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" The literary clubs and societies of Glasgow during the long nineteenth century : "
Weiss, Lauren Jenifer
Halsey, Katie; Blair, Kirstie
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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896238
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TLets810482
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| Main Entry
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University of Stirling
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| Title & Author
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The literary clubs and societies of Glasgow during the long nineteenth century :\ Weiss, Lauren JeniferHalsey, Katie; Blair, Kirstie
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| College
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University of Stirling
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| Date
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2017
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| Degree
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Thesis (Ph.D.)
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| student score
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2017
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| Abstract
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This thesis uses the minute books and manuscript magazines of Glasgow’s literary societies as evidence for my argument that the history of mutual improvement groups—including literary societies—needs to be re-written as a unique movement of ‘improvement’ during the long nineteenth century. In foregrounding the surviving records, I examine what it meant to be literary to society members in Glasgow during this period. I discuss what their motivations were for becoming so, and reflect on the impact that gender, occupation and social class had on these. I demonstrate that these groups contributed to the education and literacy of people living in the city and to a larger culture of ‘improvement’. Further, I argue that there is a case to be made for a particularly Scottish way of consuming texts in the long nineteenth century. In Glasgow, there were at least 193 literary societies during this period, which I divide into four phases of development. I provide an in-depth examination of two societies which serve as case studies. In addition, I give an overview and comparison of the 652 issues of Scottish and English society magazines I discovered in the context of a larger, ‘improving’ culture. I offer possible reasons why so many literary societies produced manuscript magazines, and show that this phenomenon was not unique to them. These magazines fostered a communal identity formed around a combination of religion, class, gender and local identity. I determine that societies in England produced similar types of magazines to those in Scotland possibly based upon the Scottish precedent. These materials substantially contribute to the evidence for nineteenth-century mutual improvement societies and their magazines, and for working- and lower-middle class Scottish readers and writers during the long nineteenth century, social groups that are under-represented in the history of reading and in Victorian studies.
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| Subject
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Books and reading--Scotland--History--19th century; Scotland--Intellectual life--19th century; Learned institutions and societies--Scotland; Readers; Literature--Societies, etc.
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| Added Entry
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Halsey, Katie; Blair, Kirstie
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University of Stirling
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