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Emily Faithfull
(1835 - 1885) U.K.

Faithfull Emily

Lecturer and publisher

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Emily was a social reformer, philanthropist and businesswoman, who wrote and lectured on women's issues in the United States and England. In England, she founded a printing office to train impoverished women as compositors and typesetting. This was amazing because at this point in the mid-18th century, the job of compositing was confined to just men.. She also published Victoria Magazine and Women and Work magazine.

During the years of 1858 and 1895, intense reforms were enacted by the British government. These reforms concerned women's education, employment, and also their right to vote. Other reforms had to do with the property owned by married women, and the custody they could hold over their children. A group of women activists called the Langham Place Circle initiated these changes and reforms. Faithfull was a member of this group, and therefore a lot of its success is contributed to her. She strived endlessly for its cause.

Faithfull EmilyFaithfull found that it was best to rework or edit many of her writings that had already been published in America and England, and create a compilation of works in this one book. Having written for years on the status and role of women in society in England, she chose to use her observations on American women's roles in society to write about. For example, she devoted a whole chapter in her book about her findings in the investigation of how Mormon women were treated in Salt Lake City, Utah. Quite a few American newspapers had prompted her to do so. However, Faithfull also had much to say about democracy in America as a whole, and also about America's culture and customs.

In terms of her feminism, Emily Faithfull was viewed as a gentlewoman instead of a radical. She considered herself as such, also. As an incredibly noteworthy character, Faithfull was a fine example of the handful of upper and middle class British women of the time period who devoted their lives to their neverending desire to change the social mindsets that were so permanently engraved on people's minds. Faithfull chronicled her efforts on feminism on both sides of the Atlantic, and therefore had much to tell the world about feminism during the Victorian period.

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