Gender at Work in Victorian Culture

Martin A. Danahay's lucidly argued and accessibly written volume offers a solid introduction to important issues surrounding the definition and division of labor in British society and culture. 'Work,' Danahay argues, was a term rife with ideological contradictions for Victorian males during a period when it was considered synonymous with masculinity. Male writers and artists in particular found their labors troubled by class and gender ideologies that idealized 'man's work' as sweaty, muscled labor and tended to feminize intellectual and artistic pursuits. Though many romanticized working-class labor, the fissured representation of the masculine body occasioned by the distinction between manual labor and 'brain work' made it impossible for them to overcome the Victorian class hierarchy of labor. Through cultural studies analyses of the novels of Dickens and Gissing; the nonfiction prose of Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris; the poetry of Thomas Hood; paintings by Richard Redgrave, William Bell Scott, and Ford Madox Brown; and contemporary photographs, including many from the Munby Collection, Danahay examines the ideological contradictions in Victorian representations of men at work. His book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of English literature, history, and gender studies.

Martin A. Danahay is Professor of English at Brock University and writes on Victorian culture, autobiography and the impact of new technologies on society. Working at the intersection of literature, art, and social history, his articles have addressed topics from the representation of music hall by Walter Sickert to the poetry and paintings of Dante Gabriel as "virtual" subjects. He has also published analyses of such contemporary popular culture artifacts as the Matrix films and the autobiography of Kathie Lee Gifford. These publications are united by an attention to "cultural production" in its all its manifestations, ranging from poetry to photography. His book-length publications include A Community of One: Masculine Autobiography and Autonomy in Nineteenth Century Britain and editions of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds.

Contents: Introduction: working definitions; Victorian work and industry; Gendering work in the 1840s; Dickens, work and sexuality; Ford Madox Brown and the division of labor; Perversity at work: Munby and Cullwick; John Ruskin, digging; Gissing and the demise of the man at work; Conclusion: new women, new technologies and new work; Works Cited; Index.