SOURCE: “Gender Specialization and the Feminine Curriculum: The Periodical for Women,” in Women and Print Culture: The Construction of Femininity in the Early Periodical, Routledge, 1989, pp. 146-74, 186-90, 220-23, 226.

In the excerpt that follows, Shevelow surveys periodicals targeted at women readers, tracing their evolution in the course of the eighteenth century and examining the means by which they defined themselves and their audiences.

Richard Steele announced in Spectator No. 66 his intention to devote the issue to a critique of the child-rearing practices of his day, with particular emphasis upon the education of girls. Using his familiar language of reform-minded deference to the ladies, Steele acknowledged complaints he had received from his women readers that they had found previous issues, devoted to Addison's literary and historical discourse upon ‘Wit’ (Nos 58-63), to be obscure. His acknowledgment represented the growing necessity both to cater to women's interests and to circumscribe...