The Empress of the French. Iconography of Joséphine de Beauharnais

El 2 de diciembre de 1804, Josefina de Beauharnais (Martinica, 23 de junio de 1763 - Rueil-Malmaison, 29 de mayo de 1814), fue coro- nada como emperatriz de los franceses en la catedral de Notre-Dame. Su esposo, Napoleón Bonaparte (Ajaccio, 15 de agosto de 1769 - Santa Elena, 5 de mayo de 1821), colocaba sobre su cabeza la réplica de la coro- na de Carlomagno ante la mirada del papa Pío VII (1742-1823). La que fuera vizcondesa de Beauharnais, de nacimiento criolla, llevaría el manto imperial durante seis años hasta la formalización de su divorcio de Bonaparte el 10 de enero de 1810.On the second of December 1084, Joséphine de Beauharnais (née Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinica; 23 June 1763 – 29 May 1814 in Rueil-Mailmaison) was crowned as Empress of the French in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Her husband, Napoleon Bonaparte (Ajaccio, 15 August 1769 – Saint Ellen, 5 May 1821) placed on her head the replica of the crown of Charlemagne before Pope Pius VII (1742-1823). e former vizcountess of Beauharnais, born a creole, would be wearing the imperial cape for six years until her official divorce from Napoleon on 10 January 1810

Destins de femmes: French Women Writers, 1750-1850

Destins de femmes is the first comprehensive overview of French women writers during the turbulent period of 1750-1850. John Isbell provides an essential collection that illuminates the impact women writers had on French literature and politics during a time marked by three revolutions, the influx of Romantic art, and rapid technological change. Each of the book’s thirty chapters introduces a prominent work by a different female author writing in French during the period, from Germaine de Staël to George Sand, from the admired salon libertine Marie du Deffand to Flora Tristan, tireless campaigner for socialism and women’s rights. Isbell draws from multi-genre writers working in prose, poetry and correspondence and addresses the breadth of women’s contribution to the literature of the age. Isbell also details the important events which shaped the writers’ lives and contextualises their work amidst the liberties both given and taken away from women during the period. This anthology fills a significant gap in the secondary literature on this transformative century, which often overlooks women who were working and active. It invites a further gendered investigation of the impact of revolution and Romanticism on the content and nature of French women’s writing, and will therefore be appropriate for both general readers, students, and academics analysing history and literature through a feminist lens

The Ill-Treatment of Their Countrywoman: Liberated African Women, Violence, and Power in Tortola, 1807-1834

In 1807, Parliament passed an Act to abolish the slave trade, leading to the Royal Navy’s campaign of policing international waters and seizing ships suspected of illegal trading. As the Royal Navy captured slave ships as prizes of war and condemned enslaved Africans to Vice-Admiralty courts, formerly enslaved Africans became “captured negroes” or “liberated Africans,” making the subjects in the British colonies. This work, which takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the everyday experiences of liberated Africans in Tortola during the early nineteenth century, focuses on the violent conditions of liberated African women, demonstrating that abolition consisted of violent contradictions that mirrored slavery

Ladies in Red: Learning From America\u27s First Female Bankrupts

Several years ago, the Honorable Joyce Bihary, a bankruptcy judge in Atlanta, Georgia, asked me3 why our country\u27s first bankruptcy law specifically referred to debtors using “he” or “she” rather than a gender-neutral noun (such as “bankrupts”) or the male possessive pronoun “he.” Implicitly, she was also asking whether there were any women debtors under our early bankruptcy laws. Although I had read the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 more than once, I did not recollect its use of these gender-inclusive pronouns. Nor did I know why the Act employed them. Despite having given considerable thought to contemporary women in debt, I too had no inkling as to whether there were women debtors under the Bankruptcy Act of 1800. And so I set out, with the help of my co-authors, to find the answers to Judge Bihary\u27s two questions. Those answers led us to new questions and concerns, most particularly questions about how bankruptcy history has been told to date