Welcome to Notes & Petticoats!

Welcome to my blog and my very first post! This blog, like many wonderful blogs before it, is dedicated to discussing, pondering and examining aspects of eighteenth-century life and literature, especially in the British Isles. Posts will focus on literature, material histories, and issues of representation, especially with regard to gender and sexuality, which is my scholarly focus in eighteenth-century literary studies.

Why “notes and petticoats,” you might ask? Good question.

A petticoat is a skirt; in the eighteenth-century, it can be either a skirt worn under a dress or jacket, completely invisible from the outside, or it can be the main item of clothing covering the lower body of women. Petticoats could be completely functional, or they could be ornately decorated and embroidered lavishly. As an item of clothing, the petticoat is both functional and excessive, but it always refers to women’s clothing. In this sense, the petticoat exemplifies the focus in my research specifically on representations of women in the eighteenth century.

Similarly, in the eighteenth century, “the petticoats” could be a way of referring to women in general, as opposed to “the breeches,” the pants that men wore at the time and signifying the menfolk. The term “petticoat government” refers to the rule by women of the home, and can often be used both a positive sense (the pleasures of domesticity), or a negative one (the tyranny of the female sex over the male sex, i.e. being “whipped” or, as an eighteenth-century denizen would term it, “hen-pecked”). Henry Fielding uses the term in at least two plays he penned in the century to refer to such female tyranny. Petticoat, therefore, can be something of a loaded term.

The sartorial divisions between men and women were stringent in the eighteenth century. Yet, the practice of cross-dressing flourished during this time—a topic I explored in my dissertation and which I continue to work on in articles and a future book project. Women donned breeches for a variety of reasons in the eighteenth century—some of those women I’ll explore in future posts. In any case, the large dresses of the late eighteenth century, fitted with various hoops and layers, were difficult to maneuver, and breeches, at the very least, provided comfort and ease of movement. At the same time, most eighteenth-century moralists (i.e. men) believed that women in breeches were, at the very least, committing a sexually salacious act by wearing breeches, as the breeches clearly defined where a lady’s legs began and ended.

Thus, petticoats symbolize the expectations placed on women of the time, in addition to illustrating the divisions between public and private selves, the construction of the body through clothing, and the changing understanding of sex and gender in the eighteenth century. Lastly, petticoats could function as secret hiding places located right on a woman’s body. In Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (1740), the eponymous heroine tries to hide the letters she writes and receives by sewing them into her “undercoat, next to her linen,” i.e. into her petticoat. Just like the petticoats go from underclothes to outerwear, so Pamela’s secret thoughts become public when Mr. B forces Pamela to give him her letters, literally undressing her. Petticoats are titillating secret-holders, reminding us of the eighteenth-century obsession with young girls making their entrance into the world, resisting worldly temptations, and learning how to make a good match.

Who can resist a petticoat? Its many layers draw us in, tempt us, hiding and revealing at the same time. Here on this blog, I’ll be examining the many different layers of the eighteenth century, just as Mr. B. examined Pamela’s petticoat. (Oh myy, as George Takei would say.)

I hope you’ll join me along the way, especially with reading suggestions, interesting Enlightenment-related links, comments, and guest posts.