Publication of Sally Fox’s illustrated "The Victorian Woman: A Book of Days," documenting nineteenth-century women’s lives.
On January 1, 1987, catalog records mark the publication of Sally Fox’s The Victorian Woman: A Book of Days, a follow-up to her medieval volume that turned her lens on nineteenth-century women’s lives.
This book compiled engravings, photographs, and other images showing women in domestic interiors, workplaces, public spaces, and leisure activities during the Victorian era. Fox’s careful selection highlighted both the constraints of gender norms and the diversity of women’s roles—industrial laborers, writers, athletes, professionals—often overlooked in conventional histories of the period.
By presenting these images in a day-by-day format, Fox invited readers to encounter Victorian women as complex subjects across the entire year, not confined to isolated "great woman" biographies. The work contributed to a growing movement in feminist history that emphasized ordinary lives and visual evidence as key sources.
While trade records typically specify only the publication year, the use of January 1 reflects cataloging practice and underscores the volume’s place within Fox’s broader project to reclaim women’s past. The book helped cement her reputation as a leading picture editor and influenced how educators and historians introduced Victorian gender history to students and the wider public.