Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Dawson, and the Control of the Lecture Platform in Mid- Nineteenth Century Manchester

Abstract

Seeks to uncover the extent to which in England, far from serving as an affirmation of community identity, the early Victorian lecture often exposed the raw edges of intra-class conflict. Juxtaposes Emerson’s brief stint as a lecturer in Manchester in 1847-1848 with the more sustained engagement there by George Dawson to illuminate the degree to which the ambivalence that greeted Emerson derived from a broader conflict over the function of the lecture platform and the latitude to be allowed to its leading figures. Believes the disillusionment of Emerson and the marginalization of Dawson suggest that even at the moment of the triumph of free trade liberalism, crucial barriers were erected to free expression on the public platform, suggesting a reason for the failure of the public lecture to impose itself at the heart of mid-Victorian bourgeois culture.