Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867

by Catherine Hall , Keith McClelland , Jane Rendall

• ISBN13: 9780521572187
• ISBN10: 0521572185
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Defining the Victorian Nation offers a fresh perspective on one of the most significant pieces of legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. Hall, McClelland and Rendall demonstrate that the Second Reform Act was marked by controversy about the extension of the vote, new concepts of masculinity and the masculine voter, the beginnings of the women's suffrage movement, and a parallel debate about the meanings and forms of national belonging. Fascinating illustrations illuminate the argument, and a detailed chronology, biographical notes and a selected bibliography offer further support to the student reader.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vi
Preface	viii
Chronology	x
List of abbreviations	xiii
Introduction	1	(70)
Catherine Hall
Keith McClelland
Jane Rendall
Historians and the Reform Act of 1867	1	(19)
New approaches to political history	20	(37)
Citizenship and the nation	57	(14)
`England's greatness, the working man'	71	(48)
Keith McClelland
From Chartism to the Reform League	77	(12)
Arguments for reform	89	(13)
Social change and politics	102	(17)
The citizenship of women and the Reform Act of 1867	119	(60)
Jane Rendall
The background to the women's suffrage movement, 1790-1865	121	(9)
Women and the Reform Act of 1867	130	(30)
Defining women's citizenship	160	(16)
Conclusion	176	(3)
The nation within and without	179	(55)
Catherine Hall
Jamaica	192	(12)
Ireland	204	(17)
The parliamentary debates	221	(13)
Appendices	234	(28)
Bibliography	262	(28)
Index	290