Not an Ordinary “Ladies’ Paper”: Work, Motherhood, and Temperance Rhetoric in the Woman’s Signal , 1894–1899

The Woman’s Signal is a particularly interesting case study for examining feminist discourse in the 1890s due to the differing policies of its editors (Lady Henry Somerset and Florence Fenwick Miller), its mixture of domestic and political content, and its temperance and suffrage agendas. This article examines the marketing strategies and editorial policies deployed by the Woman’s Signal to secure a wide circulation, focusing particularly on the paper’s diverse accounts of professional work and motherhood. The divide between readers as housewives, temperance supporters, and ladies becomes apparent in advertisements, which often contradict the paper’s endorsement of new womanhood and political activism.