Private Rooms
In this article the female public sphere is in the centre of attraction, and the analysis is based upon early 19th century noblewomen's ways of life. In focus are the five sisters from the Tersmeden family: Anna Margareta, Marie Charlotte, Adolfina Ulrika, Jacquette Elisabeth and Carolina, and the letters to and from them mostly during the 1820s, 30s and 408, The principal purpose is about the female everyday life, the small, common, the daily and illusory uneventful run of things where women’s history in most cases take place. The aim with the article is to focus on their knowledge and their activity and work, thoughts and dreams.
The early 19th century society was one full of contradictions. On the one hand it was a changing society with a mobilising working class and a middle class who in a exceedingly degree demanded adrnis8ion to the high-ups in society. How much the five sisters are affected of this is difficult to say. On the other hand they are living a protected life, not very different from their mother's and grandmother's.
The five sisters moved in the same social circles as Malla Silfverstolpe and Alida and Thekla Knös and the salons they kept in Uppsala. This was one way to achieve some publicity, just as their home, charity, training and education and to some extent family and social life were others. Noblewomen had a price to pay for their public life - even if they already were public in force of their social position. Even though there were ways to achieve publicity for women, it was always on the terms of the male society. Both religion and contemporary literature supports the idea of the male norm and the female submission to this norm.
