A Flight to Domesticity? Making a Home in the Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, 1880–1914

In 1888 The Society Herald described the typical day of a young bachelor: “He breakfasts, lunches, dines, and sups at the club. He is always at billiards, which he doesn’t understand, he writes innumerable letters, shakes hands a dozen times a day, drinks coffee by the gallon, and has a nod for everybody. He lives, moves, and has his being within his club. As the clock strikes 1 a.m. his little body descends the stairs and goes out through the big front door like a ray of moonlight, and until the same morning at ten of the o’clock no human being has the slightest knowledge of his existence or his whereabouts.”1 For this man, as for hundreds of other upper-class men in London, clubland constituted an entire world.2 For thousands more, clubs formed the backdrop of their lives; in the middle of the city, clubs afforded private spaces dedicated to relaxation and camaraderie. Both married and single men regarded their club as the central part of their lvies, functioning as a surrogate home. According to contemporary ideals, the family was supposed to act as the space of refuge from the chaos of the hectic modern world, and yet in the late nineteenth century clubs were taking over this essential role. John Ruskin’s classic definition of the home centered on its role as a shelter from the physical and emotional toils of the world.3 John Tosh notes that in everyday life, the domestic ideal was so populat it addressed the needs of men who were suffering from the rapidly industrializing urban landscape.4 Family life and the home were perceived as integral to men’s identifies in the nineteenth century to a degree never before realized, as the home was both a man’s possession and where his emotional needs were satisfied.5 Yet this largely middle-class ideal was not without challenges. The homes of even the most respectable middle classes could never live up to the walled gardens of the poetic imagination. As Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall demonstrate, the separation of public and private spheres was an ideal that did not change the fact that the family and the home took on many public functions.6 The gentlemen’s clubs, seemingly in the heart of the public sphere, actually provided their members the friendly intimacy and privacy ideally located in the home

Club Talk: Gossip, Masculinity and Oral Communities in Late Nineteenth-Century London

Gossip is not only a guilty pleasure; it is also an important tool of social control. Nowhere is this more evident than in the nineteenth‐century gentlemen\u27s clubs of London. This article looks at the private lives of elite men whose gossip helped shape class and gender ideals. Archival documents, private memoirs and periodical literature provide both an insider and outsider vision of a very private world. Looking at how men gossiped points to codes of gentlemanly behaviour, the importance of homosocial life, and the place of oral culture in a modern, literate age

A Room of His Own: A Literary-Cultural Study of Victorian Clubland [Book Review]

A review of Barbara Black’s A Room of His Own: A Literary Cultural Study of Victorian Clubland, an exploration of a surprisingly understudied Victorian institution: the gentlemen’s club

Queensberry’s Misrule: Reputation, Celebrity, and the Idea of the Victorian Gentleman

To Victorians, the Marquis of Queensberry was a well-known aristocrat. As the father of Lord Alfred Douglas and the nemesis of Oscar Wilde, Queensberry was the impetus behind Wilde’s legal troubles. He is also renowned as the eponym of boxing’s first, and most famous rulebook. As a man who flouted every prescription for gentlemanly conduct, he provoked a variety of reactions. The working-class response to the Marquis, for example, suggests a more complicated relationship between the aristocracy and labour than has previously been recognized. Queensberry’s lifestyle also pointed to an enduring aristocratic rakish subculture within the respectable British metropole; for his peers, his cardinal sin was not his unconventional behavior, but rather the publicity he sought and generated for it. This article draws on evidence from the British periodical press to explore ideas of the gentleman, reputation, and celebrity during the second half of the nineteenth century. A focus on Queensberry offers new insights into dominant social conventions and the emergence of modern celebrity culture. Le marquis de Queensberry était pour les Victoriens, un aristocrate renommé. Le père de lord Alfred Douglas et l’ennemi juré d’Oscar Wilde, Queensberry fut à la source des troubles légaux de Wilde. Il est aussi célèbre comme étant l’éponyme du premier et plus célèbre livre de règlements sur la boxe. Un homme qui méprisait toutes les conventions des personnes distinguées, il suscita bon nombre de réactions. La réponse de la classe ouvrière au marquis, par exemple, suggère des rapports entre l’aristocratie et les travailleurs plus compliqués qu’on n’avait supposé auparavant. Le mode de vie de Queensberry met aussi en évidence une sous-culture tenace d’aristocratie dissolue dans la métropole britannique respectable; aux yeux de ses pairs, son plus grand péché n’était pas son comportement non conformiste, mais plutôt la publicité qu’il recherchait et même qu’il suscitait. Dans cet article, nous examinons la presse périodique britannique afin d’étudier la façon dont « le gentleman » a été conçu durant la deuxième moitié du dix-neuvième siècle, surtout par rapport aux thèmes de la réputation et de la célébrité. En nous concentrant sur Queensberry, nous avons un nouvel aperçu des conventions sociales dominantes et de la naissance de la culture de célébrité moderne

Queensberry’s Misrule: Reputation, Celebrity, and the Idea of the Victorian Gentleman

To Victorians, the Marquis of Queensberry was a well-known aristocrat. As the father of Lord Alfred Douglas and the nemesis of Oscar Wilde, Queensberry was the impetus behind Wilde’s legal troubles. He is also renowned as the eponym of boxing’s first, and most famous rulebook. As a man who flouted every prescription for gentlemanly conduct, he provoked a variety of reactions. The working-class response to the Marquis, for example, suggests a more complicated relationship between the aristocracy and labour than has previously been recognized. Queensberry’s lifestyle also pointed to an enduring aristocratic rakish subculture within the respectable British metropole; for his peers, his cardinal sin was not his unconventional behavior, but rather the publicity he sought and generated for it. This article draws on evidence from the British periodical press to explore ideas of the gentleman, reputation, and celebrity during the second half of the nineteenth century. A focus on Queensberry offers new insights into dominant social conventions and the emergence of modern celebrity culture. Le marquis de Queensberry était pour les Victoriens, un aristocrate renommé. Le père de lord Alfred Douglas et l’ennemi juré d’Oscar Wilde, Queensberry fut à la source des troubles légaux de Wilde. Il est aussi célèbre comme étant l’éponyme du premier et plus célèbre livre de règlements sur la boxe. Un homme qui méprisait toutes les conventions des personnes distinguées, il suscita bon nombre de réactions. La réponse de la classe ouvrière au marquis, par exemple, suggère des rapports entre l’aristocratie et les travailleurs plus compliqués qu’on n’avait supposé auparavant. Le mode de vie de Queensberry met aussi en évidence une sous-culture tenace d’aristocratie dissolue dans la métropole britannique respectable; aux yeux de ses pairs, son plus grand péché n’était pas son comportement non conformiste, mais plutôt la publicité qu’il recherchait et même qu’il suscitait. Dans cet article, nous examinons la presse périodique britannique afin d’étudier la façon dont « le gentleman » a été conçu durant la deuxième moitié du dix-neuvième siècle, surtout par rapport aux thèmes de la réputation et de la célébrité. En nous concentrant sur Queensberry, nous avons un nouvel aperçu des conventions sociales dominantes et de la naissance de la culture de célébrité moderne

Work and Madness: Overworked Men and Fears of Degeneration, 1860s-1910s

The very things that provided a Victorian man’s status, his self worth, and his identity could also lead him to lose his mind. This paradox is at the heart of this essay. Men breaking down under the pressure of hard work was disruptive in a society that was dependent on that overwork. This idea preoccupied Victorians, who worried that the pace of modern life could lead to broken nerves, low spirits, nervous collapse, and even suicide. Both doctors and sufferers believed that overtaxing one’s brain could lead to a complete mental breakdown requiring institutionalization. As asylums filled up with incurable patients from the 1870s onwards, the fear of madness was at its height. Neurasthenia held such cultural power and fascination only because it touched on this deeper fear of genuine madness. Men’s madness, and the fear of breaking down, were part of larger public conversations Victorians had about masculinity and mental power and need to be placed prominently in discussions about fin-de-siècle anxieties. Tracing both medical and popular understandings of men’s mental breakdowns, this essay examines asylum records, patient narratives, doctors’ writings, and works of fiction. It places men at the centre of conversations about lunacy in the nineteenth century, and highlights how the spectre of madness connects to larger conversations about degeneration and modern life, as well as fears about the state of Victorian manhood

Makerspace Instruction & the ACRL Framework

In this presentation Amy Vecchione and Stephanie Milne-Lane will host a discussion about research and instruction in a makerspace setting. They will outline the process of how the maker instruction program developed iteratively at Boise State University (BSU). Additionally, they will share the final results of Stephanie’s University of Washington MLIS capstone project, the BSU MakerLab Toolkit. They will also report on their conclusions regarding how the ACRL Framework is the best lens for developing maker instruction

Barriers and facilitators to implementing a patient-centered model of contraceptive provision in community health centers

Background The Contraceptive CHOICE Project developed a patient-centered model for contraceptive provision including: (1) structured, evidence-based counseling; (2) staff and health care provider education; and (3) removal of barriers such as cost and multiple appointments to initiate contraception. In preparation for conducting a research study of the CHOICE model in three community health settings, we sought to identify potential barriers and facilitators to implementation. Methods Using a semi-structured interview guide guided by a framework of implementation research, we conducted 31 qualitative interviews with female patients, staff, and health care providers assessing attitudes, beliefs, and barriers to receiving contraception. We also asked about current contraceptive provision and explored organizational practices relevant to implementing the CHOICE model. We used a grounded theory approach to identify major themes. Results Many participants felt that current contraceptive provision could be improved by the CHOICE model. Potential facilitators included agreement about the necessity for improved contraceptive knowledge among patients and staff; importance of patient-centered contraceptive counseling; and benefits to same-day insertion of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). Potential barriers included misconceptions about contraception held by staff and providers; resistance to new practices; costs associated with LARC; and scheduling challenges required for same-day insertion of LARC. Conclusions In addition to staff and provider training, implementing a patient-centered model of contraceptive provision needs to be supplemented by strategies to manage patient and system-level barriers. Community health center staff, providers, and patients support patient-centered contraceptive counseling to improve contraception provision if organizations can address these barriers