School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe Mischief Wrought by the Master of the Skerryvore: Victoria at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876( 2021)This thesis is a study of the colony of Victoria’s involvement in the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. The chance to send a display to Philadelphia provided an exciting opportunity for the colony to foster a sense of racial and cultural belonging with the Exhibition’s fairgoers with the aim of consolidating economic, cultural, scientific and social networks between Victoria, the United States and the world. Of the Australian colonies, Victoria sent the largest exhibition contingent to Philadelphia. However, restrictive trade laws, parliamentary disunity, and doubts regarding the usefulness of sending exhibits to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition negatively impacted its planning and staging. These problems ultimately led to the attempted scuttling of the Skerryvore, the ship tasked with transporting the Victorian exhibits to the United States, and the subsequent damage to many of the items sent to represent the colony at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. This thesis uses Victoria’s involvement in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition as a lens through which to consider how competing visions of the colony’s future, as well as economic and political factors, impacted the colony’s representation at Philadelphia. By re-embedding this event in the complex economic, political, and cultural context within which it took place, this thesis sheds light on the broader role played by these influences in affecting the representation of colonies, dependencies and nations at nineteenth-century exhibitions.
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ItemDissent, Discussion and Dissemination: the Strategies of The Kensington Society in the Mid-Victorian Women's Movement( 2020)This thesis investigates the strategic communication of mid-nineteenth century British feminism through the activism and networking of the Kensington Society (1850-1890). Collectively and individually, the sixty-eight members of Britain’s first female-only discussion society practised a range of intellectual communication strategies to reform the position of women in society. In combining literary historical and communication approaches, it also aims to readdress the intellectual heritage of the Kensington Society, asking why it was established, and how it was utilised to spark a wider discussion on women’s rights in mid-nineteenth century Britain. To do so, the thesis investigates the political and religious dissenting heritage of the sixty-eight members; their English Woman’s Journal; discussion through private letters and publications, and their involvement in founding Britain’s first women’s tertiary college, Girton College, Cambridge. Through a historicist examination of the communication of the Kensington Society, it specifically examines the pivotal role the Society played in the individual reforms of its members, and the wider women’s movement of Victorian England. The first chapter argues that the Kensington Society was in debt to the ‘intellectual culture’ of their heritage. The second chapter examines the purpose behind their unified work in the earlier English Woman’s Journal, their initial attempt to enter the public press and the moderate success this allowed. The third chapter explores their subsequent decision to embrace the private realm open to them and establish a discussion society. To illustrate the fulfilment of this decision, the fourth and fifth chapters articulate the flexibility of intentions achieved, and the broad range of discursive communication traversed through nineteenth-century women’s activism. The final chapter considers the impact of the Kensington Society: women empowered by functional and informative discussion who utilised the skills and tools they learnt to bring about change in Victorian society.