Railways and Regret: Revising Mobility Myths in Victorian Literature and Culture, 1857-1891
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2017 Railways and Regret: Revising Mobility Myths in Victorian Literature and Culture, 1857-1891 Kathryn Winslow Powell University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Powell, Kathryn Winslow, "Railways and Regret: Revising Mobility Myths in Victorian Literature and Culture, 1857-1891. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4708 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kathryn Winslow Powell entitled "Railways and Regret: Revising Mobility Myths in Victorian Literature and Culture, 1857-1891." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Nancy E. Henry, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Amy C. Billone, Harry F. Dahms, W. Martin Griffin Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Railways and Regret: Revising Mobility Myths in Victorian Literature and Culture, 1857-1891 A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Kathryn Winslow Powell August 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Kathryn Winslow Powell All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Richard Bevins Kale, Sr. and Hayden Eliot, who never met but who, respectively, inspired the beginning and end of this fulfilling endeavor. I hope it makes you both proud. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am fortunate to have a support network as deep as it is wide. This brief space proves insufficient to properly express my appreciation for the top-notch guidance I received under the direction of Nancy Henry. Thank you for challenging me to aim high and follow through. When you invited me to help recover the life of Mrs. R, you sparked the joy of archival detective work—a priceless gift. The other members of my committee also deserve much appreciation. Martin Griffin, you treated me as a colleague the moment I entered your classroom. Thanks for reminding me that the dissertation was a means rather than an end. For the remarkable ability to ask precisely the right questions, thanks go to Amy Billone. Harry Dahms, thank you for obliging my long-abiding interest in the sociological perspective. During my stint as the Richard Beale Davis fellow, I found a delightfully frank mentor in Don Cox, whose enduring encouragement is genuinely felt. The Nineteenth-Century British Research Seminar deserves credit for providing helpful feedback on early drafts. Cheers, also, to the most diligent librarian, Chris Caldwell, who withstood an onslaught of requests for obscure materials and who thoughtfully forwarded archival leads for years. Richly-deserved thanks also go to Ereck Jarvis, who let me experiment with Mugby Junction in his British survey classes and offered fresh insights. Huge hugs go to UT comrades. Kierstyn Lamour, your constancy during times of struggle and triumph alike distinguishes you as a true-blue friend. My writing partner Richard Hermes quite actively listened as I mapped out my ideas while walking all over Knoxville and patiently kept me on course when I veered off onto unproductive paths. Heartfelt thanks go to far-flung Victorianist pals, especially Nicola Kirkby, Meg Dobbs, and Dory Agazarian, whose camaraderie fills my professional life with pleasure. Along with your brilliance, your keen sense of adventure and conviviality during conferences and research trips all over the U.S., Italy, and the U.K. colors my world. My family buoyed my spirits with a steady stream of support when I needed it most. Thoughtful friends often forced perspective by reminding me—with equal love and humor—of life outside of academia. Most importantly, to Eli Johnson: I am overwhelmed by your bountiful and loving support without which I would never have been able to meet my goals. You are a shining example of true partnership and feminism in action, and I am so proud to have you by my side. Thank you for finding joy in the sacrifice and making it easier for me to dedicate long hours away from the place I most want to be. iv ABSTRACT Since 1979 when Wolfgang Schivelbusch applied Marx’s phrase “annihilation of time and space” to the nineteenth-century railways, the idea that locomotives revolutionized mobility and restructured life has undergirded historical analysis. Recent scholarship challenges this long- standing assumption, countering that transportation networks expanded through evolutionary change and that cultural adaptation occurred by resisting the imposing forces of modernity. My study joins this critical departure but proposes a new conceptual model defined by regret and revision. This dissertation argues that fiction written between 1857-1891 illustrates railway growth as a recursive and participatory process. I show through the writing of Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Riddell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Dickens, and Margaret Oliphant that expansion was neither radically disruptive nor seamless but occurred through a series of fits and starts, re-assessments and alterations. Additionally, this body of fiction illuminates how Victorians actively negotiated the challenges the railways introduced, rather than merely adapting their lives to technological modernization or turning away from the present to recuperate part of a lost past. As the railways transformed from invention to commodity to industry, popular nineteenth-century engineering biographies shaped the story of the railway and its inventors, engineers, and investors into inflated myths of personal success and smooth progress. Valorizing self-interest over government interference, these narratives reinforced the laissez-faire arrangement between Parliament and railway companies. However, by mid-century redundant and abandoned lines, accidents, financial mania, and social immobility sparked debates about the detriment of lax regulation on public welfare. Along with newspapers and journals, fiction contributed to this debate. Works by Dickens, Gaskell, Riddell, Oliphant and others addressed these regrets by revising the story of the railways, correcting the strategic selection, erasure, and exaggeration of those early myths. In chapters focused on the expansion of lines, traveler safety, financial investment, and social mobility, this dissertation showcases authors who amplified the voice of public opinion in their fiction during a time when Parliament and boards of directors dominated the conversation. Demonstrating that to regret the past is also to envision a better future, such fiction provided the space within which Victorians could imagine balance between corporate, state, and public interests. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PARALLEL TRACKS: COMPETING ACCOUNTS OF THE RAILWAY’S STORIED PAST ....................................................................................................................................1 Spirit of the Times: Regret and the Affective Infrastructure of Progress ..................14 Mobility Studies: The Literary Reconstruction and the Scholarly Landscape ..........21 Railway Prospectus: The Plan of the Project .............................................................26 CHAPTER ONE BROKEN BRANCH LINES: THE MYTH OF THE SELF-MADE MAN AND THE SHUNTED NATIONAL NETWORK .................................................................................32 Inventing the Self-Help Hero: Samuel Smiles and The Life of George Stephenson: Railway Engineer .......................................................................................................36 Heroic Revisions: Narratives of Selfishness and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cousin Phillis ....................................................................................................................................48 Incremental Progress and Community-Interested Narratives ....................................59 CHAPTER TWO ACCIDENT REPORTS: PUBLIC INTEREST IN RAILWAY SAFETY MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................................................68 Measuring the Costs of Public Safety in the 1840 Railway Regulation Act .............70 Inventing the Anti-Hero: Narratives of Failure in Charlotte Riddell and City and Suburb ....................................................................................................................................74 Coroner’s Inquest: Anti-Regulation on Trial .............................................................122 Public Safety as National Prosperity: The Railway Inventor’s Golden Eggs ............129 CHAPTER THREE NEW RAILWAY SCRIP: DISCOUNTING FINANCIAL MANIA MYTHS IN MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON’S LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET ........................................................132