A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu, the "Queen of the Blues", including Elizabeth Vesey, Hester Chapone and the classicist Elizabeth Carter. In the following generation came Hester Lynch Piozzi, Hannah More and Frances Burney. The term now more broadly applies to women who show interest in literary or intellectual matters. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. It was later applied primarily to intellectual women and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed negative implications and is now often used in a derogatory manner. The reference to blue stockings may arise from the time when woollen worsted stockings were informal dress, in contrast to formal, fashionable black silk stockings. The most frequent such reference is to a man, Benjamin Stillingfleet, who reportedly lacked the formal black stockings, yet participated in the Blue Stockings Society. As Frances Burney, a Bluestocking, recounts the events, she reveals that Benjamin Stillingfleet was invited to a literary meeting by Elizabeth Vesey but was told off because of his informal attire. Her response was "don’t mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!"
History
The Blue Stockings Society was a literary society led by Elizabeth Montagu and others in the 1750s in England. Elizabeth Montagu was an anomaly in this society because she took possession of her husband's property when he died. This allowed her to have impact in her world. This society was founded by women, and included many prominent members of English society, both male and female, including Harriet Bowdler, Edmund Burke, Sarah Fielding, Samuel Johnson, and Frances Pulteney. M.P., an 1811 comic opera by Thomas Moore and Charles Edward Horn, was subtitled The Blue Stocking. It contained a character Lady Bab Blue who was a parody of bluestockings. A reference to bluestockings has been attributed to John Amos Comenius in his 1638 book, where he mentioned the ancient tradition of women being excluded from higher education, citing Bible and Euripides. That reference, though, comes from Keatinge's 1896 translation and is not present in Comenius's original Latin text. The name may have been applied in the 15th century to the blue stockings worn by the members of the Compagnie della Calza in Venice, which then was adopted in Paris and London; in the 17th century to the Covenanters in Scotland, who wore unbleached woollen stockings, in contrast to the bleached or dyed stockings of the more affluent. In 1870 Henry D. Wheatley noted that Elizabeth Montagu's coterie were named "blue stockings" after the blue worsted stockings worn by the naturalist Benjamin Stillingfleet. William Hazlitt said, "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society...she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her."
