Chapter 4
From Gossips to Salons: Female Friendship Enters Society
While nuns' friendships remained largely hidden, outside the convent walls women's friendships were becoming increasingly visible in society. By the 1580s in England, observers noted that women regularly socialized with their "gossips" (female friends) at various gatherings with their husbands' permission. These gossips exchanged valuable personal and community information and helped enforce social norms through their conversations.
Shakespeare's plays abound with female friendships across all social classes. From Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" to Rosalind and Celia in "As You Like It," Shakespeare portrayed women working in tandem to overcome male folly and violence. His female characters support each other through disguises, clever schemes, and unwavering loyalty to bring about happy resolutions. In "As You Like It," Celia and Rosalind are described as inseparable since childhood: "We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together."
The most significant champion of female friendship in early modern England was Katherine Philips, known poetically as Orinda. Though happily married, her significant relationships were with women, particularly her school friend Mary Aubrey (Rosiana) and later Anne Owen (Lucasia), to whom she wrote passionate, soul-binding poetry. When both friends eventually married, Philips lamented that "the Marriage of a Friend to be the Funeral of a Friendship." She founded the Society of Friendship in the 1650s, establishing a model of loving friendship between women that would influence British and American literature for centuries.
In seventeenth-century France, the Marquise de Rambouillet's weekly salon was revolutionary as the first in France where women participated equally with men, infusing social life with feminine sensibilities. Her gatherings attracted prominent female writers like Mlle de Scudery and Mme de Sevigne alongside established male authors. These women, labeled precieuses (precious ladies), elevated speech and behavior to refined standards and transformed notions of friendship, broadening amitie to include tender emotions between both friends and lovers.
The forty-year friendship between Mme de Sevigne and Mme de La Fayette exemplified the deep bonds possible between seventeenth-century French noblewomen. They maintained daily contact when in Paris, corresponded when apart, and supported each other through life's challenges. Though both married and had children, they developed a profound attachment, with La Fayette eventually confessing to Sevigne: "You are the person whom I have truly loved the most in all the world."
Colonial American women's friendships differed dramatically from their British counterparts, constrained by isolation, domestic duties, and Puritan values. Even Anne Bradstreet, America's first published female poet, focused on family rather than friendship in her work. Colonial women's friendships were primarily practical, neighborhood-based relationships formed through shared domestic labor, childbirth assistance, and mutual support during illness or death. It would take another century for American women to develop the kind of collective friendship networks enjoyed by their English counterparts.
What these emerging forms of female friendship reveal is that when given even limited freedom, women naturally gravitated toward meaningful connections with one another. These relationships provided emotional support, intellectual stimulation, and practical assistance in societies that offered women few formal opportunities for self-expression and growth.
Chapter 5
Patriots and Sisters: Friendship in Revolutionary Times
The eighteenth century saw women's friendships forged in the crucible of political upheaval, particularly during the American Revolution. These bonds, formed during times of conflict, proved among the strongest experienced in a lifetime. In colonial America, republican sentiment took root as women like Mercy Otis Warren of Massachusetts became central figures in circles of female patriots. These educated women constructed for themselves a model of dedication to patriotism and liberty, participating in the making of an exemplary republic through actions appropriate to their sex-boycotting British tea, signing loyalty oaths, and raising funds for military defense.
The friendship between Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams spanned forty-one years, despite their sixteen-year age difference and occasional disagreements. Beginning when the Adams couple visited the Warrens in Plymouth, their bond was sustained primarily through correspondence. Initially unequal-with Abigail looking up to the established literary Mercy-their relationship evolved as Abigail gained confidence. Both women saw themselves as patriots comparable to their prominent husbands, though in the domestic realm, raising children to become virtuous citizens.
During the Revolutionary War, they shared patriotic fervor and religious beliefs, finding consolation in comparing themselves to Roman matrons. They used classical pen names-Portia for Abigail and Marcia for Mercy-to strengthen this connection. Their friendship included practical support: Mercy acted as Abigail's agent selling European goods John sent, while Abigail hosted Mercy's sons.
Mercy Warren's friendship with British historian Catharine Macaulay began in 1773 and lasted nearly twenty years, conducted almost entirely through letters except for one visit Macaulay made to America in 1784-85. Despite Warren being three years older, Macaulay was already recognized for her multi-volume History of England while Warren published her verse dramas anonymously. Nevertheless, they treated each other as intellectual equals and personal friends, bonding over their shared support for American patriots.
Warren dismissed the notion that "women make but indifferent politicians," asserting that observations should be valued for their merit regardless of whether they came from "a female lip in the soft whispers of private friendship" or were "thundered in the senate in the bolder language of the other sex." Instead of apologizing for women's emotional nature, Macaulay and Warren turned it to their advantage, believing women's love of family, friends, and country should affect public discourse.
The American Revolution officially ended in 1783, and just a few years later, the French monarchy would be toppled by its own revolution. Unlike the relatively civil American Revolution, the French Revolution (1789-1795) descended into savage class warfare, with many friendships ending tragically at the guillotine. Though less visible than male bonds, women's friendships played important roles during this tumultuous period.
The most dramatic record of a female friendship during the French Revolution was between Mme Roland and Sophie Grandchamp. Mme Roland became famous for her remarkable prison memoirs written before her execution in 1793. Sophie Grandchamp, a well-educated woman who taught astronomy, grammar, and literature, was Mme Roland's closest female friend during her final two years. Their relationship was intense-Grandchamp described it as "a mutual rapture of the soul."
Before her execution, Mme Roland asked Grandchamp to witness her journey to the guillotine. Grandchamp positioned herself at the Pont Neuf and observed her friend's final moments, noting she was "fresh, calm, and smiling." Though Mme Roland never mentioned Grandchamp in her memoirs, perhaps to protect her, she chose this woman to witness her final ordeal. True to her word, Grandchamp watched unflinchingly as her friend was carted to the guillotine and later devoted herself to preserving Mme Roland's legacy.
These revolutionary-era friendships demonstrate how women's bonds could transcend traditional boundaries of geography, nationality, and even political disagreement. In times of upheaval, women found in each other the strength to face unprecedented challenges and to articulate new visions of themselves as citizens as well as wives and mothers.
Chapter 6
Hearts Entwined: The Rise of Romantic Friendship
Around 1800, female friendship became romanticized. British, German, French, and American women began writing to each other in the language of lovers. Girls and women commonly called each other "darling," "sweet," and "precious," and spoke of loving each other forever. Adolescent girls hugged and kissed and openly had crushes on schoolmates. Women believed male-female relationships could never be as "true" as loving friendships between women, and they complained when fiances and husbands took away their close friends.
American historian Nancy Cott notes in The Bonds of Womanhood that from the late eighteenth through mid-nineteenth century, New England women "invented a newly self-conscious and idealized concept of female friendship." This shift connected to women's increasing identification with "the heart"-symbolizing love, compassion, and empathy. As women were expected to provide emotional support to their supposedly more rational male counterparts, all-female friendships were elevated to unprecedented esteem.
Before the 1870s when terms like "lesbianism" and "homosexuality" entered scientific vocabulary, female romantic friendships weren't generally considered sexual. Historians caution against homogenizing these relationships-some women in partnerships had little interest in sex, while others may have been sexually active. Romantic friendships existed on a continuum from "committed heterosexuality" to "uncompromising homosexuality."
French writer George Sand (1804-76), born Aurore Dupin, wrote extensively about her intense girlhood friendships at her Parisian convent school. Among her closest friends were Sophie, Fannelly, and Anna, bound by a code requiring them to list friends in chronological order of meeting. Though Fannelly was officially third on her list, Sand admitted she "loved Fannelly more than all the others," describing her as "small, blond, as fresh as a rose" with a "lively, open, kind" expression.
Charlotte Bronte (1816-55) formed a romantic friendship with Ellen Nussey during their boarding school years. Later, when Charlotte was twenty-one and teaching at their former school, she wrote to Ellen: "Why are we to be divided? Surely, Ellen, it must be because we are in danger of loving each other too well-of losing sight of the Creator in idolatry of the creature." As a clergyman's daughter, Charlotte worried more about diminishing her devotion to God by loving another person too intensely than about the gender of her beloved.
Nineteenth-century Anglo-American culture encouraged women to write and publish passionate poetry about their same-sex friendships. These poems expressed tenderness, longing, and eternal commitment, often recalling past joys and anticipating future reunions. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to her friend Julia in 1827: "Contented to lay bare my heart / To one dear Friend, who had her part / In all the love and all the care / And every joy that harboured there."
American boarding schools across the country fostered intense female friendships as middle- and upper-class girls bonded during their teenage years, enjoying emotional freedom before the constraints of marriage. These friendships followed established rituals: girls shared desks, dormitory rooms, and even beds. They exchanged flowers, candy, locks of hair, or rings. Some wrote poetry or sang songs honoring their beloved. Physical affection-hugging, kissing, and hand-holding-was displayed publicly, and partings prompted dramatic tears.
When relationships between women were platonic, they could have all the emotional trappings of heterosexual love with social acceptance. In America, unions between single middle-class working women who shared lodgings became known as "Boston marriages." According to Lillian Faderman, these relationships were "intensely passionate" though "probably most often not genital." Society accepted them precisely because they appeared nonsexual and therefore posed no threat to heterosexuality, offering women an economic alternative to legal marriage.
Before the late nineteenth century, women could express love for one another publicly without raising eyebrows. Physical affection like hugs, kisses, or bed-sharing was common, especially among adolescents. Such intense female friendships were common until the 1880s-90s when social scientists began pathologizing same-sex love, with terms like "homosexual," "invert," and "lesbian" entering public awareness, contributing to the demise of unself-conscious romantic friendships between women.
Chapter 7
Quilts, Prayers, and Social Change: The Power of Women's Collectives
Women's natural tendency to gather has created communities with power beyond the sum of their parts. In America, women's groups became essential social cornerstones, providing cohesion in a nation where inhabitants were widely dispersed. While Americans valued independence, certain tasks required collective effort, and when women gathered repeatedly for communal labor, they developed friendships not just with individuals but with the group itself.
Early American women formed friendships during their never-ending daily tasks of providing food, clothing, and shelter for families. Sewing was universal women's work, taught from childhood-Edith White recalled piecing a quilt before age five, with her mother insisting on "tiny stitches." Small sewing groups fostered social cohesion and close friendships while accomplishing necessary work.
Quilts were essential bedding that women transformed into artistic expressions during communal quilting bees. These gatherings typically brought together four to eight women who shared light, warmth, conversation, and accomplishment. Women traded fabric scraps-nothing was wasted-to create multicolored "crazy quilts" that memorialized collective experiences. By the 1840s, as textile manufacturing advanced, quilting evolved from necessity to leisure activity, spawning the friendship-quilt trend where each contributor added a signed block. These quilts often served as going-away gifts for women joining the westward migration, providing comfort and connection to distant loved ones.
The Second Great Awakening of the early 1800s created new opportunities for women's gatherings. Religious camp meetings throughout the Midwest offered both worship and fellowship, where women developed public speaking and organizational skills while showcasing their culinary abilities at Sabbath potlucks. Female-only prayer groups proliferated, allowing women to engage with each other outside family spheres for unassailably righteous purposes. These groups evolved into "cent" societies raising funds for missionary work and Bible distribution, eventually becoming mission boards that prepared women for overseas work-by 1915, an estimated three million women belonged to foreign mission societies.
The New York Female Moral Reform Society, formed in 1834, exemplified women's growing organizational power. Dedicated to eliminating prostitution, which employed nearly 10% of New York women, the society expanded to 445 auxiliaries within five years. These reformers boldly confronted the male establishment by lobbying to criminalize sex solicitation and threatening to publish names of brothel patrons. Their organizational muscle laid groundwork for later women's progressive movements.
On the western frontier, women's organizations emerged as soon as stable settlements formed, though later than their eastern counterparts due to sparse female population. Well-educated pioneer women applied organizational skills from their eastern hometowns to rapidly develop civic leadership in communities lacking basic infrastructure. The Columbia Maternal Association, formed in 1838 by missionary wives in the Pacific Northwest, exemplified frontier female friendship at its most fundamental level. With only two of the original six members being mothers, they nonetheless cared for numerous Oregon Trail orphans, circulated reading materials, and crucially pledged to raise each other's children should any mother die.
The extraordinary fifty-year friendship between Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton represents the pinnacle of women's political partnership. Together they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, restricting membership to women to prevent male domination. Despite their different temperaments and circumstances-Stanton a mother of seven, Anthony single-they maintained remarkable harmony. Stanton called Anthony her children's "second mother" and her own "good angel," while describing their relationship as so intertwined that "separated, we have a feeling of incompleteness-united, such strength of self-assertion that no ordinary obstacles, differences or dangers ever appear to us insurmountable." Their friendship transcended personal connection to ignite collective action, elevating Aristotle's ideal of friendship as civic virtue to include women on the national stage.
Chapter 8
New Women, New Worlds: Education Transforms Friendship
The New Woman of the 1890s emerged in major cities worldwide-young, educated, high-spirited and competent. Popularized by Charles Dana Gibson's illustrations in Life magazine, she typically wore a white shirtwaist with an ankle-length skirt and rode bicycles as symbols of newfound freedom. This image, though limited in actual numbers, influenced countless American women's aspirations.
Education played a crucial role in creating the New Woman. By 1900, 85,000 women were enrolled as undergraduates in American colleges, with women's representation in graduate programs rising from 10% in 1890 to a remarkable 41% by 1918. Female college students consistently cited friendships as what they valued most in their educational experience. Dorothy Mendenhall of Smith College remembered that "more than actual study, my contact with girls my own age and the making of a few close friends, were the most valuable part for me."
College women found friendship during meals, at the gymnasium, walking between classes, and during late-night dorm conversations, discussing professors, books, sermons, fashions, and current events like women's suffrage. They confided romantic interests and navigated occasional jealousies, with many maintaining these relationships through marriage, motherhood and widowhood.
The first generation of New Women faced a stark choice between career and family. As scientist Alice Hamilton stated in 1890: "The proper state of society is one in which a woman is free to choose between an independent life of celibacy or a life given up to childbearing and rearing the coming generation." Women with advanced degrees typically had to remain single to maintain their positions-Frances Rousmaniere surrendered her Mount Holyoke teaching post upon marriage, as did Alice Freeman, Wellesley College's president, when she married a Harvard professor.
Working-class women like Sadie Frowne managed their limited finances carefully, spending wisely on necessities while still allowing for small pleasures. Sadie and her roommate Ella spent less than half their combined $9 weekly earnings on rent and food, saving the rest for clothing, entertainment, and savings. Many working-class women lived outside family settings-after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1912, investigators found a third of the female victims had lived alone or with roommates, subsisting entirely on their own earnings. These unmarried workers relied heavily on female friendships to share household responsibilities and make ends meet.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) and Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940) cofounded Hull House in Chicago, creating the model for American settlement houses where people lived, worked, and advocated for social change. In 1887, Addams first confided her settlement house dream to her Rockford Seminary friend Starr while traveling in Spain. With "the comfort of Miss Starr's companionship" and enthusiasm, Addams gained confidence in her vision.
Hull House eventually housed twenty-five women and offered numerous services: classes taught by volunteers, clubs for children and adults, a kindergarten, gym, bathhouse, library, music school, art gallery, and evening adult education. By 1910, it had expanded to thirteen buildings with a playground and summer camp, serving children, adults, and the elderly with educational and social opportunities.
Vera Brittain's Testament of Friendship provides a remarkable portrait of her deep companionship with Winifred Holtby from their meeting at Oxford until Holtby's premature death. Their relationship embodied the finest qualities of women's friendships-intimacy, self-disclosure, loyalty, and mutual support-while reflecting the distinctive experiences of educated British women after World War I. Even Brittain's 1925 marriage didn't disrupt their bond, with Holtby often living with the family as an honorary member. Brittain later memorialized their sixteen-year friendship in Testament of Friendship, hoping to show that "loyalty and affection between women is a noble relationship" deserving recognition alongside men's celebrated friendships.
Around 1900, a new model of female friendship emerged that would define much of the twentieth century. For middle and upper classes, friendships increasingly depended on educational background-at minimum high school, often college. Schools, perhaps more than churches, became the primary setting for forming and maintaining friendships. Education served as the great equalizer, allowing "the daughter of Greek immigrants" to become "the college friend of a debutante with roots in colonial America."
Chapter 9
Eleanor Roosevelt's Circle: Friendship as Political Force
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) lived through radical transformations in women's roles, from the Victorian "angel in the house" to the early stirrings of organized feminism. Throughout her remarkable life, her many friends served as midwives to her psychological, social, and political rebirths.
Eleanor's lifelong friendship with Isabella Selmes began before her marriage to Franklin. When Franklin proposed, Eleanor confided in Isabella before telling their families. Isabella was one of Eleanor's bridesmaids, and the two women became godmothers to each other's first daughters. Their bond endured through Isabella's moves west following her husband's tuberculosis diagnosis, Eleanor's devastating loss of her infant son Franklin, and their shared war work during WWI.
After being twice widowed, Isabella entered politics alongside Eleanor, seconding Franklin's presidential nomination at the 1932 Democratic Convention and winning election to Congress from Arizona. Their friendship weathered even political disagreement when Isabella supported Willkie over Roosevelt for his third term. Eleanor assured her: "I realize that you have to do whatever you think is right." They remained close until Eleanor's death, their friendship spanning over four decades.
Beyond Isabella, Eleanor cultivated a circle of progressive women who helped her emerge from the constraints of her family life. In Greenwich Village during the 1920s, she befriended independent women like Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman-couples who mentored her political development and encouraged her emotional growth.
With Franklin's blessing, Eleanor built Val-Kill cottage on his Hyde Park estate-her first truly personal home where she could entertain friends without her mother-in-law's interference. She, Nancy and Marion established Val-Kill Industries to revive local handicrafts and together purchased the Todhunter School where Eleanor taught while Franklin was governor.
Eleanor's most controversial friendship was with Lorena "Hick" Hickok, documented in approximately 3,500 letters archived at the Roosevelt Presidential Library. Their correspondence reveals that Eleanor loved Hick more passionately than any other friend. Their backgrounds couldn't have been more different-Hick, a hard-drinking AP reporter from an abusive working-class South Dakota family; Eleanor, the patrician first lady. Yet they connected deeply, with Eleanor writing daily letters filled with romantic language: "Hick darling... I want to put my arms around you. I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort."
Their relationship echoed nineteenth-century romantic friendships, complete with exchanged rings and displayed photographs. During 1933-34, they shared remarkable intimacy, even taking a three-week road trip in Eleanor's blue Buick convertible. Hick encouraged Eleanor's public role, suggesting her women-only press conferences.
As Eleanor's confidence grew, she expanded her friendship circle beyond her WASP background to include working-class reformers, labor organizers, and people of color. Her relationship with Pauli Murray exemplifies this evolution. Special friends propelled the arc of Eleanor's adult life, providing the nurturance and mentoring that enabled her transformation into an entrepreneur, teacher, and social activist. She became a sought-after public speaker, author, political figure, ally of the downtrodden, spokesperson for women, voice for interracial harmony, and champion of world peace.
Eleanor's influence culminated in her 1946 appointment by President Truman to the American delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. From this platform, she led the crafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, becoming, in Truman's words, "the first lady of the world." Though her example is exceptional, it reflects the expanding opportunities for American women in the first half of the twentieth century. More than any other woman of her era, Eleanor Roosevelt leveraged her position as a political wife to become a friend of humankind, empowered by friends and mentoring others in turn.
Chapter 10
From Sisterhood to Digital Connection: Modern Female Friendship
In 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the Commission on the Status of Women, exposing discrimination against women across sectors. Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" followed in 1963, striking a chord with middle-class housewives. By 1968, radical feminists organized protests, including the Miss America pageant demonstration, while "consciousness-raising" groups emerged around the idea that "the personal is political."
The women's movement faced internal tensions. While feminist theologians likened it to a religious experience, conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Race complicated sisterhood, as African American women initially distrusted white feminists. However, shared experiences of patriarchy gradually bridged this divide, reflected in works by writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor.
The 1970s saw new forms of female bonding, exemplified by Carolyn See's friendship with Jackie Joseph and the formation of LADIES (Life After Divorce Is Eventually Sane). Despite financial challenges, divorced women found solidarity in shared experiences.
Popular culture increasingly celebrated female friendship. Films from "The Color Purple" to "Bridesmaids" established women's friendships as a cultural force. Television evolved from "I Love Lucy's" married-couple focus to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show's" groundbreaking portrayal of single women's friendships, paving the way for modern series like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Broad City."
Social media transformed friendship maintenance, with women leading digital connection. Platforms enable "efficient friendship" for busy women and create virtual communities around shared interests. Sites like Meetup.com and GirlFriendCircles.com bridge online and offline connections, especially during life transitions.
Female friendship has evolved from historical invisibility to cultural prominence. Four universal elements define these bonds: affection, self-revelation, physical contact, and interdependence. As gender roles evolve, men increasingly adopt traditionally "feminine" friendship traits, while women continue pioneering new friendship models, including cooperative living arrangements. Women's approach to friendship may be their most lasting social contribution, showing future generations how to build meaningful connections.
