In 1901 Eugen Sandow, a strong man performer turned health authority, hosted a competition in the Royal Albert Hall to determine the ‘best developed man in Great Britain and Ireland’. At the contest, members of the public, the military, and the scientific community watched as Sandow and his judges compared men’s physiques. Typically depicted by historians as a pivotal step in the development of bodybuilding as a sport, this article repositions Sandow’s contest as a public manifestation of British eugenics and concerns about physical deterioration. Welcoming a thousand competitors in its qualifying rounds, Sandow’s contest was advertised with reference to perfecting the British male body and stemming the tide of British degeneration. When the outbreak of the Second South African War in 1899 delayed the contest’s finale, Sandow’s marketers redoubled efforts to depict the contest as an antidote to the physical deterioration of British troops said to have become evident in the conflict. Here it is argued that Sandow simultaneously magnified, and profited, from a broader British eugenic concern about the male body. His competition served as a strong reminder for how widespread such concerns were in late Victorian and early Edwardian Britain and, more importantly, how they could be commercialized.
{"title":"The Best Developed Man in Great Britain and Ireland? Eugen Sandow and the Commercialization of Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Britain","authors":"Conor Heffernan","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcad001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In 1901 Eugen Sandow, a strong man performer turned health authority, hosted a competition in the Royal Albert Hall to determine the ‘best developed man in Great Britain and Ireland’. At the contest, members of the public, the military, and the scientific community watched as Sandow and his judges compared men’s physiques. Typically depicted by historians as a pivotal step in the development of bodybuilding as a sport, this article repositions Sandow’s contest as a public manifestation of British eugenics and concerns about physical deterioration. Welcoming a thousand competitors in its qualifying rounds, Sandow’s contest was advertised with reference to perfecting the British male body and stemming the tide of British degeneration. When the outbreak of the Second South African War in 1899 delayed the contest’s finale, Sandow’s marketers redoubled efforts to depict the contest as an antidote to the physical deterioration of British troops said to have become evident in the conflict. Here it is argued that Sandow simultaneously magnified, and profited, from a broader British eugenic concern about the male body. His competition served as a strong reminder for how widespread such concerns were in late Victorian and early Edwardian Britain and, more importantly, how they could be commercialized.","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49465352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The passage of the Postal Duties Bill in 1840 and the implementation of the penny post expanded the epistolary lives of English men and women, particularly the middle classes, overnight. The affordability of postage, the commercial boom in letter-writing appurtenances, and the increased social pressure for regular correspondence augmented and altered how individuals built all sorts of relationships, especially romantic ones. This paper relies on 45 case studies of middle-class couples’ love letters to examine the role of romantic correspondence, particularly during the life-period of engagement, throughout the nineteenth century. Correspondence collections are used to examine how couples negotiated and built intimate relationships as they progressed (or not) towards their nuptials. Not only valued for their written contents, love letters took on talismanic, fetishistic, and embodied properties representing their senders and the relationships they facilitated. Their comings and goings marked time, their length signified depth of feeling, and their presentation reflected intimacy. As romantic culture adapted to progressions in epistolary technology and assigned meaning to its various aspects, correspondence became a venue for individuals and couples to create and explore their emotional, sensual, and sentimental selves.
{"title":"‘Consider yourself kissed’: Intimacy, Engagement, and Material Culture in Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class English Love Letters","authors":"Maggie Kalenak","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcad006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The passage of the Postal Duties Bill in 1840 and the implementation of the penny post expanded the epistolary lives of English men and women, particularly the middle classes, overnight. The affordability of postage, the commercial boom in letter-writing appurtenances, and the increased social pressure for regular correspondence augmented and altered how individuals built all sorts of relationships, especially romantic ones. This paper relies on 45 case studies of middle-class couples’ love letters to examine the role of romantic correspondence, particularly during the life-period of engagement, throughout the nineteenth century. Correspondence collections are used to examine how couples negotiated and built intimate relationships as they progressed (or not) towards their nuptials. Not only valued for their written contents, love letters took on talismanic, fetishistic, and embodied properties representing their senders and the relationships they facilitated. Their comings and goings marked time, their length signified depth of feeling, and their presentation reflected intimacy. As romantic culture adapted to progressions in epistolary technology and assigned meaning to its various aspects, correspondence became a venue for individuals and couples to create and explore their emotional, sensual, and sentimental selves.","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45552456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"John Bull in a China Shop","authors":"A. Witchard","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcac076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac076","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48478791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ignoble Strife: Far From the Madding Crowd and the Agricultural Labourers Strike of 1874","authors":"B. Bell","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcac083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac083","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41675906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Examining the conflicting approaches to the fragmentation of the self and the feasibility of self-awareness featured in Christopher Priest’s novel The Prestige (1995), this article reflects on the evaluation, and subsequent reinvention, of the Victorian era in the genre commonly known as neo-Victorian fiction. Alfred Borden, the novel’s Victorian protagonist, fashions himself as a unique and unified individual even though his identity is, in fact, composite and alternatingly shared between twin brothers. In contrast, Andrew Westley, Borden’s twentieth-century descendant, experiences an instinctive sense of division through which he rationalizes his life. Featured in temporally distinct storylines, these conflicting perspectives reflect the tensions at work in the neo-Victorian return to the Victorian past. Silencing multiplicity and negating fragmentation, the Victorian characters echo scholarly objections to the use of the term ‘Victorian’: its apparent assertion of coherence and homogeneity when it is actually called to signify an extremely diverse historical period. Conversely, by means of the twentieth-century protagonist’s need to comprehend and embrace division, a need which is fulfilled through Andrew’s familiarization with and acceptance of his past, the novel acknowledges the multivalence of the ‘Victorian’ and its indisputable connection to the present. Exploring Victorian and twentieth-century appreciations of subjectivity, The Prestige sheds light into neo-Victorianism’s self-fashioning strategies, raising the question whether and to what extent neo-Victorian reconfigurations of the Victorian era (re)discover the past, or operate on our potentially misleading preconceptions about the nineteenth century.
{"title":"Self-Fashioning Illusions: Twinship, Subjectivity, and Neo-Victorianism in Christopher Priest’s \u2028The Prestige","authors":"Elisavet Ioannidou","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcac085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac085","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Examining the conflicting approaches to the fragmentation of the self and the feasibility of self-awareness featured in Christopher Priest’s novel The Prestige (1995), this article reflects on the evaluation, and subsequent reinvention, of the Victorian era in the genre commonly known as neo-Victorian fiction. Alfred Borden, the novel’s Victorian protagonist, fashions himself as a unique and unified individual even though his identity is, in fact, composite and alternatingly shared between twin brothers. In contrast, Andrew Westley, Borden’s twentieth-century descendant, experiences an instinctive sense of division through which he rationalizes his life. Featured in temporally distinct storylines, these conflicting perspectives reflect the tensions at work in the neo-Victorian return to the Victorian past. Silencing multiplicity and negating fragmentation, the Victorian characters echo scholarly objections to the use of the term ‘Victorian’: its apparent assertion of coherence and homogeneity when it is actually called to signify an extremely diverse historical period. Conversely, by means of the twentieth-century protagonist’s need to comprehend and embrace division, a need which is fulfilled through Andrew’s familiarization with and acceptance of his past, the novel acknowledges the multivalence of the ‘Victorian’ and its indisputable connection to the present. Exploring Victorian and twentieth-century appreciations of subjectivity, The Prestige sheds light into neo-Victorianism’s self-fashioning strategies, raising the question whether and to what extent neo-Victorian reconfigurations of the Victorian era (re)discover the past, or operate on our potentially misleading preconceptions about the nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44411737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bodies and Deathscapes in Rural Catholic Ireland, 1800–1900","authors":"Cara Delay","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcad003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcad003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42464523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drinking practices are closely connected to human geography. No matter whether we choose to drink in public, private, or secretly, where we drink is closely connected to how and what we drink. Alcohol-related behaviour by women, enacted at home, can undermine or challenge social norms. However, the transgressive nature of drinking could lead to physical exile or the masking of women’s desire for self-determination. We explore how the social construct of the respectable, decent home relied heavily on façades to ‘keep up appearances’. We demonstrate the place of alcohol in building these façades, and revealing them for what they were. Alcohol in this context was much more than a simple relief for women whether they were a stressed entrepreneur, a violent spinster, or a suicidal mistress. The tensions between the actions of the eight figures examined and the expectations of patriarchal culture represented in these façades demonstrate the extent to which society shaped women’s behaviour towards alcohol in Poland and Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century.
{"title":"Women, Home, and Alcohol: Constructed Façades and Social Norms in Nineteenth-Century Polish and British Representations of Female Drinking Practices","authors":"Dorota Dias-Lewandowska, P. Lock","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcad004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Drinking practices are closely connected to human geography. No matter whether we choose to drink in public, private, or secretly, where we drink is closely connected to how and what we drink. Alcohol-related behaviour by women, enacted at home, can undermine or challenge social norms. However, the transgressive nature of drinking could lead to physical exile or the masking of women’s desire for self-determination. We explore how the social construct of the respectable, decent home relied heavily on façades to ‘keep up appearances’. We demonstrate the place of alcohol in building these façades, and revealing them for what they were. Alcohol in this context was much more than a simple relief for women whether they were a stressed entrepreneur, a violent spinster, or a suicidal mistress. The tensions between the actions of the eight figures examined and the expectations of patriarchal culture represented in these façades demonstrate the extent to which society shaped women’s behaviour towards alcohol in Poland and Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century.","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43150828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Of Mouchers and Men","authors":"Stephen Ridgwell","doi":"10.1093/jvcult/vcac074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac074","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43921,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Victorian Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44441197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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