“How I shudder at the thought of becoming a useless old woman”: Strategies for Coping with Old Age and Aging Processes in the Diaries of a Swiss Woman Anna Maria Preiswerk-Iselin (1758–1840)

<jats:p>Female age and aging around 1800 are often associated with the role of the grandmother and social seclusion. This article presents Anna Maria Preiswerk-Iselin, a citizen of Basel in Switzerland, as a counterexample. She kept a diary for 44 years until shortly before her death in 1840 at the age of 82. In her writings, she shows herself not only as a grandmother, but also as an active, socially interested and committed aging woman. As she aged, she developed strategies to remain a useful member of society and engage in meaningful activities. However, not all her plans were successful. Preiswerk-Iselin’s writing is contextualized and analyzed on the basis of contemporary norms, bourgeois socializing practices, Reinhard Koselleck’s concept of the sense of time around 1800, and the concept of growing autonomy from established norms, social obligations and expectations in old age.</jats:p>