Freespinsters And Bondspinsters: Negotiating Identity Categories In The Freewoman

This article examines “spinster” as an identity category circulated, negotiated, and ultimately dismantled in the Freewoman. In articles and correspondence, contributors and readers brought different rhetorical strategies to the discussion: while the editors helped to put the term to death, the readers sought to infuse the term with new life. This article argues that considering the journal’s numerous conversational threads about spinsterhood enables scholars to appreciate not only an understudied identity category within Edwardian feminist discourse, but also the ethos of this and other periodicals that rely heavily on informed reader participation and input.