ABSTRACT
A woman', wrote Margaret Oliphant in 1858, 'who cannot be a governess or a novel-writer must fall back on that poor little needle, the primitive and original handicraft of femininity. If she cannot do that, or even, doing it, if stifled among a crowd of others like herself, who have no other gift; she must starve by inches, and die over the shirt she makes. People are all perfectly acquainted with this picture'. The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago (1890). Set in the 1810s and 1820s, the novel tells the story of a Scottish noblewoman who runs away from an arranged marriage to become a dressmaker in London. The author, Oliphant was hardly oblivious to the social problems facing women, particularly needlewomen. In her 1858 article, 'The Condition of Women', she defended women's capabilities in a society that treated them as second-class citizens.
