Working the Room: The Cases of Mary H. Kingsley and H.G. Wells

Abstract

Examines the public careers of Kingsley and Wells, who both had distinct disadvantages in appearing as authoritative figures on the lecture platform: Kingsley had no formal education, having grown up among her mother’s servant-class relatives, while Wells, as a “scholarship boy,” received an education focused on applied science and technology. Shows how both took advantage of their opportunities to enter professional discourse, which exposed them to the difficulties outsiders faced in establishing credentials and authority. Suggests Kingsley’s success and Wells’ failure point to ways outsiders were admitted on sufferance and to gendered and class strategies for “working the room” that would make a difference in whether they were heard.