The Empire of Home: Global Domestic Objects and The Female American (1767)

This article studies the representation of global domestic objects and the treatment of dress and domesticity in The Female American (1767). I argue that the novel's biracial heroine exploits portable goods, such as religious vestments, in her imperialist missionary scheme. This fictional re‐imagining of feminine material culture echoes, but remains distinct from, period examples of needlework and handicrafts that document knowledge of empire and colonisation. Whereas embroidery and novels often schooled women in the pleasures of domesticity, compelling their attention inwards, The Female American suggests a new model of heroic femininity that evades domestic gender ideologies.