CONNECTED READERS: READING PRACTICES AND COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE BRITISH EMPIRE, C. 1890-1930 BY SUSANN LIEBICH A thesis submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Victoria University of Wellington 2012 III ABSTRACT The thesis is a study of reading practices and communities across various sites of the British Empire between 1890-1930, a period marked by near universal literacy levels and affordable, mass print production. It draws on the extensive archive of Fred Barkas (1854-1932), an English-born New Zealand resident, whose reading and writing has left a uniquely rich record of reading practices over a forty-year period, and the records of other individual and group readers in Canada, Britain and Australia. As a social history of reading, the study explores how reading shaped personal relationships, fashioned individual and collective identities, and contributed to the processes of community formation, locally and across space. The remarkable depth of Barkas‘s records allows an examination of how a reader situated in a provincial centre on the outskirts of empire could be at the ―centre‖ of a British reading world. Barkas‘s records are supplemented by library records, by the minute books and scrapbooks of the Canadian reader Margaret McMicking (1849-1944) and the Victoria Literary Society, B.C., and by the publications of the National and the Australasian Home Reading Union, active in the British Empire between 1889 and 1930. Like Barkas, McMicking and members of the Home Reading movement participated in a social world of reading that was simultaneously defined by local specifics and by imperial connections. The study considers reading within a variety of spaces, times and social environments. The discussion leads from an exploration of local reading networks in Timaru which connected in a number of spaces, to a particular place of reading: the Timaru Public Library. Reading, and writing about reading, was central to Fred Barkas‘s relationship with his daughter Mary. Mary lived in England for most of her adult life from 1913; the lengthy and detailed correspondence between Fred and Mary provides a basis for the exploration of reading in a family intimacy spanning space and time. Group reading cultures are discussed through Barkas‘s involvement with several reading and discussion groups in Timaru, and McMicking‘s membership in the Victoria Literary Society in British Columbia. These local reading groups were embedded in existing associational cultures and constituted important spaces for sociability within prevailing notions about class and gender. The empire-wide Home Reading movement addressed concerns about the right kind of reading, stressing in particular the importance of reading in circles. The Union extended the debate about reading to notions of IV citizenship of nation and empire, a responsibility especially emphasized during World War One. During the war, civilians in different sites across the empire used their reading for information as well as escape, and reading turned into a mechanism to cope with heightened anxiety. A diversity of reading practices is evident across these spaces and included reading that was variously entertaining, recreational, productive, instructive, informative, social and solitary. Connections to other readers influenced the choice of reading material and reading practice. Reading alone and silently, reading out loud at group meetings or with friends, taking notes, reflecting on reading in writing, re-reading texts, and discussing one‘s reading in writing or talk with others all contributed to reading cultures that were highly social. The thesis argues that in order to understand the place of reading in specific localities and in the wider British Empire in this period, we need to train our gaze simultaneously on the local and on the imperial, and move beneath and beyond national histories of reading. The readers in this study connected to places outside their local communities, and to a larger reading world not only through what they read but how they read. Recent scholarship on the new imperialism has emphasized the notion of the British Empire as a ―web‖ – a set of networks facilitating the flow of people, goods and ideas across the empire. Print and other forms of the written word formed an important part of this movement and exchange. Reading material and suggestions for reading flowed back and forth, books were bought and shipped as commercial goods, were sent as gifts in private mail, or lent to other readers within existing networks. Across the lines of connections, discussion about reading flowed profusely in newspapers, journals, NHRU magazines and letters. This study offers insights into the ways in which reading and reading practices operated across the webs of empire. V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to first thank my supervisors Charlotte Macdonald and Sydney Shep. From the start of this project, Charlotte and Sydney were extremely enthusiastic and encouraging. They sometimes pushed me beyond what felt comfortable and the thesis is much better for this, and for the many insightful comments and suggestions they offered over the last few years. Charlotte and Sydney are incredibly generous people and wonderful academics. They gave of their time and energy beyond the call of duty. I have learned a great deal from them, and I can only hope to aspire to the same high standards while I begin my academic career. I would also like to thank Luke Trainor, who read many drafts, offered suggestions and showed unwavering faith in my abilities and stamina. I am sure he would have had better things to do in his retirement, and I am very grateful for the interest he has taken in my work. The History Programme at Victoria University provided a collegial atmosphere, as well as a spacious office, and I would like to acknowledge the support of the History staff. In particular, thanks to Kate Hunter, Steve Behrendt and Adrian Muckle, for sharing their research, offering help with statistics and making my life as a postgraduate student much easier. My fellow postgraduates offered companionship and hilarity. Laughter is indispensable when writing a thesis. I would like to thank especially everyone who at various times participated in our ―support group‖ and provided a friendly ear along the way. Adam McConnochie and Catherine Falconer-Gray read chapter drafts and I am grateful for their comments. Thanks to Andrew Francis for our talks about Empire and his many encouraging words. Thanks to James Taylor for his hospitality and company when our research paths crossed in Manchester and London, and for listening to my ideas and sharing his. Historians rely on archives, and I would like to thank the many archivists and librarians who helped me find some of the archival materials used in this thesis and willingly answered enquiries. They made my research stints in Wellington, Timaru, Christchurch, in Hobart, in London, Oxford and Manchester, and in Victoria, B.C. and Ottawa much more productive. Special mention must go to Tony Rippin, curator at the South Canterbury Museum, who enthusiastically shared his knowledge about Timaru with me and made illustrations available at no cost. Thank you also to Linda Hughes and Nigel Brown from the Timaru Public Library for allowing me access to the library records and answering my queries. Several of the chapters were first conceived of as conference papers, and I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments I have received from the audiences at conferences in New Zealand and overseas. Chapters one and three have formed the basis for journal articles. A shorter version of chapter one has been published as ―Connected Readers: Reading Networks and Community in Early Twentieth-Century New Zealand‖ in Mémoires du Livre/ Studies in Book Culture 2, no. 1 (2010). A version of chapter three has been accepted for publication with History Australia. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for both journals, as well as the editors Lesley Howsam VI and Jane McLeod (Mémoires du Livre), and Penny Russell and Richard White (History Australia) who offered useful advice on these publications. Particular thanks must go to Martyn Lyons, my ―mentor‖ in the AHA mentoring scheme in 2010 for his generous and constructive criticism of an early version of chapter three. I would also like to thank Bob Owens and Shaf Towheed, the editors of an essay collection on the history of reading, for including a chapter based on some parts of this research (The History of Reading, Vol.1: International Perspectives, 2011). I have been grateful for their comments and for Shaf‘s ongoing support in particular. I would also like to thank DeNel Rehberg Sedo, Edmund King and Robert Snape for sharing unpublished research with me. A number of institutions made this project possible through providing financial support. My sincere thanks go to the Tertiary Education Commission (NZ) for awarding me a Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship and allowing me to focus on my reading and writing for three years. Thanks must also go to the donors of the Kathleen Stewart Scholarship and the Don F. McKenzie Scholarship. Victoria University of Wellington provided a Submission Scholarship, and several Faculty Research Grants enabled research overseas. The Bibliographical Societies of the UK and of America also provided much-appreciated financial assistance to carry out archival research in Great Britain and Canada. Finally, many of the conferences where I presented first findings helped with travel grants, which made the trips to the Northern Hemisphere, and even just across the Tasman, from distant New Zealand much more affordable. My friends and family happily shared the many moments of joy, and sometimes despair, that come with writing a thesis. Thank you to my parents Gabriele Liebich- Schauerte and Werner Schauerte, Joachim Liebich and Marlies Gruenewald-Liebich, and my sister Annett Liebich, and to my friends in Germany for their interest in my project and for offering support from afar.