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Dames-Weekblad



The Dames-Weekblad (Ladies’ Weekly, 1856-57) was the continuation of the Dames-Courant (Ladies’ Newspaper, 1856). Both were published by Roelants of Schiedam, who became embroiled in a bitter row with the editor of the Dames-Courant, Moses Henriquez Pimentel ? so bitter, in fact, that they fought each other all the way to court. This made Roelants decide to axe the Dames-Courant and immediately continue it under a new name, Dames-Weekblad, and with a new editor, Cornelis van Erlach van der Bilt la Motte (Jensen, 138).

Jensen categorises the Dames-Weekblad as a ‘popular entertainment magazine’ (Jensen, 142). Appearing in an eight-page format, it contained mostly light reading and lacked overtly edifying pieces, which is not to say that the tone was not highly moralistic.

The Dames-Weekblad was relatively generous in its attention to female authors, but did not contain many publications by women. There are a few contributions by Johanna Sara Mackenstein-Koning and some work written under pseudonyms, e.g. ‘Henriette F.’, ‘Louise’ and ‘Mina’. The identity of the authors writing under these particular pen names remains unknown, but all contributions published under a pseudonym that could be traced back to a known woman have been included in the database WomenWriters.

Most references to women writers – as to other well-known women – are to be found in the section ‘Dag-herinneringen’ (Today in history). Their dates of birth or death are remembered, and a short biography is given with some highlights of their work. The following example is for Anne de Rohan, a seventeenth-century French protestant noblewoman and author of several poems:

On 20 September 1640, Anna, daughter of Renatus de Rohan and Catharina de Parthenay, died in Paris. [...] To most of our readers she will be best known from the captivating historical novel by ‘Chonia’ about the fall of La Rochelle, the last protestant stronghold in France. [1] She was a highly learned noblewoman. [...]

Spread out over issues 31 and 32 (1857) was a long article by the editor entitled ‘Vier oorspronkelijke romancières’ (Four original women novelists) about the then top four women writers in the Netherlands. In addition to the inevitable Mrs Bosboom-Toussaint, these were Elise van Calcar, Henriette Maria Langelaan and Betsy Hasebroek. The article also mentioned a number of foreign women writers, such as Frederika Bremer, Mrs Ellis, Mrs Marsh, Mrs Beecher Stowe, Flygare Carlen and George Sand, and compared these famous foreigners with their Dutch fellow authors.

But references to women are not limited to ‘Dag-herinneringen’ and the long article referred to; they were also found scattered through smaller articles and paragraphs. An example would be an article about English writer Caroline Norton. This emphasised the fact that she had been abused by her husband, a subject she was to write about later in life. And although the article mentioned other works by Norton readers of the Dames-Weekblad might be familiar with, it focused on the abuse, and more generally on the issue of women’s rights, rather than on her writings.

While the Dames-Weekblad did not feature book reviews as such, it has yielded 40 reception records for the WomenWriters database.


Bibliography:

  • Dames-Weekblad. Lectuur voor vrouwen en meisjes uit den beschaafden stand. Proza en poezy van Nederlandsche auteurs. (Schiedam: Roelants, 1856-1857). Leiden University Library.
  • Jensen, Lotte. ‘Bij uitsluiting voor de vrouwelijke sekse geschikt’: vrouwentijdschriften en journalistes in de achttiende en negentiende eeuw in Nederland. (Hilversum: Verloren, 2001).
  • Jensen, Lotte. ‘De Nederlandse vrouwenpers in een internationaal perspectief’, in Nederlandse Letterkunde 6 (2001), 219-239. Also available in dbnl.


Susanne Parren, April 2007
Transl. Brenda Mudde


Note
[1] Chonia [pseudonym of Jan Christiaan Kindermann], De val van het laatste bolwerk der Protestanten in Frankrijk: La Rochelle. (Den Bosch: Gebr. Muller, 1853).



  • Note that informations contained in the database WomenWriters have been derived from contemporary sources, which may contain errors. Also important: when arriving in the database WomenWriters, your status is: "not logged on", which means that you have only partial view. For complete view and participation in the project, take contact.



  • Sources > Dutch sources > Articles in the press > Women's press > Dames-weekblad

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