The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture

252 Pages·2008·25.596 MB·English

by  Dennis Denisoff (editor)

The NiNeTeeNTh-CeNTury Child
aNd CoNsumer CulTure
ashgate studies in Childhood,
1700 to the Present
Series Editor: Claudia Nelson, Texas A&M University, USA
This series recognizes and supports innovative work on the child and on literature
for children and adolescents that informs teaching and engages with current and
emerging debates in the field. Proposals are welcome for interdisciplinary and
comparative studies by humanities scholars working in a variety of fields, including
literature; book history, periodicals history, and print culture and the sociology of
texts; theater, film, musicology, and performance studies; history, including the
history of education; gender studies; art history and visual culture; cultural studies;
and religion.
Topics might include, among other possibilities, how concepts and representations
of the child have changed in response to adult concerns; postcolonial and transnational
perspectives; “domestic imperialism” and the acculturation of the young within and
across class and ethnic lines; the commercialization of childhood and children’s
bodies; views of young people as consumers and/or originators of culture; the child
and religious discourse; children’s and adolescents’ self-representations; and adults’
recollections of childhood.
also in the series
French Paintings of Childhood and Adolescence, 1848–1886
anna Green
Fashioning Childhood in the Eighteenth Century
Age and Identity
Edited by Anja Müller
Women and the Shaping of the Nation’s Young
Education and Public Doctrine in Britain 1750–1850
Mary Hilton
The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation
David Whitley
The Nineteenth-Century Child
and Consumer Culture
deNNis deNisoff
Ryerson University, Canada
First published 2008 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint oft he Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Dennis Denisoff 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Dennis Denisoff has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture.-(Ashgate Studies in Childhood,
1700 to the Present)
I. Consumption (Economics)- Social aspects- Great Britain- History- 19th century.
2. Consumer behavior- Great Britain- History- 19th century. 3. Child consumers-
Great Britain- History- 19th century. 4. Children's literature, English- History and
criticism. 5. Children in literature. 6. English literature- 19th century- History and
criticism. 7. Great Britain - Social conditions - 19th century.
I. Denisoff, Dennis, 1961- .
306.3'0941 '09034
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The nineteenth-century child and consumer culture I edited by Dennis Denisoff.
p. em. - (Ashgate Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present)
Includes index.
1. Consumption (Economics)- Social aspects- Great Britain. 2. Consumer behavior
- Great Britain- History- 19th century. 3. Child consumers- Great Britain-
History- 19th century. 4. Child welfare- Great Britain- History- 19th century.
5. Great Britain- Social conditions- 19th century. I. Denisoff, Dennis, 1961-.
HC260.C6N55 2007
306.30941 '09034-dc22 2007023674
ISBN 9780754661566 (hbk)
ISBN 9781138276130 (pbk)
Contents
Figures vii
Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xi
introduction
Small Change: The Consumerist Designs of the Nineteenth-Century Child 1
Dennis Denisoff
PART 1: Play Things: Toys and Theater 27
1 Experiments before Breakfast: Toys, Education and
middle-Class Childhood 29
Teresa Michals
2 Paper Dreams and Romantic Projections: The Nineteenth-Century
Toy Theater, Boyhood and Aesthetic Play 43
Liz Farr
3 The Drama of Precocity: Child Performers on the Victorian Stage 63
Marah Gubar
PART 2: Consuming Desires 79
4 “I’m not a bit expensive”: Henry James and the Sexualization
of the Victorian Girl 81
Michèle Mendelssohn
5 For-getting to Eat: Alice’s Mouthing Metonymy 95
Carol Mavor
6 salome’s lost Childhood: Wilde’s daughter of sodom,
Jugendstil Culture and the Queer Afterlife of a Decadent Myth 119
Richard A. Kaye
PART 3: Adulthood and Nationhood 135
7 adult Children’s literature in Victorian Britain 137
Claudia Nelson
vi Contents
8 Home Thoughts and Home Scenes: Packaging middle-class
Childhood for Christmas Consumption 151
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra
9 Maps, Pirates and Treasure: The Commodification of Imperialism
in Nineteenth-Century Boys’ Adventure Fiction 173
Ymitri Mathison
PART 4: Children and the Terrors of Cultural Consumption 187
10 Toys and Terror: Lucy Clifford’s Anyhow Stories 189
Patricia Demers
11 “We have orphans […] in stock”: Crime and the Consumption
of sensational Children 201
Tamara S. Wagner
12 “and now Tom being killed, and all spent and eaten”:
Children, Consumption and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century
Child-Protection discourse 217
Monica Flegel
Index 231
figures
0.1 John Tenniel, “The Happy Family in Hyde Park.”
Punch 19 July 1851: 38. 24
0.2 George Du Maurier, “True Distinction.” Punch 31 July 1875: 43. 25
2.1 “Redington’s New Improved Stage Front,” c.1850.
Courtesy of Pollock’s Toy Museum Trust. 57
2.2 “Skelt’s Characters in Pizarro.” The Publishers.
London: Studio Vista. 58
2.3 “[J. K.] Green’s Scene in Harlequin and Oliver Cromwell,”
Scene 12, 1852. Courtesy of Pollock’s Toy Museum Trust. 59
5.1 Merit Oppenheim, My Nurse. 1936. Moderna Museet, Stockholm. 108
5.2 ---, Breakfast in Fur. 1936. 2006 Artists Rights Society,
New York/Pro Litteris, Zurich. 109
5.3 Lewis Carroll, Alice Liddell as “The Beggar Maid.” c. 1858.
Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ. 110
5.4 ---, Xie Kitchin with Umbrella. Ca. 1875.
George Eastman House. Rochester, NY. 111
5.5 ---, Xie Kitchin as “Tea-Merchant (On Duty)”
and Xie Kitchin as “Tea-Merchant (Off Duty).” 1873.
Princeton University Library. Princeton, NJ. 112
5.6 “Through the Looking Glass” Biscuit Tin. 1892. 113
5.7 Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case. Front and Back. 1890. 114
5.8 “Allen’s Marvellous Chocolates” Box. n.d. 115
5.9 Lewis Carroll, Edith, Lorina, and Alice Liddell in “Open Your
Mouth and Shut Your Eyes.” 1860. Princeton University Library,
Princeton, NJ. 116
8.1 Alfred Hunt, “Hoisting the Union Jack,” Illustrated London
News Christmas Number. Dec.1876: 1. 164
8.2 J. L. Williams, “Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle,” Illustrated
London News Christmas Supplement. Dec. 1848: 409. 165
8.3 Arthur Boyd Houghton, “Noah’s Ark,” Home Thoughts and
Home Scenes in Original Poems and Pictures. Engraved by
the Brothers Dalziel. London: George Routledge, 1868, 2. 166
8.4 ---, “The Enemy on the Wall,” Home Thoughts and Home
Scenes Scenes in Original Poems and Pictures. Engraved by
the Brothers Dalziel. London: George Routledge, 1868, 14. 167
8.5 ---, “At the Sweets,” Home Thoughts and Home Scenes Scenes
in Original Poems and Pictures. Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.
London: George Routledge, 1868, 3. 168
viii Figures
8.6 ---, “The Scramble for Sugarplums,” Home Thoughts and
Home Scenes Scenes in Original Poems and Pictures. engraved
by the Brothers Dalziel. London: George Routledge, 1868, 21. 169
8.7 ---, “Grandpapa,” Home Thoughts and Home Scenes Scenes
in Original Poems and Pictures. Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.
London: George Routledge, 1868, 19. 170
Contributors
Patricia Demers, University Professor in the Department of English and Film
Studies at the University of Alberta, has just concluded a term as President of the
Royal Society of Canada (2005-07). She is the author or editor of 12 books, including
From Instruction to Delight: An Anthology of Children’s Literature to 1850 (Oxford
uP, 1982; 2nd ed. 2004; 3rd ed. forthcoming 2008).
Dennis Denisoff is Research Chair at Ryerson University, and a member of the
Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Sexuality and Gender in Europe at the
University of Exeter. His recent publications include Aestheticism and Sexual Parody
(Cambridge UP, 2001) and Sexual Visuality from Literature to Film (Palgrave–
Macmillan, 2004). He is also the editor of the Broadview Anthology of Victorian
Short Stories (Broadview, 2004).
Liz Farr was awarded a Wingate Scholarship to complete her Ph.D. at Birkbeck
College, University of London, and is now a Lecturer in English and Coordinator of
the English Research Group at Plymouth University, UK. She is currently completing
a monograph offering a reappraisal of robert louis stevenson in the context of
nineteenth-century aestheticism, childhood, masculinity and the periodical press.
Monica Flegel is an Assistant Professor at Lakehead University. Her research
focuses on children’s literature, on cruelty to children, and on the connections
between children and animals in Victorian England. She has published in Victorian
Periodicals Review, English Studies in Canada, and Victorian Review. Her
monograph, Conceptualizing Cruelty to Children in Nineteenth-Century England,
is forthcoming from Ashgate.
Marah Gubar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where she
currently serves as Director of the Children’s Literature Program. She is the author
of Artful Dodgers: Reconceiving the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (Oxford
UP, forthcoming). She has also published articles on Lewis Carroll, Lucy Maud
Montgomery, E. B. White and Jack Gantos in journals such as Children’s Literature
and Texas Studies in Literature and Language.
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra is Chair of English at Ryerson University. Her research
focuses on Victorian illustrated books and visual culture. Her publications include
Christina Rossetti and Illustration: A Publishing History (Ohio UP, 2002) and The
Artist as Critic: Bitextuality in Fin-de-Siècle Illustrated Books (Scolar, 1995).
Richard A. Kaye is an associate Professor of english at hunter College, CuNy and
on the faculty of CUNY Graduate Center. His scholarly books include The Flirt’s