proposal

Hannah Foster’s The Boarding School explains the necessity of a boarding school experience for young women. She does this through documentation of letters of pupils and instructors studying at the finishing school Harmony Grove. Foster enunciates the necessity of sisterhood and literature, which the finishing school strives to offer their pupils. Foster claims that only through the support of sisterhood and with proper reading can young women flourish in society.
Foster uses letter from to support her claim that boarding school supports an environment unlike any other. She tells of how the pupils go home disappointed in the lack of support and sisterhood even offered by their blood sisters, often yearning to return to Harmony Grove. My claim on the necessity of sisterhood and literature during the late 18th century will find support through examining the lifestyles of respectable women during this era, and how sisterhood and literature influenced them. In order to make this claim first I need to explain how boarding school supports and encourages a sisterly environment and literature. From there the paper will concentrate on successful women of the time, what classified them as successful, and how literature and sisterhood inspired their lifestyles. Then, I will relate my research back to The Boarding School in order to show how the development of these sisterly and reading skills will eventually transform the lives of these young pupils.
The essentialness of understanding how sisterhood and literature affects the lives of young women in the late 18th century remains crucial even today. It is important to understand how the first school’s educated women, and what they considered necessary for them to know. Sisterhood and literature, which prove to be prominent subjects of the boarding school, remain significant for women today. Literature throughout all levels of education remains vital, and this sense of sisterhood over the years transformed into sororities and other organizations where the respect and love for women alike remain recognized. This project will provide readers with an understanding of where, how and why the foundations for women in literature and sisterhood came to be and remain significant.