Blue Stockings Society  The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century. The society emphasized education and mutual co-operation. The Society was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey and others, as a women's literary discussion group, a revolutionary step away from traditional, non-intellectual, women's activities. They invited various people (both women and men) to attend, including botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet. One story tells that Stillingfleet was not rich enough to have the proper formal dress, which included black silk stockings and so he attended in everyday blue worsted stockings. The term came to refer to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation over fashion. The Blue Stockings Society of England emerged in about 1750, and waned in popularity at the end of the 18th century. It was a loose organization of privileged women with an interest in education to gather together to discuss literature while inviting educated men to participate. The Blue Stockings Society leaders and hostesses were Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Vesey. The women involved in this group generally had more education and fewer children than most English women of the time. During this time period only men attended universities and women were expected to master skills such as needlework and knitting: It was considered "unbecoming" for them to know Greek or Latin, almost immodest for them to be authors, and certainly indiscreet to admit the fact. Mrs. Barbauld was merely the echo of popular sentiment when she protested that women did not want colleges. "The best way for a woman to acquire knowledge", she wrote, "is from conversation with a father, or brother, or friend." By the early 1800s, this sentiment had changed, and it was much more common to question "why a woman of forty should be more ignorant than a boy of twelve", which coincided with the waning of the Blue Stockings's popularity. The group has been described by many historians and authors such as Jeanine Dobbs as "having preserved and advanced feminism" due to the advocacy of women's education, social complaints of the status and lifestyle expected of the women in their society, seen in the writings of the Blue Stocking women themselves:  The name "Blue Stocking Society" and its origins are highly disputed among historians. There are scattered early references to bluestockings including in the 15th-century Della Calza society in Venice, John Amos Comenius in 1638, and the 17th century Covenanters in Scotland.