Letters from ‘een Vriendinne van de Waarheid’: Etta Palm d’Aelders, citizeness-ship and the public sphere, 1788-1798.

Abstract

The letters written by Etta Palm d’Aelders from Paris to the Stadtholder government in The Hague are a rich resource for exploring questions of the fluidity of revolution, the transfer of political culture, and the campaign to extend citizenship to women. Exceptional for her close connections to influential politicians in France and the Dutch Republic, d’Aelders not only stood as a channel of communication between two increasingly intertwined nations, but also as a concrete example of female engagement with the changing nature of what has been termed ‘the public sphere’ in this period. This thesis will explore the epistolary voice of Etta Palm d’Aelders, conceptualising her letters as a site for the convergence of several key historiographical debates, such as: the function of letters in relation to the public sphere; the performance of citizenship; the construction and articulation of a distinct citizeness-ship; and the repression of vocal femininity from the public sphere of politics.