Coffeehouses and debating societies Women in the Enlightenment

moll king

brian cowan has described coffee house place english virtuosi gather converse others wanted increase knowledge in civilized setting. peculiarly virtuosic emphases on civility, curiosity, cosmopolitanism, , learned discourse made coffeehouse such distinctive space in social world of modern london. people of levels of knowledge gathered share information, , person learned depended on own personal interest.

coffeehouse place like-minded scholars congregate, read, learn , debate each other, emphatically not university institution, , discourse there of far different order university tutorial.

these informal practices of education condemned. educated men commented coffeehouse inappropriate venue learned discourse common currency virtuosity. cowan s version of coffeehouse male-dominated institution.

helen berry describes kind of coffee house, 1 in women quite involved. moll king, example, not ran own coffeehouse in doing degraded virtuosic male-dominated coffee house image. moll king s familiarity urban street life suggestive of independence , wild, untamable nature, denoting more obvious implication of sexual disrepute. when moll married thomas king, opened small coffeehouse kept late hours , catered clientele different virtuosi.

lectures in natural philosophy heard @ man s near charing cross or garraway s in exchange alley, while grecian coffeehouse in stand closely associated royal society. moll s 1 of seedier coffeehouses, yet popular , attracted fashionable men-about-town.

moll king s coffeehouse shows enlightenment women not timid sex, governors of polite conversation, or protectorates of aspiring artists.

possibly politeness itself, in enlightenment context, not uniformly observed set of rules or attribute striving attain, potentially repressive social force eighteenth-century men , women, given opportunity, took peculiar pleasure in transgressing.

also in england around time of coffee houses debating societies. donna andrew depicts these debating societies gathering appeal , purposes of meetings combined instruction entertainment, gentility mass audiences, affairs of state affairs of heart. debating societies rent hall, charge admission, , allow public discuss many topics in public sphere. separated them other institutions invited women partake in discussions. (women) explicitly invited not attend, take part in debate. unlike salons, women there participate equals, not governors or protectors. without restraining governance, there violence during debates.

even societies agreed proceedings might better regulated. president of westminster, example, lamented presence of men of restless, factious spirit [who] sow dissension in minds of otherwise peaceable subjects.

debating societies male-dominated developed mixed-gender organizations , women-only events. @ end of 1780, there 4 known women-only debating societies - la belle assemblee, female parliament, carlisle house debates ladies only, , female congress. topics dealt questions of male , female relations, marriage, courtship, , whether women should allowed partake in political culture. though women had begun asked partake in debating societies, there stipulations societies part of , when permitted attend. main stipulation non-availability of alcohol. [ t]is remarkable debating societies admit ladies, allow no liquor; , allow liquor, admit no ladies. although women did both attend , partake in debating societies, there opposition movement @ time. 1 writer, indignus, against participation of women in debating societies.

were fact these female orators thing more hired reciters of studied lesson, little honor… truth is….their lessons composed them; have no more arguments utter, pen has characters force trace.