Selecting and Training Female Emigrants

Abstract

This chapter shows how women were selected on account of their femininity and education. Statistical studies based on the female emigration societies’ archives also prove that the ideal emigrant was English, and not solely British. The chapter first questions the very definition of female education in the Victorian era. It then presents the female emigrants’ training centres as bride factories meant to turn gentlewomen candidates into perfect wives for colonial settlers. Focusing on the female emigrants’ profiles and their capacity to fund their own emigration, it shows that female emigrants were mostly gentlewomen who could often pay for their departure, but still turned to the female emigration societies for support and protection. It also proves that the female emigrants’ selection was influenced by the selectionist ideals of the time.