The project intends to continue the indexing, already begun in the previous five years and aimed at creating a database, of an important French women’s journal of the nineteenth century, La Gazette des femmes. Journal poétique, littéraire, artistique, judiciaire et religieux… [1841-1847], kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, and never digitized. The periodical, moderate in scope but with significant openings over the years, is very interesting, also in relation to contemporary or later journals, as regards issues such as identity and otherness, the role and literary and artistic production of women, in a period that from the first “feminist” movements of the 1830s leads to the eve of the Revolution of 1848. This is accompanied by historical and legal insights, when not religious, political and economic ones, as well as analyses of social problems such as working conditions in various sectors, slavery, before its abolition in 1848, poverty or health issues. This also testifies to female engagement in favor of the inclusion and improvement of the conditions of minorities, at various levels, including through current events articles. These ones also contribute to the rich cultural panorama offered by the journal, at an interdisciplinary level, concerning contemporary literary, artistic, musical, dance and theatrical life. It will also be possible to verify the evolution of the image of women, without neglecting the advance of modernity as regards, in some cases, fashion or advertising.
The database, sustainable through the already existing departmental platforms, will allow queries by date, titles, topics, authors of the articles, and therefore generalized accessibility to topics and data that would otherwise be difficult to find. A scientific introduction, with the presentation of the journal, against the background of the most recent critical studies on the French periodical press of the nineteenth century, will also allow contextualizing the results emerging from this research, emphasizing its most significant aspects.
Group leader: Laura Maria Colombo
Actions: WP 1.1*, WP 1.3
References:
Adler, Laure, Les premières journalistes, 1830-1850, Paris, Payot, 1979
Planté, Christine –Thérenty, Marie-Ève (dir.), Masculin/Féminin dans la presse du XIXe siècle, Lyon, Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2022
Reid, Martine (dir.), Femmes et littérature. Une histoire culturelle, Paris, Gallimard, 2020, t. II.
Thérenty, Marie-Ève, Femmes de presse, femmes de lettres, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2019
*Possible connections with European and American research groups on feminism, and the database could also provide a possible future contribution to projects, in the Digital Humanities field, by the Bibliothèque nationale de France on women’s press, see for example https://www.bnf.fr/fr/mediatheque/un-journalisme-au-feminin-enjeux-historiques-du-numerique.