Literary Sociability on the Goldfields: The Mechanics’ Institute in the Colony of Victoria, 1854–1870

Comyn, Sarah

doi:10.1093/jvcult/vcy052

Cited by 3 publications

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“…78 As with many mechanics' institutes in the Australian colonies, the ALSMI recognised that women could be used as 'marker[s] of respectability' not only for their social events but for the institute's reputation as a whole. 79 The expectation that women would attend the social events of the institution continued under the SAI as the rules noted that a subscriber's annual 30-shilling fee 'empowers him to introduce two ladies, or two children, to the lectures or conversaziones of the society'. 80 The TPL records provide attendance figures for both men and women, and while the number of women users of the library were significantly less than men, the library's six-month reports show a steady increase of women frequenting the library, from 540 in 1860 to 630 in 1861, 637 in 1862, and 659 in 1863.…”

Section: Women Readersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultivating Public Readers: Citizens, Classes, and Types

Atkin

Comyn

Fermanis

et al. 2019

New Directions in Book History

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This chapter considers readers in the southern colonies, from various constructions of reader types to the class, gender, and racial composition of colonial reading publics. Locating the users of colonial public libraries within discourses that include sexuality, morality, citizenship, race, and class, the chapter looks at the ways in which public libraries contributed both to expanded understandings of the term 'public' and to the management of colonial class and race relations, thereby reflecting and redefining the boundaries of citizenship in emerging colonial polities.

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Section: Women Readersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultivating Public Readers: Citizens, Classes, and Types

Atkin

Comyn

Fermanis

et al. 2019

New Directions in Book History

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Hopeless Romantics: Australian Studies in Romanticism

Knowles,

Ford,

Harley

2024

European Romantic Review

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Recognizing the Mallee

Magner

Potter

2021

Mémoires du livre

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Drawing on fieldwork in the Victorian Mallee region of Australia, this article explores the ways in which reading groups can elicit rich information about the relationship between literature, reading, and place. The study found that book group participants “recognized” the Mallee in the texts under discussion and engaged in their own forms of place knowledge and “history‑telling” in response, making corrections to, and even rejecting, literary representations of their area. We argue that the resources for enhancing literary infrastructure exist, both in the broad history and diversity of Mallee writing, and in the social infrastructure of the Mallee. Readers’ knowledge, captured through book‑related discussion in community spaces, offers the potential for enhancing existing literary resources in rural and remote regions.

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Literary Sociability on the Goldfields: The Mechanics’ Institute in the Colony of Victoria, 1854–1870

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Cultivating Public Readers: Citizens, Classes, and Types

Cultivating Public Readers: Citizens, Classes, and Types

Hopeless Romantics: Australian Studies in Romanticism

Recognizing the Mallee

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