In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, reviews the activities final year student Eleanor Doyle has undertaken as an undergraduate at Portsmouth, for which she deservedly won recognition at the Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence on Tuesday 2nd April 2019. Eleanor was the recipient of a V-C Award for Excellence for all the work she has done enhancing the student experience while simultaneously promoting the university to educational and industry bodies. Also winning a V-C Commendation at the same event was our Dr Karl Bell, Reader in Cultural and Social History, for his work organising Darkfest, an annual creative and cultural festival, and running the Supernatural Cities project (more of both in other posts on this blog).
Since starting her degree studies at Portsmouth Eleanor Doyle has been a highly active member of the History cohort. She has played a significant role in the running of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union History Society, which was established in 2016. The Society plays a key role in student life – not just to those students who study the subject, but to any student among the University’s cohort who has an interest in history. Eleanor is currently the Society’s President and since undertaking that role she has made a significant impact, encouraging all members to take part in its activities by introducing a number of important innovations that have helped to make it more inclusive. Eleanor has ensured that all activities, including welcome events at the beginning of the year, social gatherings, quizzes and trips to local heritage sites and museums, take place both during the day and evenings to make them accessible to the whole student cohort, including those with caring or family commitments.
Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence winner Eleanor Doyle
Another significant innovation that has developed while Eleanor has been President of the History Society is the expansion of its career-enhancing activities for students. By creating greater links with industry partners, Eleanor has been instrumental in helping to consolidate the success of a ‘Heritage, Arts and Culture Careers Fair’ organised by the Society and held at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The purpose of the Fair is to showcase employment prospects and open up volunteering opportunities to all undergraduate and postgraduate students. Eleanor has ensured that local feeder colleges are invited, along with a broader range of national cultural organisations. She also created cross-Faculty links by involving CCI in the running of the event. The Fair recently held its third successful event and was very well-attended, providing the opportunity for current University students, visitors from feeder schools and colleges, as well as anyone interested in a career in the heritage, arts and cultural industries to speak with a wide range of professionals.
Rob James introducing Eleanor
In addition to these initiatives, Eleanor has engaged in a number of extra-curricular activities that have promoted the University’s values. She is a keen volunteer and has worked for the Mary Rose Museum and the local branch of the Historical Association. Eleanor is currently on the committee of the HA and publicises its events through its social media accounts as well as the social media accounts of the UPSU History Society. She has also participated in a Career and Professional Development event at the Mary Rose Museum with members of the History team, guiding Further Education teachers and museum curators in how to prepare college students for the step up university. She has also acted as a Student Ambassador at the University’s Open Days, and ran a take-over of the History department’s Twitter account, during which she responded to questions about the degree programme and student life. In addition, Eleanor has acted as a student representative, canvassing students’ opinions and attending staff/student consultative committee meetings.
Eleanor is also academically outstanding and has done much to encourage her peers. She is very modest, and would never think that her contributions account for anything, but from what the History team have seen, Eleanor’s work has made a very significant difference to the experience of her friends and fellow students. She has been a lively, friendly and positive presence among the student cohort and thoroughly deserved to be rewarded with a V-C Award for Excellence for all that she has done while studying at Portsmouth. Well done Eleanor. We will miss you when you graduate!
Proud tutor moment! Rob James with award winner Eleanor Doyle
To read more about the V-C Awards for Excellence event and read about all the award winners, click here.
Are you just about to start your second year studying History? This blog, written by Eleanor Doyle, President of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union History Society, offers great advice on how to get the most out of your second year of studies. Eleanor is just about to start her final year.
My best piece of advice for second year is to be brave and have the confidence to step outside of your comfort zone. My second year at Portsmouth University flew by and although it might feel as though your summer was gone in a blink, second year goes by even faster.
One of the most exciting parts of second year is that you have the opportunity to choose the units you study and so you can tailor your degree to your interests. For me, this meant I spent most of my time flitting between crime and punishment in early modern England and social relations in London’s urban slums in the 18th and 19th century. While this might not be everyone’s idea of a great year, I really enjoyed the variety that came with these units. However, random chance meant I also spent my time studying post-war Germany. This was well and truly out of my comfort zone! I felt quite daunted at the prospect of studying a unit I knew nothing about, especially when I was aware most of my friends had a head start from their A-levels. However, I am very happy to say that this unit turned out to be fascinating and I had some of my best results ever! My experience in this unit makes me convinced that stepping outside your confidence zone is one of the best things you can do in your second year.
When it begins, second year can feel a bit like a limbo between the nerves of first year and getting stuck into your dissertation in third year. However, second year is great in its own right! By the time you start your second year, you feel more comfortable with how seminars work, the way you work best and the types of things that interest you. (Although, don’t worry if you haven’t figured all this out yet, as you go through second year your skills and confidence will grow and you’ll realise you were better than you thought.) Also, the type of work and assessments you do in your second year give you a fantastic opportunity to get really stuck into topics that fascinate you. I wrote a blog post on Jane Austen using the surviving letters she sent to her sister, Cassandra, to look at how Jane understood herself and her world. Attempting something like this was certainly out of my comfort zone when I started my second year, but I can confidently say it was one of the most enjoyable pieces of work I’ve ever written.
Second year is also a perfect time to try something new or develop your extra-curricular skills by taking up some of the great opportunities around. I enjoyed being one of the University’s student ambassadors at our last Open Day and I had the chance to take over the department’s Twitter page to have a chat about my experience at university. I also took a big step and became History Society President and I can’t wait for the year ahead. However, there are also a huge number of opportunities outside the University that you can make the most of during your second year. I took on new roles in my job at the Mary Rose and took up rock climbing as a hobby! These completely different things really helped me in my second year because they made sure I took time to step away from my work and focus on something else.
Finally, second year is also the time when people start thinking about their dissertations. I found this rather daunting at the start of the year but I now know I was definitely not alone! I would strongly advise you to approach all the reading you do for your seminars and essays with an open mind, even if you think you don’t find the topic interesting. For me, this mind-set helped me decide to write my dissertation on gin palaces in 18th and 19th century London. This was certainly not an option I had even considered before my second year! You never know what might inspire you and the earlier you start being open to new ideas, the easier it is to decide what you really like.
Overall, second year is wonderful. Like anything, it has its stresses and its deadlines but having the confidence to take it on and get as much as you can out of it means your second year is one you’ll never forget. My experiences across my two years at Portsmouth University have prepared me well for my next challenge: third year! Now I can’t wait to get started.
Good luck to everyone starting their second year – I hope you’re brave and bold and get as much out of it as you can!
Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on Soviet involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Rory is Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects.
Rafael Merry del Val (1865-1930) remarked in his manuscript on the Spanish Situation, written for Chatham House and accessed via Gale’s online archive, that Lenin viewed Spain as imperative to the eventual success of the Bolshevik revolution [1]. It should come as no surprise then that both prior to and following the outbreak of the civil war, the Soviet Union maintained a great interest in the outcome of this nation.
“One of the Spaniards Fighting Their Own Battles: A Nationalist Soldier on the Santander Front in a Captured Concrete Dug-Out with ‘Marxist’ Inscriptions—’Death to Spain! ‘ and ‘Long Live Russia’.” Illustrated London News, 20 Nov. 1937, p. 893. The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6YJha8. Accessed 18 May 2018.
Eleanor Doyle, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on one of Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit. Eleanor discusses how we can use personal sources such as this to understand more about an author’s personal relationships as well as wider contemporary experiences. The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.
Jane Austen’s reputation as a celebrated English novelist is well established. However, her letters to her sister, Cassandra Austen, provide a rewarding insight into her as an individual. This blog will focus on a letter Jane sent to her sister in September 1813. [1] Studying Jane through her own words seems particularly appropriate when considering Robert Liddell’s view that her novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, were “her true form of expression.” [2] However, this identifies a significant academic debate: Liddell prioritises the value of Jane’s novels, while Elaine Bander and Robert Chapman argue that the letters reveal personal aspects of Jane. [3] This blog favours the latter interpretation and will demonstrate how this letter makes it possible to understand and value Jane’s relationship with Cassandra, as well as helping us to learn significantly about Jane and her close female friends’ attitudes to fashion and clothing. Therefore, while the limitations of this letter will be discussed, this blog maintains that it offers a unique perspective into Jane Austen’s life.
Portrait of Jane Austen (c. 1810) by her sister Cassandra
The value of this letter cannot be understood without recognising the author’s relationship with the intended reader, Cassandra. The first sentence acknowledges it is a reply to Cassandra’s letter and that this letter, written “after dinner” follow’s Jane’s earlier reply. [4] Although a single letter cannot be used to prove a pattern, Elaine Bander recognises that the sisters wrote to each other two or three times a week. [5] Furthermore, the frequency and content of their letters suggests a close bond between the two sisters. Mary August Austen-Leigh notes that they were educated together since time apart from her “beloved sister” would have “broken her [Jane’s] heart.” [6] This close bond is best evidenced in this letter in the thoughtfulness Jane demonstrates in waiting to hear if her sister likes the colour of ‘the Gown’ she sent to her. [7] Furthermore, Carol Houlihan Flynn notes that the ease and informality with which Jane wrote to her sister, using dashes to “casually break up endless paragraphs” confirms their deep bond. For example, Jane’s discussion of the new caps she and Fanny bought is immediately followed by concern for her brother Henry. [8] Since these two matters have no apparent link, the seemingly chaotic structure of this letter should be understood, as Joan Rees notes, as evidence of the relationship “between two close and affectionate sisters.” [9] This demonstrates, therefore, that Jane’s letters offer an insight into her relationship with her sister that could not be understood through reference to her novels alone.
The letter’s content also reveals a greater understanding of contemporary attitudes to fashion and clothing. There are numerous references made to items of clothing throughout the letter such as ‘gowns’, ‘caps’, ‘stockgs’ (stockings), and “a white silk Handkf” (handkerchief). [10] However, this letter provides more than a list of popular items. It also identifies that some items such as the caps were made elsewhere since Jane records their arrival, along with their descriptions: such as “white sarsenet and Lace”. [11] However, because Jane discusses being “tempted” by some ‘Edging” and purchasing “some very nice plaiting Lace”, as well as mentioning Fanny buying “Net for Anna’s gown”, it can be inferred that at least some of their clothes were made by the women. [12] This is confirmed by Sarah Tytler, who praises Jane’s needlework skills as having “exquisite finish”; a view also echoed by Hilary Davison. [13] Therefore, this letter strongly suggests that Jane and her close friends were involved in making their own clothes. As Davison has noted, this is very difficult to evidence by using a material culture approach alone. This, then, demonstrates the value of personal sources to resolve issues in studies of material culture. However, the frequency with which fabric and style are discussed suggests that Jane’s letters could also be used as a means by which to investigate contemporary fashion. Claire Tomalin recognises that Cassandra and Jane often wrote to each other about fashion and fabrics. [14] Therefore, it would be appropriate to conclude that these letters provide a unique insight into the activities of Jane and her close female friends. The insight provided into Jane’s life as a relatively wealthy woman in the early nineteenth century is significant and identifies areas for further investigation.
Finally, it has been demonstrated that this single letter reveals more about the life of Jane Austen than might be expected, and thus deserves further consideration by academics. Fittingly, Roger Sales argues that the collection of Jane’s letters remains “the single most neglected historical source for this period”. [15] However, it must also be recognised that this letter, and the collection it belongs to, has limitations. Firstly, as has been discussed, this letter, along with the majority of other letters compiled by Chapman, were sent to Cassandra, who edited and destroyed parts of Jane’s letters before she passed her collection on. [16] Consequently, it is impossible to know whether valuable letters were lost. However, it is arguable that Cassandra’s editing is further evidence of her close relationship with Jane and perhaps an attempt to censor or to highlight what she considered to be important. [17] Since their letters reflect their personal relationship it is possible that she believed some of the content to be unimportant or too sensitive to be read by others. Sales’ view that the letters allowed Jane and her contemporaries to “lose the ‘countenance’” expected of them in public would support this view. [18] It is unwise to suggest that a true idea of Jane Austen can be understood through her letters. As Marian Dobson has recognised, most academic opinion suggests letters offer a place for the individual to discuss their feelings rather than show their true self. [19] Rees has also acknowledged (in the case of Harold Nicolson) that much academic criticism has focused on the lack of interesting content in such letters. [20] An example of this is perhaps the “Eighteen pence due to my Mother” than Jane encloses. [21] However, the more recent historiographical shift to focusing on the ‘mundane’ and valuable ‘nothingness’ in these letters to help explain wider contemporary experiences is highly important. [22] The findings of this blog about Jane’s letter have indeed shown that the seemingly small or insignificant details, such as the lace she bought, actually offer important insights into her life. [23]
This analysis of Jane Austen’s letter to her sister demonstrates that this personal document allows us a deeper understanding of Jane’s life. This letter offers specific detail on Jane’s relationship with her sister and illuminates aspects of Jane’s experience of fashion and clothing. Although our understanding of Jane Austen would greatly benefit from a comparative analysis studying all of her letters, this work has shown that her life is more richly understood by using her private letters to her sister.
Notes
[1] Jane Austen, “Thursday 16th September 1813,” R.W. Chapman, Jane Austen’s Letters to her sister Cassandra and others, volume 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 325-328.
[2] Elaine Bander, “Jane Austen’s World: Jane Austen’s Words,” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal 37 (2015): 186; Robert Liddell, The Novels of Jane Austen (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1963), 143.
[3] Bander, “Jane Austen’s World,” 186; R.W. Chapman, Jane Austen Facts and Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 1-2.
[4] Austen, “Thursday 16th September 1813.”
[5] Bander, “Jane Austen’s World,” 187 -188.
[6] Mary August Austen-Leigh, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen (London: John Murray, 1920), 21.
[7] Austen, “Thursday 16th September 1813.”
[8] Ibid.
[9] Joan Rees, Jane Austen: Woman and Writer (London: Robert Hale & Company, 1976), 52.
[10] Austen, “Thursday 16th September 1813.”
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Sarah Tytler, Jane Austen and Her Works (London: Cassell, Petter Galpin & Co, 1880), 11. Quoted in Roger Sales, Jane Austen and Representations of Regency England (London: Routledge, 1994), 4; James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections, ed. by Kathryn Sutherland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 77. Quoted in Hilary Davison, “Reconstructing Jane Austen’s Silk Pelisse, 1812-1814,” Costume 49, no.2 (2015): 211.
[14] Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 112.
[15] Sales, Jane Austen and Representations, xiv.
[16] R.W. Chapman, Jane Austen’s Letters to her sister Cassandra and others, volume 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932); Carol Houlihan Flynn, “The Letters,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen ed. Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 100; Rees, Jane Austen: Woman, 13; Robert Liddell, The Novels of Jane Austen (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1963), 145.
[17] Houlihan Flynn, “The Letters,” 100.
[18] Sales, Jane Austen and Representations, xiv.
[19] Miriam Dobson, “Letters” in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History, ed. by Miriam Dobson and Benjamin Zieman (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 60.
[20] Harold Nicholson, Report Jane Austen Society (1948). Quoted in Rees, Jane Austen: Woman, 52.
Source: Austen, Jane. “Thursday 16th September 1813,” R. W. Chapman, Jane Austen’s Letters to her sister Cassandra and others Volume 3, 325-328. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.
Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on the 19th century social investigator James Greenwood. Rory is Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects.
James Greenwood was an author of relative obscurity who came to fame abruptly following the publication of his serial A Night in the Workhouse in the 1860s by the Pall Mall Gazette. He soon found himself rising through the ranks of the Victorian social ladder and became one of the leading social commentators of his age. This revolutionary piece saw Greenwood experience the conditions of a workhouse first-hand in one of the first examples of investigative journalism. Yet, while his work was quickly adopted by social reformers and critics alike, it seems the author himself was somewhat less interested in the people he claimed to support and, instead, focused on appealing to a wider audience.
Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on the 1980s AIDS crisis and the homophobic behaviour it triggered. Rory is a Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University Of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects.
During the early 1980s, AIDS became an ever-growing concern in the minds of Americans, and brought to the fore the deep-seated tensions and homophobic tendencies that plagued the nation’s media and political institutes. Gale’s Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides access to a wealth of sources that help us to understand the issues and struggles experienced by these long-oppressed and ignored members of society during a particularly trying period.
