Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T23:03:00.393Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

QUESTIONS FROM WORKERS WHO READ: EDUCATION AND SELF-FORMATION IN CHARTIST PRINT CULTURE AND ELIZABETH GASKELL’S MARY BARTON

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2016

Gregory Vargo
Gregory Vargo*
Affiliation:
New York University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although the Chartist organ the Northern Star was a careful observer of literary developments, especially concerning social-problem fiction, it failed to comment on the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton, today the best-known literary work to treat Chartism. The popular and controversial novel about the consequences of an assassination committed by a disillusioned activist slipped by the radical paper unnoticed in the tumult of the fall of 1848. But the Star was not as unfamiliar with Mary Barton as its initial silence suggests. Two years later, when the paper reviewed The Moorland Cottage, it praised Gaskell's earlier book as “a powerful and truthful exposition of the evils inherent in the factory system,” adding that “the graphic manner in which the writer placed before the public the domestic, moral, and social results of factory life, brought down from the upholders of the factory system many sneers at her political economy and her sentimentalism; but none denied the unquestionable genius and superior discrimination of character and motives which pervaded the work” (Dec. 28, 1850).

Type
Work in Progress
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 133 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Nineteenth-Century Newspapers and Journals:Google Scholar
McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal. New York: Greenwood Reprint Corporation, 1968. 1841.Google Scholar
National Association Gazette. Gale Cengage. Web. 1842. 8 Jan. 2013.Google Scholar
Northern Star. 19th Century British Library Newspapers. Web. 1837–52. 23 May 2013.Google Scholar
Penny Magazine. Hathi Trust. Web. 1832–45. 21 May 2013.Google Scholar
Poor Man's Guardian. New York: Greenwood Reprint Corporation, 1968. 1831–35.Google Scholar
Western Vindicator. 1840. Original housed in the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People's History Museum in Manchester.Google Scholar
Other Works:Google Scholar
Adams, W. E.Memoirs of a Social Atom. London: Hutchinson, 1903.Google Scholar
Altick, Richard. The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1957.Google Scholar
Ashton, Owen, and Pickering, Paul. Friends of the People: Uneasy Radicals in the Age of the Chartists. London: Merlin, 2002.Google Scholar
Bamford, Samuel. Passages in the Life of a Radical. New York: Oxford UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Bennett, Scott. “The Editorial Character and Readership of ‘The Penny Magazine’: An Analysis.” Victorian Periodicals Review 17.4 (Winter 1984): 127–41.Google Scholar
Brill, Barbara. William Gaskell, A Portrait. Manchester: Manchester Literary and Philosophical, 1984.Google Scholar
Chase, Malcolm. Chartism: A New History. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Collins, Philip Arthur William. Thomas Cooper, the Chartist: Byron and the “Poets of the Poor”. Nottingham: U of Nottingham, 1969.Google Scholar
d’Albertis, Deirdre. Dissembling Fictions: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Social Text. New York: St. Martin's, 1997.Google Scholar
Daly, MacDonald. “Introduction.” Mary Barton by Gaskell, Elizabeth. New York: Penguin, 2003. vii-xxx.Google Scholar
Denning, Michael. Culture in the Age of Three Worlds. New York: Verso, 2004.Google Scholar
Epstein, James. The Lion of Freedom. London: Croom Helm, 1982.Google Scholar
Faulkner, Harold Underwood. Chartism and the Churches: A Study in Democracy. New York: Columbia UP, 1916.Google Scholar
Finn, Margot. After Chartism: Class and Nation in English Radical Politics, 1848–1874. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Foster, Shirley. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Literary Life. New York: Palgrave, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedgood, Elaine. “The Novelist and Her Poor.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 47.2 (Summer 2014): 210–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, Catherine. The Industrial Reformation of English Fiction: Social Discourse and Narrative Form, 1832–1867. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985.Google Scholar
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell. Ed. Chapple, J. A. V. and Pollard, Arthur. Manchester: Mandolin, 1997.Google Scholar
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Gerin, Winifred. Elizabeth Gaskell, A Biography. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976.Google Scholar
Gleadle, Kathryn. The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women's Rights Movement, 1831–51. New York: St. Martin's, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graziano, Anne. “The Death of the Working-Class Hero in Mary Barton and Alton Locke.” JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory 29.2 (1999): 135–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guy, Josephine. The Victorian Social-Problem Novel: The Market, the Individual and Communal Life. New York: St. Martin's, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Robert. “Creating a People's History: Political Identity and History in Chartism, 1832–1848.” The Chartist Legacy. Ed. Ashton, Owen, Fyson, Robert, and Roberts, Stephen. London: Merlin, 1999. 232–54.Google Scholar
Hammond, J. L., and Hammond, Barbara. James Stansfeld: A Victorian Champion of Sex Equality. London: Longmans, Green, 1932.Google Scholar
Harrison, J. F. C.Learning and Living, 1790–1960: A Study of the History of the English Adult Education Movement. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1961.Google Scholar
Hartley, Jenny. “Reading in Gaol.” A Return to the Common Reader: Print Culture and the Novel, 1850–1900. Ed. Palmer, Beth and Buckland, Adelene. Burlington: Ashgate, 2011. 87–102.Google Scholar
Haywood, Ian. The Revolution in Popular Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.Google Scholar
Hollis, Patricia. The Pauper Press. New York: Oxford UP, 1970.Google Scholar
Howel, Phillip. “The Geography of Political Lecturing.” The People's Charter: Democratic Agitation in Early Victorian Britain. Ed. Roberts, Stephen. London: Merlin, 2003. 114–32.Google Scholar
Janowitz, Anne. Lyric and Labour in the Romantic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.Google Scholar
Johnson, Richard. “Really Useful Knowledge – Radical Education and Working Class Culture, 1790–1848.” Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory. Ed. Clarke, John, Crichter, Charles, and Johnson, Richard. London: Hutchinson, 1979. 75–102.Google Scholar
Kay-Shuttleworth, James. “First Report on the Training School at Battersea to the Poor Law Commissioners.” 1841. Four Periods of Public Education as Reviewed in 1832, 1839, 1846, 1862 by Kay-Shuttleworth. Brighton: Harvester, 1973. 293–386.Google Scholar
Kay-Shuttleworth, James. “The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes in Manchester in 1832.” Ed. Tholfsen. 41–79.Google Scholar
Kay-Shuttleworth, James. “Recent Measures for the Promotion of Education in England.” Ed. Tholfsen. 80–95.Google Scholar
Kelly, Thomas. A History of Adult Education in Great Britain. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1962.Google Scholar
Kestner, Joseph. Protest and Reform: The British Social Narrative by Women, 1827–1867. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1985.Google Scholar
King, Amy Mae. “Taxonomical Cures: The Politics of Natural History and Herbalist Medicine in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton.” Romantic Science: The Literary Forms of Natural History. Ed. Herringman, Noah. Albany: State U of New York P, 2003. 255–70.Google Scholar
Knight, Charles. Passages of a Working Life. Vol 2. 1864. New York: AMS, 1973.Google Scholar
Laqueur, Thomas. Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class Culture 1780–1850. New Haven: Yale UP.Google Scholar
Levine, Caroline.The Serious Pleasures of Suspense: Victorian Realism and Narrative Doubt. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2003.Google Scholar
Lovett, William. Life and struggles of William Lovett, in his pursuit of bread, knowledge & freedom. London: McGibbon & Kee, 1967.Google Scholar
Lovett, William, and Collins, John. Chartism, a New Organization of the People. 1840. New York: Humanities, 1969.Google Scholar
Maidment, Brian. “Magazines of Popular Progress and the Artisans.” Victorian Periodicals Review 17.3 (Fall 1984): 83–94.Google Scholar
McCalman, Iain. Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795–1840. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Millard, Kay. “The Religion of Elizabeth Gaskell.” Gaskell Society Journal 15 (2001): 1–13.Google Scholar
Parker, Pamela Corpron. “Fictional Philanthropy in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South.” Victorian Literature and Culture 25.2 (1997): 321–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, Paul, and Roberts, Stephen. “Pills, Pamphlets and Politics: The Career of Peter Murray McDouall (1814–54).” Manchester Region History Review 11 (1997): 34–43.Google Scholar
Poovey, Mary. Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830–1864. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. Proletarian Nights. New York: Verso, 2012.Google Scholar
Rose, Jonathan. The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Sabin, Margery. “Working-Class Plain Style: William Lovett vs. Carlyle, Gaskell, and Others.” Raritan 18.2 (1998): 41–62.Google Scholar
Secord, Anne. “Elizabeth Gaskell and the Artisan Naturalists of Manchester.” Gaskell Society Journal 19 (2005): 34–51.Google Scholar
Seed, John. “Unitarianism, Political Economy and the Antinomies of Liberal Culture in Manchester, 1830–1850.” Social History 7.1 (Jan. 1982): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silver, Harold. English Education and the Radicals 1780–1850. London: Routledge, 1975.Google Scholar
Simon, Brian. Studies in the History of Education, Vol. 1: The Two Nations and the Educational Structure, 1780–1870. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1960.Google Scholar
Stoneman, Patsy. Elizabeth Gaskell. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surridge, Lisa. “Working-Class Masculinities in Mary Barton.” Victorian Literature and Culture 28.2 (2000): 331–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutherland, Gillian. “Education.” The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950. Ed. Thompson, F. M. L.. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. 119–69.Google Scholar
Taylor, Barbara. Eve and the New Jerusalem. New York: Pantheon, 1983.Google Scholar
Thiele, David. “‘That There Brutus’: Elite Culture and Knowledge Diffusion in the Industrial Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell.” Victorian Literature and Culture 35.1 (2007): 263–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tholfsen, Trygve. Working-Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England. New York: Columbia UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Tholfsen, Trygve, ed. Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth on Popular Education. New York: Teachers College P, 1974.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P.The Making of the English Working-Class. New York: Vintage, 1966.Google Scholar
Uglow, Jenny. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993.Google Scholar
Vanden Bossche, Chris. Reform Acts:Chartism, Social Agency, and the Victorian Novel, 1832–1867. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vincent, David. Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working Class Autobiography. London: Europa, 1981.Google Scholar
Watts, Ruth. Gender, Power, and the Unitarians in England 1760–1860. New York: Longman, 1998.Google Scholar
Webb, R. K.The British Working-Class Reader 1790–1848: Literacy and Social Tension. London: Allen and Unwin, 1955.Google Scholar
Wiener, Joel. William Lovett. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780–1950. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. “Radical and/or Respectable.” The Press We Deserve. Ed. Boston, RichardLondon: Routledge, 1970. 14–26.Google Scholar
Wilson, Alexander. The Chartist Movement in Scotland. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1970.Google Scholar
Wyke, Terry. “The Culture of Self-Improvement: Real People in Mary Barton.” Gaskell Society Journal 13 (1999): 85–103.Google Scholar
Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. “Why Political Novels Have Heroines: ‘Sybil,’ ‘Mary Barton,’ and ‘Felix Holt.’” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 18.2 (Winter 1985): 126–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar