Hegemony at Home: The Queen, the Press, and the Rhetoric of Familial Love

Abstract

Examines the production of British political culture by exploring the behavior of the royal family during 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. Posits that the period provides an opportunity to see a conscious use of familial and royal imagery in the re-imagining of British citizenry and public space in a way that represents the monarch in partnership with the people. Claims this new focus on home and family life promoted a refiguring of public and private space, and the role of various classes and individuals within that space, but created an unstable paradigm that relied heavily on the political and economic moment for its relative effectiveness. Notes how metaphors of family proliferated in the coverage of the months-long event. Closely analyzes images from this period to illuminate the semi-covert and political uses of the concept of family in that period.