These upper-middle class women scorned female "accomplishments," card playing, and frivolous behavior, preferring instead a life of moral and intellectual rigor and philanthropic activities. These women did not pen great tracts railing about the failings of men. They did claim the right to act in the semi-public sphere and they urged women to become involved in philanthropic activities which benefited other women. Following their own advice, they created a number of philanthropic institutions whose aim was to help women, often poor widowed women with children, become economically self-sufficient.

Although writing had become a fairly respectable profession for women, and, following the lead of Bathsua Makin a century earlier, women were beginning to teach in schools in greater numbers, the status and living conditions of educated women were beginning to improve. For the common woman, the story was much different. Common lands were being enclosed, driving peasants off the land and into the cities, depriving women of their independent economic status which they derived from their kitchen gardens and dairy work. These women lost status and position with the coming of the industrial revolution.1 So there were many women who needed the help of philanthropic societies.