ABSTRACT
The term "feminism" did not come into use in Britain until about 1895, but British inter est in the "woman question" can be traced back at least to Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Although not identified with a separate orga nized cause, individual women and menparticularly those involved in the Owenite so cialist and St. Simonian movements-argued for radical changes in women's position. In the 1820s and 1830s journals like the Westminster Review and Monthly Repository championed the cause, as protective legisla tion limited women's jobs and working hours and major laws in the 1830s for the first time explicitly excluded women from the franchise and other government activities. Anna Jameson's Characteristics of Women (1832) and Harriet Martineau's Society in America (1835) were among the first important books arguing for an expansion of women's rights, and Caroline Norton's campaign in the late 1830s for access to her children and control of her earnings was a first step in bringing about major changes in women's legal posi tion.
