IMPERIAL STANDARD-BEARERS: NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARMY OFFICERS’WIVES IN BRITISH INDIA AND THE AMERICAN WEST A Dissertation by VERITY GAY MCINNIS Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2012 Major Subject: History IMPERIAL STANDARD-BEARERS: NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARMY OFFICERS’WIVES IN BRITISH INDIA AND THE AMERICAN WEST A Dissertation by VERITY GAY MCINNIS Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Co-Chairs of Committee, R.J.Q. Adams J. G. Dawson III Committee Members, Sylvia Hoffert Claudia Nelson David Vaught Head of Department, David Vaught May 2012 Major Subject: History iii ABSTRACT Imperial Standard-Bearers: Nineteenth-Century Army Officers’ Wives in British India and the American West. (May 2012) Verity Gay McInnis, B.A., Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; M.A., Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. R.J.Q. Adams Dr. Joseph G. Dawson III The comparative experiences of the nineteenth-century British and American Army officer’s wives add a central dimension to studies of empire. Sharing their husbands’ sense of duty and mission, these women transferred, adopted, and adapted national values and customs, to fashion a new imperial sociability, influencing the course of empire by cutting across and restructuring gender, class, and racial borders. Stationed at isolated stations in British India and the American West, many officers’ wives experienced homesickness and disorientation. They reimagined military architecture and connected into the military esprit de corps, to sketch a blueprint of female identity and purpose. On the physical journeys to join their husbands, and post arrival, the feminization of formal and informal military practices produced a new social reality and facilitated the development of an empowered sisterhood that sustained imperialist ambitions. This appropriation of symbols, processes, and rankings facilitated roles as social functionaries and ceremonial performers. Additionally, in utilizing dress, and home décor, military spouses drafted and projected an imperial identity that reflected, yet transformed upper and middle-class gender models. An examination of the social processes of calling and domestic rituals confirms the iv formation of a distinct and influential imperial female identity. The duty of protecting the social gateway to the imperial community, rested with a hostess’s ability to discriminate — and convincingly reject parvenus. In focusing on the domestic site it becomes clear that the mistress-servant relationship both formulated and reproduced imperial ideologies. Within the home, the most intimate of inter-racial, inter-ethnic, and inter-class contact zones, the physiological trait of a white skin, and the exhibition of national artifacts signaled identity, status, and authority. Military spouses, then, generated social power as arbiters, promoters, and police officers of an imperial class, reaffirming internal confidence within the Anglo communities, and legitimizing external representations of the power and prestige of empire. v To my sons, Tristan, Joshua and Tobias vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ........................................................................................................... v TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………… 1 II IMPERIAL BUILDERS: MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA AND THE AMERICAN WEST…………………………………………………. 18 III IMPERIAL ESPRIT DE CORPS: NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN ARMY OFFICERS AND WIVES...…………………. 51 IV IMPERIAL JOURNEYS AND ARRIVALS: ARMY OFFICERS’ WIVES AS TRANSNATIONAL COURIERS OF EMPIRE………………………. 80 V IMPERIAL WOMEN: MILITARY ADJUNCTS, STATION SISTERHOODS, AND SENIOR LADIES………………………………... 110 VI IMPERIAL PAGEANTRY: OFFICERS’ WIVES AS PUBLIC ACTORS AND CEREMONIAL PERFORMERS……………………………………. 145 VII IMPERIAL GENDER CROSSINGS: OFFICERS AND WIVES DRESS AND HOMEMAKING ON THE EDGES OF EMPIRE………………….. 182 VIII IMPERIAL GATEKEEPERS: OFFICERS’ WIVES AS SOCIAL ARBITERS OF EMPIRE………………………………………………….. 225 IX IMPERIAL WIVES’ PREJUDICE: ATTITUDES OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND CLASS TOWARDS DOMESTIC SERVANTS…….. 265 X IMPERIAL STANDARD BEARERS: CONCLUSION.............................. 316 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 325 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................ 356 vii APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................ 366 VITA .......................................................................................................................... 367 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION It is true saying – one that should never be far from the minds of Englishwomen in India – that for the upholding of British prestige in the East, far more credit is due to the individual men and women who have carried out their lives the loftiest conceptions of English truth and virtue, than to the collective wisdom of the office in Downing Street. Maud Diver.1 Nineteenth-century novelist Maud Diver portrayed the “men and women” stationed in British India as active agents of empire. In so doing, she attempted to dispel contemporary understandings of feminine weakness and caprice by portraying military wives as social ambassadors of European civilization. In identifying themselves as sharing their officer husbands’ military roles, these women understood the expectation to represent, and espoused a willingness to undertake work for, the British Empire. Despite the availability of journals, letters, and travelogues by military wives, scant scholarly attention has been paid to these documents. Similarly, despite increasing numbers of attempts to interpret the role of the American frontier officers’ wives, these women, thus far, have remained ethereal historical actors.2 At a time when women held no authority outside the home, the impact of nineteenth- century army officers’ wives stationed in British India and the American West adds a new perspective to studies of empire. In centralizing and comparing the transnational female experiences of the army officers’ wives during the period 1818-1910, and by incorporating interdisciplinary approaches, it becomes clear that imperialism is not simply a masculine ____________ This dissertation follows the style of Western Historical Quarterly. 1 Diver, Englishwoman in India, (London, 1909), 87-8. 2 Diver, Englishwoman in India, 18, 21, 27-8, 59-60. 2 preserve. Acting as imperial ambassadors, these women generated empowerment to shape and sustain an empire. In sharing their husbands’ imperial duty and sense of mission, army officers’ wives designed and promulgated ambitions of empire. By transferring, adopting, and adapting cultural values and customs, they fashioned a new imperial reality, influencing the course of empire by cutting across and restructuring gender, class, and racial borders. In interpreting landscapes, feminizing military practices, and by designing social representations of empire, military women held pivotal roles as cultural standard-bearers of empire. By appropriating male spaces and applying an adaptive model of sociability, these women constructed a new social reality — an imperial reality — within which they became power holders. But what constitutes imperialism? In a novel that centers on a British symposium, conducted in Africa, of nine women and nine men, , who discuss the positive benefits and ideals of an empire, John Buchan attempted to answer this question. One character, Hugh states, “We need a definition …. I call myself an Imperialist, and so does the noisy fellow at the street corner; but if I am pressed to explain I can give no summary statement of my creed.” “’Is not the reason because it is not a creed but a faith?’ Lady Lucy's clear voice had a peculiar power of compelling attention. ‘You cannot carve an epic on a nutshell or expound Christianity in an aphorism. If I could define Imperialism satisfactorily in a sentence I should be very suspicious of its truth.’” “No,” declared the character of Carey, “we don't want a definition. By its fruits ye shall know it. It is a spirit, an attitude of mind, an unconquerable hope. You can phrase it in a thousand ways without exhausting its content. It is a sense of the destiny of England. It is the wider patriotism which conceives our people as a race and not as a chance community.” This spirit of destiny and patriotism may provide an ideological ideal, 3 but Michael Doyle offers a more practical classification. He instructs, “Empire, then, is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved with force, by political collaboration, by economic, social, or cultural dependence. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire.”3 Imperial history traditionally recounts global rivalry, benevolent assimilation, cultural conflict, and economic gains to justify territorial conquest. Hence, as Linda