Tag: emotions

  • Using Personal Sources: Charlotte Brontë’s letters

    Using Personal Sources: Charlotte Brontë’s letters

    Rachel Savage, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on letters sent between author Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey, for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Rachel reveals how personal sources like this can be used to gain insight into the emotions of women living in the 19th century Britain. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.

    Charlotte Brontё was born in 1816 and grew up in a society which compelled her to conceal her gender with the pseudonym Currer Bell in order to initiate her successful writing career. [1] The suppressive lives women experienced in the Victorian period led Charlotte to form a close relationship with Ellen Nussey. [2] It is the closeness of this relationship that will be explored in this blog, as some historians, such as Rebecca Jennings, believe their relationship to have been a romantic one. [3] The primary sources used to debate this question are two letters that Charlotte wrote to Ellen in 1836 and 1837. [4] The analysis of these letters is crucial to this question and the extent to which these letters are useful as a piece of historical research will also be discussed. 

    Copyright:The Morgan Library & Museum

    It is evident from these letters that Charlotte cared greatly for Ellen as there is an abundance of emotive language which expresses Charlotte’s honest feelings, for example,  “what shall I do without you?”, and  “I long to be with you.” [5] Rachel Fuchs and Victoria Thompson argue that these expressions are not evidence of a romantic relationship, as in this time period women would form very close bonds and their letters would contain the topics of “their joys, their loves and their bodies.” [6] Therefore, the intimate nature of these letters may be evidence of how two friends felt they could truly be honest with each other rather than being evidence of a romantic relationship. However, it is interesting to consider that Charlotte herself was concerned that her letters to Ellen were too passionate and might be condemned. [7] This suggests that their relationship was a romantic one. Arguably one of the most passionate sentences in the 1837 letter – “we are in danger of loving each other too well” – could suggest that Charlotte and Ellen were on the brink of a romantic relationship and were in fear of that relationship developing. Because Victorian women were expected to have no sexual desires, the idea that two women could be having a romantic relationship was completely unacceptable to society. [8] Thus, Charlotte and Ellen may have feared the consequences of a romantic relationship developing. 

    These letters further highlight the context of Victorian society in which men were perceived to be superior. This limited the possibility of Ellen and Charlotte ever living together, most clearly captured in the lines, “Ellen I wish I could live with you always”, and “we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness.” [9] Here Charlotte refers to a third person being a man, as in Victorian society women were completely dependent on men economically as they were the sole earners and therefore for women in a same-sex romantic relationship they faced economic barriers when it came to establishing a home together. [10] Consequently, for “novelist Charlotte Brontё and her lifelong romantic friend, Ellen Nussey, a joint home remained an unattainable dream.” [11] The fact that Charlotte and Ellen desired to live with one another suggests a romantic nature to their relationship. This is further emphasised when Ellen’s brother Henry proposed to Charlotte in 1839; Charlotte considered accepting in order to live with Ellen, but ultimately she could not accept the proposal. [12] The mere fact that Charlotte considered the proposal suggests her immense desire to live with Ellen, although as she writes in her 1836 letter that she wanted to live with Ellen without the dependence of a third person. Subsequently, this may have led her to decline the proposal. [13] As well as this, Jennings suggests women feared “that marriage would limit their independence further and restrict their access to their female friends.” [14] This was certainly the case for Charlotte when she married Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854, as he prevented Charlotte and Ellen meeting on occasions and he read all of Charlotte’s letters before she sent them to Ellen. [15] Furthermore, the significance of Charlotte rejecting Henry’s proposal in 1839 suggests that the desire to live with Ellen in 1836 was still a dream to which Charlotte clung.

    It is also important to illuminate the positives and limitations of using these letters to gain a true historical representation of Charlotte Brontё. The use of letters for historical research is helpful because, as Miriam Dobson suggests, they offer a true representation of the authors feelings. [16] It is unlikely that Charlotte would have been dishonest with Ellen especially as they had such a close relationship, whether it be romantic or not. However, Alistair Thomson argues that “every source is constructed and [a] selective representation of experience.” [17] Subsequently, although Charlotte is likely to be honest within this source she would also have been selective in what she wrote. This is especially significant to these letters. If Charlotte did have a romantic relationship with Ellen, she had to be careful how explicitly she expressed her love for her, for if someone other than Ellen had read these letters they could both face social exclusion from society. It is this selectivity that causes historians such as Jennings, Fuchs and Thompson to debate whether Charlotte and Ellen actually had a romantic relationship. Although, these letters offer a clear insight into the personal life of Charlotte Brontё and her thoughts and feelings, it is also important to remember that letters are a response to a previous interaction. [18] Consequently, these letters cannot be considered in isolation, as Ellen’s responses are also important to the creation of Charlotte’s image and presentation of herself. 

    In summary, by considering these letters historians can gain a deeper insight into the personal relations that Charlotte had and how she constructed her self-image to Ellen with the influence and constraints placed on her in society in which she could not openly express her love for Ellen. It is certainly clear that Charlotte would be honest and express her deepest thoughts and desires with Ellen. The question of Charlotte’s lesbianism is in no way conclusive, as more letters would need to be analysed especially those by Ellen. However, it is likely they may have desired a lesbian relationship, but the social constraints were too restricting to do so.

    Notes

    [1] Dinah Birch, “Charlotte Brontë”, in The Brontёs in Context ed. Marianne Thormählen. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 65.

    [2] Eugene Charlton Black, “Sexual Roles: Victorian Progress?”, in Victorian Culture and Society ed. Eugene Charlton Black. (London: Macmillan, 1973), 385.

    [3] Rebecca Jennings, A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex between Women Since 1500 (Oxford: Greenwood World, 2007), 51.

    [4] Charlotte Brontё, “C.Brontё letters to Ellen Nussey, 1836”Alison Oram and Annmarie Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook: Love and Sex Between Women in Britain from 1780-1970 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 60-61.

    [5] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.

    [6] Rachel G. Fuchs and Victoria E. Thompson, Women in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 38.

    [7] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.

    [8] Fuchs and Thompson, Women, 40-41.

    [9] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.

    [10] Jennings, Lesbian, 51.

    [11] Jennings, Lesbian, 51-52.

    [12] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.

    [13] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.

    [14] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.

    [15] Jennings, Lesbian, 53-54.

    [16] Miriam Dobson, “Letters”, in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History ed. Miriam Dobson and Benjamin Ziemann. (New York: Routledge, 2009), 60.

    [17] Alistair Thomson, “Life Stories and Historical Analysis”, in Research Methods for History ed. Lucy Faire and Simon Gunn. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 102.

    [18] Dobson, “Letters”, 69

  • Using Personal Sources: Understanding women’s work in the First World War

    Using Personal Sources: Understanding women’s work in the First World War

    Rhea Nana, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on a letter sent by Marie Martin, a nurse in the First World War, for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Rhea reveals how personal sources such as letters can be one of the only places to find certain insights into the emotions of those experiencing the war. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.

    When analysing wars, immediate connotations come with it, such as suffering, separation and bad conditions. These connotations are expressed in the letters written from Marie Martin, the daughter of an Irish family. Marie had been sent away in 1915 to perform her duties of being a nurse in Malta during the First World War.  This blog will concentrate on a specific letter sent by Marie, explaining her life on a daily basis and also how letters, though selective, provide an insight of events and emotions. Ross F. Collins’ views on women in the First World War was that ‘they were needed in war work and many were employed, thousands as nurses’; this immediately highlights that women were a great asset to the war. [1] However, women rarely had the chance to speak out about how they were feeling when working in the war, unless it was in private, otherwise they would end up ‘in jail or receive great condemnation’. [2] This letter does have its limitations into reaching a full insight into the world of working war women, but the blog essentially exposes how women in the war managed to balance their duties and prove a great asset in the First World War.

    Letter from Marie Martin to her mother http://letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie/item/5726

    This letter not only presents the struggles of a young woman carrying out her daily job as a nurse; it also illustrates how she tried to keep in contact with her mother. Her first few lines claim that ‘My last letter was the maddest letter I have ever written. I started it so often’. [3] This underlines that working women take on a lot of responsibility and perhaps do not have time for themselves. Susan R. Grayzel reinforces this argument as she claims that ‘nursing exposed many relatively sheltered young women to some of the war’s most visceral horrors, and in doing so, changed their lives’. [4] By describing the war as life changing it implies that possibly Marie did not know what she was getting herself into as she now had to sacrifice her own personal time to even write a simple letter to her mother.

    Therefore, this reveals that Marie could have been in a rush when writing the letter and so potentially selective about what she wrote, henceforth being a clear limitation too. Also, the fact that Grayzel uses the noun ‘horror’ to refer to the war could give the impression that she only wants to write about the positive aspects about being a nurse in the war.  Historians in turn can use this primary source by analysing the relationship between mothers and daughters in general. Barbara Caine finds that due ‘to a turn in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, young women were open to more opportunities resulting in daughters being more knowledgeable and established’. [5] Thus, this personal source instantly highlights that letters are able to provide information on the relationship between family members as well as an insight to how war duties were critical.

    The conditions in the war were constantly fluctuating and even though Marie was not serving on the front lines, she also had to experience the change in weather and the bloodied patients who were rushed in.  Marie was no longer in a state of relative stability; her life in Ireland was a complete contrast to her ‘ankles deep in water from the storm’ and ‘only a tent to eat our meals in’. [6] This stresses the idea that women in the war had to adapt and endure the conditions as much as men did, which in turn allows historians to recognise how women were taking on more responsibilities. This is reinforced by Gail Braybon who finds that it ‘revolutionised men’s minds and their conception of the sort of work of which the ordinary everyday women were capable’. [7] Consequently, women were illustrating that they were progressing in the war effort and almost seen as an equal by men.

    Furthermore, historians can focus on the usefulness of personal sources, especially when it comes to letters. As Miriam Dobson and Benjamin Ziemann recognise, ‘letters are praised for the human dimension they bring to history, allowing people to capture raw experiences of the past’. [8] This displays that Marie’s description of her time as a nurse was genuine and because this can be classed as a private letter, she is able to expose more detail. Additionally, in the past women ‘would only send letters to boost morale for men’ but during the world war ‘it was used for upholding social networks and keeping relations.’ [9] Thus, Margaretta Jolly demonstrates that women were able to use letters effectively, which not only showed that they were advancing in the war, but that letters were used for a social purpose too.

    The small details within this letter written by Marie only disclose a miniscule amount of true emotion and how effective a letter can be.  The analysis of the letter essentially offers an insight into the deeper meaning of what it meant to be a working woman in the war and the responsibility that they had to take on. The letter allows historians to find alternative conclusions to how women were treated in the war and the impact of disclosed information between family members. Overall, this work has presented that letters are a gateway to discovering more information than intended, and that emotions in letters do come across as genuine, especially in Marie’s case. Letters from women can be compared in order to validate their shared experiences of the war and are thus a great asset.

    Notes

    [1] Ross F. Collins, World War 1: Primary documents on events from 1914-1919 (ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2007), 285.

    [2] Collins, World War 1, 284.

    [3] Letters 1916-1923. ‘Letter from Marie Martin to her mother, Mary Martin, (November’) 1915. http://letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie/item/5726

    [4] Susan R. Grayzel, Women and The First World War (Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2002), 37.

    [5] Barbara Caine, ‘Letters between Mothers and Daughters’, Women’s History Review, no 233 (2015): 6.

    [6] Letters 1916-1923. ‘Letter from Marie Martin to her mother’.

    [7] Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (Routledge, 2012), 157.

    [8] Miriam Dobson and Benjamin Ziemann, Reading Primary Sources : The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History ( Routledge, 2008), 61.

    [9] Margaretta Jolly, In Love and Struggle: Letters in Contemporary Feminism (Columbia University Press, 2008), 36.

  • The story of Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe: Is the material culture of folklore providential or problematic for the historian?

    The story of Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe: Is the material culture of folklore providential or problematic for the historian?

    Daniel Millard, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog on the toy mascots carried by Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown on the first Transatlantic flight for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit. Daniel discusses the ways in which we can use these items of material culture to ask better questions of the past. The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.

    Next year will see the centenary of the world’s first Transatlantic flight. For the historian this offers an exciting opportunity to re-acquaint with two notable aviators from the twentieth-century. I refer, of course, not to Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, but to the two cats that accompanied them on their sixteen-hour journey from Newfoundland to Ireland.

    Twinkle toe mascot

    ‘Twinkletoe’ and ‘Lucky Jim’ were toy mascots presented to the airmen by their loved ones to keep them safe on their record-breaking trip alongside bunches of white heather “carried as evidence of our friend’s best wishes”. [1] This was a time when air crews – fresh from the First World War – had “an atavistic faith in magical powers”  with superstitious belief manifesting itself  in the carriage of amulets and charms in a cornucopia of size and form. [2] Brown himself later acknowledged his own delight in espying “ a large black cat […] saunter[ing] by the transatlantic machine as we stood by it early in the morning” for “such a cheerful omen made me more than ever anxious to start”. [3]

    Five months – to the day – after Alcock and Brown’s biplane took to the skies, a lecture exploring the collection and use of lucky charms was held at the Royal Society of Arts in London at which Arthur Rackham, the then president of The London Society, kicked off proceedings with the words “It is a very general habit to regard folklore as […] something which concerns the historian”. [4] It is a subject field that retains our attention to this day for the material culture of ‘superstition’ – like that of other subject areas – offers the potential of “a more wide-ranging, more representative source of information than words” alone. [5] Tim Dant agrees, believing material culture “provides evidence of the distinctive form of a society […] because it is an integral part of what that society is; just as the individual cannot be understood independently of society, so society cannot be grasped independently of its material stuff”. [6]

    Lucky Jim mascot

    In a discussion in The American Historical Review , Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore declared that “for most historians material culture means stuff found in a museum,” and it is within this very institution that Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe reside – the former in the Air and Space Hall of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, and the latter at the RAF Museum, Cosford. [7] Richard Grassby believes the relationship between museum-object and historian remained strained for such a long time because, until recently, curators “sought the unique, significant and noble to the neglect of the ordinary and utilitarian”. [8] Of course, few people can deny that Twinkletoe and Lucky Jim were added to the nation’s collections because of their “iconic or associational value”. [9] In addition, their confinement behind glass also raises important questions around Sibum’s belief that in order to make sense of an artefact it makes a difference as to whether you physically touch it. [10] There are, then, other challenges the mascots pose. For example, three-dimensional objects “are multifarious entities whose nature and heuristic value is often determined by the diverse range of narratives that historians bring with them”. [11] We therefore find many researchers devising “their own models to engage with and analyse the different types of material evidence”. [12] These range from Jules David Prown’s straightforward three-tiered approach involving description, deduction and speculation to Beverly Gordon’s use of proxemics to “illuminate women’s relationships to things such as quilts”. [13]

    So, how should we go about beginning to unlock the mascots’ evidence? For Adrienne Hood the starting point is to “uncover [their] collecting […] history” by researching textual and photographic documents found within the Museum’s registration files. [14] Whilst that, in itself, sounds easy to accomplish paper evidence can, in reality, often disappoint. Documented information frequently reveals little more than from where the items were sourced at time of donation, whereas historians “place great significance on the way objects were acquired – through scavenging […] hunting […] means of trade […] gift giving […] conquest or piracy” at every stage of an object’s existence. [15] Whilst we are told from contemporary newspaper accounts that Alcock gave his cat mascot as a souvenir to the welcoming party on arrival in Ireland, Lucky Jim’s registry file does not contain any detailed information as to what happened to the toy in the years between 1919 and its acquisition by the Museum of Science and Industry some seventy-two years later. [16]

    For any object the need “to locate, and correctly interpret, the ‘culture’ in material culture is important”. [17] For Nicole Boivin “the consideration of emotion is often crucial to understanding the role that objects […] can have in human affairs and particularly in processes of memory, identity and personhood”. [18] That “people invest things with elaborate meanings” is clear, but from looking at the mascots can we truly get closer to understanding what was going through Alcock and Brown’s minds as they placed the cats within the aircraft or the sentiment that went into their production and presentation by their relatives? [19] It is an enquiry Leor Halevi is fully justified in raising when he states: “I do agree that emotions can be expressed through objects in unique ways that cannot be captured by language, but the question then arises, how can we access those emotions and sense experiences as historians?” [20] For Riello the answer is simple for objects, like Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe, “should not be used as an aid for providing enhanced answers”, but for helping historians “ask […] better questions”. [21] This is a viewpoint that is shared by Adrienne Hood, who believes that “a systematic and detailed consideration of the chosen ‘thing’ leads to a series of questions that would not arise in any other way”. [22]

    As Alcock and Brown embarked upon their pioneering voyage Brown reported that Lucky Jim wore “a hopeful expression […] whereas Twinkletoe […] expressed surprise and anxiety”. [23] These are emotions that mirror those of historians as, from the 1970s onwards, they began to emerge from “two centuries [of] little or no engagement with objects”. [24] Whilst the mascots’ validity in helping tell the story of the world’s first Transatlantic flight “is no longer suspect, how to unlock [their] secrets in a meaningful way remains challenging”. [25] Therefore, we must echo Alcock and Brown’s own reaction in readying themselves for the journey: “we hoped for and expected the best, but it was as well to be prepared for the worst”. [26]

     

    Notes

    [1] Arthur Whitten Brown and Alan Bott, Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours: With a Discussion of Aircraft in Commerce and Transportation, (New York: Frederick A Stokes Company, 1920), 32.

    [2] Bill Wallrich, “Superstition and the Air Force”, Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1960): 11.

    [3] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 32.

    [4] Ross MacFarlane, “London’s Lost Amulets and Forgotten Folklore”, The Telegraph, October 28, 2011. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/8854074/Londons-lost-amulets-and-forgotten-folklore.html

    [5] Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”, Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No.1, (Spring 1982): 3.

    [6] Tim Dant, Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 2.

    [7] Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore, “AHR conversation: Historians and the Study of Material Culture”, American Historical Review 114, No. 5 (2009): 1365.

    [8] Richard Grassby, “Material Culture and Cultural History”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Spring, 2005): 598.

    [9] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 4.

    [10] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1384.

    [11] Giorgio Riello, “Things that Shape History:Material Culture and Historical Narratives”, in History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Source edited by Karen Harvey 24-46, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 30.

    [12] Adrienne D Hood, “Material Culture: The Object”, in History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources edited by Sarah Barber and Corinna M Peniston-Bird, 176-198. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 180.

    [13] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 7; Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 180.

    [14] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 182.

    [15] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1366.

    [16] The Lancashire Daily Post, “Atlantic Crossed”, June 16 1919, 5; Museum of Science and Industry registered file, (Ref: Y1991.437.5).

    [17] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1367.

    [18] Nicole Boivin, Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 112.

    [19] Ludmilla J Jordonova, The Look of the Past: Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5.

    [20] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1364.

    [21] Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 30.

    [22] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 178.

    [23] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 32.

    [24] Alan Mayne, “Material Culture”, in Research Methods for History, Second Edition edited by Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire, 49-67, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 49; Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 25.

    [25] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 176.

    [26] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 34.