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as a “reading revolution.” 32 Another literary historian suggested that the very
existence of novels provides evidence of a large female reading public: “When there
were novels to be read in the middle of the eighteenth century, we can be sure—as
were novelists themselves—that large numbers of women were ready for them.” 33
Ephemeral Press
There is greater evidence of women reading and contributing to newspapers
and almanacs than there is of their involvement with the books of eighteenth-
century Virginia. Women participated in what some historians label the more
“ephemeral press” from the very beginning. 34 Before a newspaper was even printed
in Virginia, the nearby Maryland Gazette featured regular contributions by “The
Plain-Dealer,” who expressed a desire “of improving the Fair-Sex,” diverting “their
Minds from useless Trifles” by offering them knowledge and setting women “upon
the Level with Men in their boasted Superiority of Reason.” 35 Parks’ first issue of
the Virginia Gazette in 1736 invited readers “of either Sex,” but actually requested
contributions only from gentlemen. 36 Despite that omission, he did publish a poem
by a woman later that year, the one quoted at the beginning of this chapter, which
is quite surprising in its straightforward plea for women’s rights. “The Lady’s
32 Davidson, Revolution and the Word, suggests that this “revolution” began in the “latter
portion of the eighteenth century,” (page vii) despite evidence that such novels began selling in
England and American colonies before the mid-century.
33 Hunter, Before Novels, 73.
34 Jeremy Popkin, “The Prerevolutionary Origins of Political Journalism,” The French
Revolution and Intellectual History, ed. Jack Censer (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1989), 111-112, is just
one of many print historians who refer to newspapers, almanacs, and periodicals as ephemeral, or
written for a specific time and place, and thus studied by historians less often than books. This can
be viewed as somewhat elitist, as books were more expensive and difficult to access by poorer folk
than were newspapers and almanacs.
35 Maryland Gazette (Annapolis: William Parks, Dec. 10, 1728), 1.
36 Issue number 1, Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg: Parks, August 6, 1736), no longer extant,
quoted in Maxwell, Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Companion, 6: 21-31.