female society as it was their duty to complete their household work. The Englishwoman's Domestic magazine has been a neglected source of much interesting material on this topic.

Different periodicals portrayed a different approach to this issue. Alongside the EDM, there were also other magazines that demonstrated issues relating to household economy and domesticity. Relating to this, periodicals include, The Mother’s Magazine, The Mother’s Treasury, The British Mother’s Magazine, The British Workwoman, and The Ladies’ Treasury aimed at targeting women for their duties. [3] All these magazines shared the same ideology of maintaining the division of work and home by inscribing woman as the center of the home, the supreme domestic sphere.

Domestic Responsibility and the Regulation of the Household Economy was ideally more difficult for poorer people to maintain. [4] [5] The home was the main priority to be maintained by the women. [6] This entailed the ‘choice of homework’ rather than ‘housework’ in the title is significant, especially through the implicit assumption that it is more useful for girls to learn domestic economy than to have a formal education. [7]. [8] As mentioned before, the idea of domesticity was important during the Victorian period as it symbolized what women are professed to do. Although the EDM neglected material on this topic, it still provided a basis on feminism and how women are supposed to pursue a traditional representation of how a woman is meant to be at home. The domestic sphere, which was a social phenomenon, depicts the roles of men and women of their duties during that time. The ideology of domesticity was significant as it showed the differences between the upper and middle class sector. Even still today, society deems that women should just stay at home while men make the money; however, times are different now than how it used to be.

“Taste”: How to Achieve and Maintain as Described by the Magazine

Catalogue of E. Butterick & Co's patterns for summer, 1871 New York

EDM emphasizes the importance of taste as a defining feature in middle class homes, as well as a physical and aesthetic response based in class significance. By a definition, taste was thought of as an aesthetic, a social judgement, that created a sense of what’s appropriate, harmonious, and beautiful in the Victorian lifestyle. Much of the principle of taste was based in the decoration of the home, and one’s physical surroundings. Taste was aimed to make explicit the ways that aesthetic informed the physical. The magazine claims that the best way to achieve this sense of taste was through routine, both domestic and industrial. Routine was inherently English, modern, and moral. According to the magazine, these ideals of routine in patterning establishing a sensory response in the body were at once forcefully asserted and unstable. The goal was to establish a healthy routine to promote tastefulness that would be of essential value to middle class femininity.

Taste was based in the decoration of the home. The individuals working with the EDM believed that the physical surroundings in the home would be “insensibly internalized.” Examples of routines that individuals could cultivate that the magazine claimed would improve taste or tastefulness were sewing and patterning. Patterns in particular were an idea of taste equating to social virtue and sensory experiences. Working on patterns imprinted reactions that changed perception, and routines were instilled in the body through training of sensory responses. Patterning was a way of doing and being, and it was a formula for producing objects and training the senses. Being “tasteful” was not necessarily a fully sensed experience- it was as much denying sensation as it was recognizing a response. It could be noted through the heightening of all five senses, or the denial of any at all. Taste, according to the magazine, relied on turning sensing into feeling.

The aspect of the development of taste was a cultural category tied to the affective and moral values that underpinned class rather than market driven changes in fashion.Both sewing and patterning were modern and moral, in the sense that patterning did not promote self expression for the women taking it up. Mechanical patterns were thought to be better than ones that needed close attention or thought from the woman. Working on certain patterned heightened certain senses; therefore, the magazine chose patterns to put in their issues that had valuable meaning. Taste was accused of being materialistic, and the EDM refuted this by claiming that it was fundamental to middle class English identity. The magazine even went so far as to state that through pattern working, the reader could become noticeably middle class. As mentioned previously, the shift of taste as a sensory experience to a sensory control was something that the EDM exemplified. Class status, familial affect, and national identity within the senses of taste increased the magazine’s knowledge of taste.

The Husband and Wife Behind The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine

The name Mrs. Beeton is generally associated with the writings of fashion in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. However before she married Mr. Beeton, an editor from London and the owner of the magazine, she was Isabella Mary Mayson. She was born March 14th 1836. She was the oldest of 21 children. As the oldest, she was responsible for taking on the role of a caregiver for her 20 younger siblings. Especially so after her father died. Her mother eventually remarried to a man named Henry Dorling. He was a businessman in Epsom, which required Isabella’s entire family to move to him. Inevitably she left Epsom for the Heidel Institute in Germany. It is here that she found her love of pastry making, a topic that would one day frequent The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. Mrs Beeton exercised her prowess in pastry making as well as childcare in the magazine, as they were topics that she lived as well as knew well.

Around the same time she met Samuel Orchart Beeton, the man she would eventually marry and run The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine with. At the time that they met, Samuel was an editor in London. He had accomplished a few achievements as an editor at this time, including editing the first British reprint of Stowe’s The Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Boy’s Own Magazine. Samuel and Isabella married in 1856, forming The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine’s leading couple.

Isabella’s position in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was minimal and probably easily overlooked; she was not yet editing alongside her husband. She started out translating from German to French. But eventually, she was promoted to “editress,” a title today could probably be most synonymous with Editor in Chief. She edited first The Book of Household Management, one of her husband’s most vital editorial projects. This projected is what made the name “Mrs. Beeton” so well known in the first place. Mrs. Beeton eventually was known for her writings of fashion columns in the magazine, of which she encouraged her readers to dress plainly, spend frugally and to shop for oneself as infrequently as possible. Mrs. Beeton herself also dressed plainly, as most of her clothes were homemade. However, as she was always interested in French fashion, they formed an alliance with another magazine-publishing husband and wife duo, the Goubauds, a French couple. Their magazine, Le Moniteur de la Mode, was a quite successful and expensive in Paris and inspiring to Mrs Beeton. It was Madame Goubaud that encouraged Mrs. Beeton to give fashion advice to her readers, and even have the confidence to criticize and correct fashion mistakes her readers would write to her about. The Goubauds would provide tips, patterns, and helpful advice to the Beetons to revamp their content. The Beeton’s mindset in writing fashion columns was to provide fashion advice that would allow women to dress at a standard that met the standard of fashion trends of that day and age, without going over her budget.

Samuel and Isabella Beeton were only married for 9 years, as she has passed in 1865 and was replaced as editor by Mrs. Myra Browne. Mrs. Browne took the pen name of “The Silkworm,” and voiced her drastically differing opinions in her writings. Unlike Mrs. Beeton, she did not emphasize the importance of modest spending or dressing. Shortly after Isabella’s death, Mr. Beeton sold the magazine as well as Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management to a rival editor, Ward, Lock and Tyler. Mr. Beeton was kept as editor of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine until news of a sexual scandal of his broke out. Ward, Lock, and Tyler let him go in 1875 because of this scandal.

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