Awkward visits: Distr ict visiting, gender and middle-class identity in the Victorian imagination

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dc.contributor.advisorMichie, Helenaen_US
dc.creatorDayton, Anne LeBeauen_US
dc.date.accessioned2018-12-03T18:32:43Zen_US
dc.date.available2018-12-03T18:32:43Zen_US
dc.date.issued2009en_US
dc.description.abstractThis project explores the textual representation of district visiting, a form of philanthropy in which a volunteer, usually a middle-class woman, called on working-class homes within a geographically specified district. Drawing on novels and non-fiction prose published between 1850 and 1900, I argue that district visiting is best understood in the context of middle-class anxieties about upward mobility and the expansion of their own class. While guidebook authors were limited to exhaustive descriptions of the proper behavior of district visitors, novelists imagined successful district visiting as evidence that a woman of questionable class origin had internalized the identity of a lady. The status of male charitable visitors, most of whom were clergymen, was less defined: some authors relished visiting as a site of female influence, while others feared the feminizing influence of lady visitors. District visiting evolved in the last half of the nineteenth-century from the voluntary duty of gentry daughters at home to a professionalized commitment with protocols and training regimes. This changes led, in turn, to new ways of plotting female character development; plots that earlier in the century might have ended in marriage and a retreat from public commitments were now imagined as culminating with marriage to a man who shared the heroine's dedication to the “slums” or a renunciation of marriage in favor of a life of service and often female companionship. My chapters interweave literary and archival sources, including novels, memoirs, advice manuals, religious tracts, and the archived records of Victorian charities.en_US
dc.format.extent181 ppen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS ENGL. 2009 DAYTONen_US
dc.identifier.citationDayton, Anne LeBeau. "Awkward visits: Distr ict visiting, gender and middle-class identity in the Victorian imagination." (2009) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/103692">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/103692</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.digital304990139en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/103692en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectBritish and Irish literatureen_US
dc.subjectPublic policyen_US
dc.subjectSocial sciencesen_US
dc.subjectLanguage, literature and linguisticsen_US
dc.subjectCharityen_US
dc.subjectDistrict visitingen_US
dc.subjectNineteenth centuryen_US
dc.subjectPhilanthropyen_US
dc.subjectVictorianen_US
dc.subjectVictorian novelsen_US
dc.subjectVictorian studiesen_US
dc.subjectVictorian womenen_US
dc.titleAwkward visits: Distr ict visiting, gender and middle-class identity in the Victorian imaginationen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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