Teaching the Ladys Museum and Sophia: Imperialism, Early Feminism, and Beyond

Abstract

This essay argues for the value of teaching Charlotte Lennoxs periodical The Ladys Museum (1760-61) in undergraduate literature, history, media studies, postcolonial, and gender studies classrooms. Lennoxs magazine, which includes one of the first serialized novels Harriot and Sophia (later published as the stand-alone novel Sophia (1762)) encouraged debate of the proto-discipline topics of history, geography, literary criticism, astronomy, botany, and zoology. This essay offers a flexible teaching module, which can be taught in one to five days, that focuses on the themes of early female education and imperialism using full or excerpted portions of essays from the eidolon, Of the Studies Proper for Women, Of the Importance of the Education of Daughters, Philosophy for the Ladies, The Metamorphoses of Animals, and the Several Changes Observable in Animal Life, The Natural History of the Formica-Leo, or Lion Pismire, Some Reflections and Deductions Drawn from the Works of Nature in General, The Ladys Geography, The Original Inhabitants of Great Britain, The History of the Princess Padmani, and as well as Lennoxs serialized novel Sophia (1762). It also inaugurates a new resource, the http://www.ladysmuseum.com Ladys Museum Project, which is an open-access edition designed by Kelley Plante and Karenza Sutton-Bennett and includes full text and redacted versions for teaching and a variety of other pedagogical materials.