working papers
Wollstonecraft’s Class Politics
One of the most notable shifts in Mary Wollstonecraft’s writings is her attitude toward women of the lower classes. As is well known, the admonitions contained in the Vindication of the Rights of Woman are addressed toward women of the emerging middle class, whom Wollstonecraft positions as the moral superiors of both poor women and the elite. Yet by the time she authors Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman a few short years later, the novel’s most interesting character is just such a poor woman, Jemima, who challenges the novel’s ostensible protagonist for her claim on that role. This paper traces a cluster of concerns - domesticity, excess, and exclusion - that render Jemima sympathetic in Wollstonecraft’s eyes. It argues that by the time she writes Maria, Wollstonecraft comes to recognize an informal market in women’s labor, one that possesses liberatory potential but more often than not serves to isolate and abuse women, particularly those without the legal protection of a father or husband. The paper contributes to a nascent literature on Wollstonecraft’s political economy and develops arguments made in Gallagher (2022).