ABSTRACT
Caroline Emelia Stephen was a Quaker theologian and aunt to Virginia Woolf. She published several spiritual works, including Quaker Strongholds and Light Arising. She became a ‘sisterhood of one,’ when she wore the plain grey dress of the Quakers and lived her life as a nun without being in an organised community. Committed to pacifist causes, she was also socially conscious, and, with her cousin Sarah Stephen, she founded the Metropolitan Society for Befriending Young Servants to assist working women. In this article, Stephen argues that not only is clothing an essential part of being human, it also mirrors, the character and individuality of a person. Writing in Quaker Strongholds, Stephen explained that dress does not need to be ascetic.
