ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Women writers, world problems, and the working poor, c. 1880-1920 : ”blackleg’ work in literature’ https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40371/ Version: Full Version Citation: Janssen, Flore (2018) Women writers, world problems, and the working poor, c. 1880-1920 : ”blackleg’ work in literature’. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Birkbeck, University of London Women Writers, World Problems, and the Working Poor, c. 1880–1920: ‘“Blackleg” Work in Literature’ Flore Willemijne Janssen Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 1 Declaration I, Flore Willemijne Janssen, declare that this thesis is my own work. Where I have drawn upon the work of other researchers, this has been fully acknowledged. Date: Signed: 2 Abstract This thesis uses the published work of professional writers and activists Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness to explore their strategies for the representation of poverty and labour exploitation during the period 1880–1920. Their activism centred on the working poor, and specifically on those workers whose financial necessity forced them into exploitative and underpaid work, causing them to become ‘blacklegs’ who undercut the wages of other workers. As the generally irregular nature of their employment made these workers’ situations difficult to document, Black and Harkness sought alternative ways to portray blackleg work and workers. The thesis is divided into two parts, each comprising two chapters. Part I examines the two authors’ strategies for representing blackleg work to a readership of potential activists across their intersecting literary and activist projects. The first chapter considers Black’s approach of engaging her readers as consumers and potential agents for social change. The second chapter addresses Harkness’s call for the recognition of blackleg work as an economic phenomenon in which contemporary society was complicit. Part II explores how the implications of the two authors’ representative strategies changed in the context of a global economy that produced comparable economic and social problems internationally. The third chapter examines Harkness’s work in translation and the difficulties of transferring her representations of blackleg work across borders. The fourth chapter considers how Black engaged consumers with increasingly complex production systems. The thesis concludes with an exploration of how the representative strategies developed by Black and Harkness continued to be used in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by writers and journalists as well as investigative and regulatory bodies. Although their work is now little read, the enduring use of their methods highlights the relevance of their approach to the representation of social problems that remain difficult to document and scrutinize. 3 Table of Contents List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................ 6 Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... 8 Introduction. Activist Work in the Literary Market ...................................................... 9 ‘Blackleg work in literature’ ................................................................................... 11 Finding value: methodology ................................................................................... 21 Part I. The Blackleg Writer: Clementina Black, Margaret Harkness, and Representative Strategy ........................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 1. Women’s Work in Literature: Clementina Black and the Reader as Agent of Social Change ......................................................................................................... 28 Reaching readers ..................................................................................................... 32 Empowering readers: Black’s fiction ...................................................................... 44 Writing working women: Black’s campaign texts .................................................. 64 Black’s popular counter-canon: conclusions .......................................................... 85 Chapter 2. Writing about the Poor: Margaret Harkness/John Law and the Dramatization of Blackleg Work ................................................................................ 87 The blackleg in the literary market ......................................................................... 89 Investigation and presentation: Harkness’s social investigation ........................... 102 Discourses in dialogue: Harkness’s fiction ........................................................... 115 Blackleg representation: conclusions .................................................................... 145 Part II. The Global Blackleg: Visualizing Working Poverty as a World Problem ....... 147 Chapter 3. Blackleg Work across Borders: Harkness’s Representations of Poverty in an International Market ............................................................................................. 148 International blacklegs: sharing activist discourse ................................................ 150 The politics of translation...................................................................................... 160 A Manchester Shirtmaker in translation: activism for women, girls, and ladies .. 177 Translation and adaptation: conclusions ............................................................... 195 4 Chapter 4. Blackleg Workers on Display: Black, Consumer Activism, and the Visualization of Blackleg Work ................................................................................ 197 Bridging distance .................................................................................................. 200 Exhibiting blackleg work ...................................................................................... 216 Visualization and representation ........................................................................... 231 The international market: conclusions .................................................................. 248 Conclusion. The Blackleg Writer: Afterlives and Futures ........................................ 253 The evolution of the blackleg canon ..................................................................... 255 The twentieth-century author-activist: Elizabeth Denby and Ada Jones Chesterton ............................................................................................................................... 262 The afterlife of the blackleg writer........................................................................ 269 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 272 Archival sources .................................................................................................... 272 Works cited ........................................................................................................... 273 Appendix. Foreign Currencies ...................................................................................... 291 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1: First page of An Agitator (London: Bliss, Sands, and Foster, 1894). British Library, London. ............................................................................................................. 56 Figure 2: John Williamson, ‘De Saintré passed out at a decent pace, not daring to hurry or to look behind for his companion’, in The Princess Désirée (London: Longmans, Green, 1896), between pp. 76 and 77. British Library, London. .................................... 59 Figure 3: Title page of In Darkest London (London: Reeves, 1893), showing advertisements on the facing page for Out of Work and A City Girl. British Library, London. ........................................................................................................................... 91 Figure 4: Cover of the ‘Shilling Series’ edition of A City Girl (London: Author’s Co- operative Publishing Company, 1890). British Library, London. ................................ 120 Figure 5: Cover of the ‘Shilling Series’ edition of A Manchester Shirtmaker (London: Author’s Co-operative Publishing Company, 1890). British Library, London. ........... 137 Figure 6: Front page of the Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung, 5 May 1893, showing the first instalment of ‘Die Hemdennäherin von Manchester’, translated by Marie Kunert. Austrian Literature Online. ........................................................................................... 168 Figure 7: First column of the first instalment of ‘Kapitän Lobe’, translated by Regina Bernstein, Vorwärts, 21 July 1891. British Library, London. ...................................... 169 Figure 8: Front page of the Huisvrouw, 7 June 1890, showing the lead article ‘Maatschappelijke misbruiken’ [Social abuses]. International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. ..................................................................................................................