Manuscript and Women’s Domestic Papers

A key contribution of Renaissance and early modern women’s writing is “domestic papers” in manuscript. This umbrella term refers to diverse handwritten documents related to recordkeeping of the household. They include lists of important family dates, household accounts, and collections of recipes, remedies, and household tips, although they may also overlap with diaries, annotated almanacs, prayer books, letters, poetry, mothers’ advice handbooks, and miscellanies. They also often contain handwriting practice and marginalia such as annotations, attributions, and decorative symbols or drawings. Collectively compiled by women over generations, they contain many hands and reflect diverse manuscript, print, and personal-experience sources. These works arose directly out of, and became part of, domestic work, and they constitute a kind of life writing. Consideration of domestic papers indicates that far more women in the past were literate than once believed. These texts expand modern understanding of historical women’s work, knowledge, and authority.