Philanthropic Discourse in Anglo-American Literature, 1850-1920

Description

From the mid-19th century until the rise of the modern welfare state in the early 20th century, Anglo-American philanthropic giving gained an unprecedented measure of cultural authority as it changed in kind and degree. Civil society took on the responsibility for confronting the adverse effects of industrialism, and transnational discussions of poverty, urbanization, women's work, and sympathy provided a means of understanding and debating social reform. While philanthropic institutions left a transactional record of money and materials, philanthropic discourse yielded a rich corpus of writing that represented, rationalized, and shaped these rapidly industrializing societies, drawing on and informing other modernizing discourses including religion, economics, and social science. Showing the fundamentally transatlantic nature of this discourse from 1850 to 1920, the authors gather a wide variety of literary sources that crossed national and colonial borders within the Anglo-American range of influence. Through manifestos, fundraising tracts, novels, letters, and pamphlets, they piece together the intellectual world where philanthropists reasoned through their efforts and redefined the public sector.

Preface, Telescopic Philanthropy Redeemed / Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
Acknowledgments
Introduction, Writing Philanthropy in the United States and Britain / Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
1. The Poverty of Sympathy / Lori Merish
2. Self-Undermining Philanthropic Impulses: Philanthropy in the Mirror of Narrative / Daniel Bivona
3. Education as Violation and Benefit: Doctrinal Debate and the Contest for India's Girls / Suzanne Daly
4. Urban Reform and the Plight of the Poor in Women's Journalistic Writing / Monica Elbert
5. Lady Bountiful for the Empire: Upper-class Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society / Dorice Williams Elliott
6. Patrons, Philanthropists, and Professionals: Henry James's Roderick Hudson / Francesca Sawaya
7. "Witnessing them day after day": Ethical Spectatorship and Liberal Reform in Walter Besant's Children of Gibeon / Tanushree Ghosh
8. "The Orthodox Creed of the Business World"? Philanthropy and Liberal Individualism in Edith Wharton's The Fruit of the Tree / Emily Coit
9. Sustaining Gendered Philanthropy through Transatlantic Friendship: Jane Addams, Henrietta Barnett and Writing for Reciprocal Mentoring / Sarah Robbins
Conclusion / Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
Afterword, Follow the Money / Kathleen D. McCarthy

Sujets

• 19th Century
• Charities
• Modern
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Charitable organization
• Modern history
• Philanthropy
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253029881
• Langue: English

Extrait

P HILANTHROPIC D ISCOURSE IN A NGLO -A MERICAN L ITERATURE , 1850-1920
PHILANTHROPIC AND NONPROFIT STUDIES Dwight F. Burlingame and David C. Hammack, editors
P HILANTHROPIC D ISCOURSE IN A NGLO -A MERICAN L ITERATURE , 1850-1920

Edited by
FRANK Q. CHRISTIANSON
and LESLEE THORNE-MURPHY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Christianson, Frank, editor. | Thorne-Murphy, Leslee, editor.
Title: Philanthropic discourse in Anglo-American literature, 1850-1920 / edited by Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy.
Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2017. | Series: Philanthropic and nonprofit studies | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026849 | ISBN 9780253029553 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253029843 (pr : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Social problems in literature. | Humanitarianism in literature. | Charity in literature. | Literature and society-Great Britain-History-19th century. | Literature and society-Great Britain-History-20th century. | Literature and society-United States-History-19th century. | Literature and society-United States-History-20th century. | Social movements in literature.
Classification: LCC PR778.S62 P48 2017 | DDC 820.9/355-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026849
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C ONTENTS
Preface: Telescopic Philanthropy Redeemed
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Writing Philanthropy in the United States and Britain | Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
1 The Poverty of Sympathy | Lori Merish
2 Self-Undermining Philanthropic Impulses: Philanthropy in the Mirror of Narrative | Daniel Bivona
3 Education as Violation and Benefit: Doctrinal Debate and the Contest for India s Girls | Suzanne Daly
4 Urban Reform and the Plight of the Poor in Women s Journalistic Writing | Monika Elbert
5 Lady Bountiful for the Empire: Upper-Class Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society | Dorice Williams Elliott
6 Patrons, Philanthropists, and Professionals: Henry James s Roderick Hudson | Francesca Sawaya
7 Witnessing Them Day after Day : Ethical Spectatorship and Liberal Reform in Walter Besant s Children of Gibeon | Tanushree Ghosh
8 The Orthodox Creed of the Business World ? Philanthropy and Liberal Individualism in Edith Wharton s The Fruit of the Tree | Emily Coit
9 Sustaining Gendered Philanthropy through Transatlantic Friendship: Jane Addams, Henrietta Barnett, and Writing for Reciprocal Mentoring | Sarah Ruffing Robbins
Conclusion | Frank Q. Christianson and Leslee Thorne-Murphy
Afterword: Follow the Money | Kathleen D. McCarthy
Index
P REFACE
Telescopic Philanthropy Redeemed
W HEN P EGGY B ARTELS was awoken by the phone at 4 a.m., she assumed it was a relative calling from Ghana. She was right. It was her cousin calling to announce that her uncle had passed away and that she had been selected to take his place as King of Otuam, a coastal African Fante village of approximately seven thousand people. Groggy and disbelieving, she mulled over the unsettling news as she prepared for her day s work as a secretary at the Ghanaian embassy in Washington, DC. How could she, a naturalized US citizen employed in DC, possibly function as king of a village in Ghana?
In King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny, and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village , Bartels and her coauthor, Eleanor Herman, recount her eventful first few years as King of Otuam. 1 Holding down her job at the embassy, Bartels kept in daily contact with her advisers in Otuam, learning her duties and attempting to circumvent those who hoped to benefit from her absence. When she took a prolonged vacation leave for her enstoolment (coronation) and resided in Otuam for several weeks, she realized that the competing members of her council were banking on her residence in the United States and her submission to male authority in order for them to continue embezzling village funds and wielding local power unconscionably. She would have none of that. The ensuing narrative is a study in maneuvering the politics of local governance, as she battled with her cunning council members, worked within a mix of ancestral and postcolonial government systems, and eventually took the first steps toward bringing clean water, education, and modern health care to her village.
Bartels s book is part autobiography, part spiritual memoir, and part history of the Fante people and customs. At times, it is delightfully humorous. And, perhaps more importantly, it is a fundraising tool. Overt mention of this aspect of the book is tucked away in the last few pages of her narrative, where Bartels recounts the efforts of Pastor Be Louis Colleton and the congregation of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Maryland, who raised funds to provide a well for the village and laid plans to provide a school. She outlines the immense impact these efforts had already had on the well-being of her people. In the epilogue, she describes the congregation s future plans and directs readers to its website to make their own donations.
Though this fundraising information comes late in the narrative and is quite understated, the logic of philanthropy informs the entire narrative. Bartels and her coauthor set out to demonstrate that she is an efficient, reliable, and trustworthy ruler who not only respects her ancestral culture but also appreciates the contributions colonial rulers brought with them. She is at ease in both the political climate of Washington, DC, embassy life and the political climate of her Ghanaian village. She is a woman who can outmaneuver male prejudice, she is an African who is attuned to Western technology and philanthropy, and she is an American who can both praise and critique American culture and people. She is morally upright, refusing to use her position to benefit herself, instead depleting her own bank account and time reserves in order to serve her people. In short, she is the ideal person to whom one could donate funds, knowing that the money would not be squandered on excessive administrative costs or corrupt officials.
Philanthropy relies on cultivating just such a relationship of trust in the face of recurring fears of mismanagement, political intrigue, and condescension. To create an attractive object of philanthropic effort, Bartels must deal with her readers assumptions about the legacy of British Gold Coast colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, must inculcate sympathy for a people half a world away, and must convince her (presumably) American readers that a donation on their part will have a purely beneficial influence, in no way doing any harm or demonstrating inappropriate condescension. This is no easy task.
One might say that Bartels s narrative rewrites what Charles Dickens famously called telescopic philanthropy. 2 In Dickens s 1852 novel, Bleak House , the renowned philanthropist Mrs. Jellyby works frantically on behalf of the Africans of the fictional Borrioboola Gha. Yet her efforts result in dismal failure; her heavy-handed practice of philanthropy is misinformed and condescending, and her efforts even take a deadly turn when the settlers she sends to Africa are slain by the native population. In essence, Bartels s successes reverse Mrs. Jellyby s failures. Both women consider it their duty to serve an African population. Whereas Bartels s narrative demonstrates her competence and trustworthiness, Mrs. Jellyby s narrative establishes her complete ineffectiveness. Bartels manages the difficult politics of her village council, while Mrs. Jellyby cannot even govern the politics of her own household, let alone the politics of the African settlement she establishes. Bartels s narrative establishes sympathy for herself and her people, while Mrs. Jellyby s philanthropy is fixed on a distant object with which she bears no immediate relation and has no sympathetic bond. In her twenty-first-century rendering of telescopic philanthropy, Bartels corrects Mrs. Jellyby s failures, as she points us toward the small village of Otuam and allows us to see the possibilities of philanthropic success.
The rhetorical strategies that Bartels employs have their roots in the philanthropic logic of Dickens s time. In the wake of the industrial revolution, increasing urbanization, and the political implementation of principles of political economy, concerned citizens on both sides of the Atlantic took alleviating rampant poverty and want into their own hands. Philanthropic organizations proliferated, successfully establishing volunteerism and giving as vital aspects of civil society.
As Brian Harrison reports, Of 640 London charities alive in 1860, no less than 279 were founded between 1800 and 1850, and 144 between 1850 and 1860; by the 1860s they were raising annually about as much as the total annual e