This is a response to Elizabeh Jane Errington’s article “Suitable Diversions: Women, Gentility, and Entertainment in an Imperial Outpost” from Ontario History 102.2 (Autumn 2010): p. 175-97. In it, Errington describes the life of cultured gentlewomen in nineteenth century Upper Canada including preferred forms of entertainment and social structures.
I was disappointed with Errington’s abstract for the article. An abstract is supposed to summarize the entirety of the article and should include a hypothesis, research, evidence and conclusion. Errington’s abstract reads like the summary of a historical romance novel. Her description is vague and somewhat redundant, for anyone even remotely familiar with social practices from the nineteenth century would know that women preferred to spend time in the comforts of the domestic sphere. The fact that they chose their friends from the same socio-economic level is equally obvious. Errington should have provided an explanation for her paper if she couldn’t think of an argument. Her abstract failed to answer the most important question in academic discourse: so what? I already know how women structured their social lives around the domestic sphere with women from a similar socio-economic class. I want some specific examples as to what women did for entertainment besides not go to taverns.
A reader would have to read through Errington’s entire article to find out what women did for entertainment in Upper Canada, and normally, I wouldn’t complain, but Errington’s article again reads like a historical romance novel. Publishing this article elicits the same sickened reaction from me as insisting a Phillippa Gregory novel is historically accurate. Errington might use fact, but she presents it in such a pithy, prosaic manner that it’s boring to read. Academic papers should be succinct and to the point. Historical romance requires meandering. Errington provides the latter.
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