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A Cultural History of the British CensusChallenges and Alternatives to the Census

A Cultural History of the British Census: Challenges and Alternatives to the Census [As the above quotation makes clear, not every one shared the British public’s fascination with the census. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell simply could not fathom what might be interesting about the census, and she was not alone. Yet this lack of interest is surprising given both Gaskell’s own public concerns and the importance of the census in British public life during the nineteenth century. As I have already argued, many of Gaskell’s middle-class, reformminded contemporaries understood the census as a crucial foundation for the nation’s improvement. They believed that by creating understanding and sympathy, the census could create social harmony in a society where it was sadly lacking. Social harmony was Gaskell’s aim as well, and at least one of the reasons that she both did the charitable work she did and wrote stories. As is evident from Gaskell’s letters and fiction, she found social and political conflict to be among the most heartbreaking aspects of the modern nation. Gaskell, however, like many other writers of her day, called for a solution based in literature rather than statistics. She believed that it was through telling stories not about groups but about individuals that social tension could be described and overcome.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Cultural History of the British CensusChallenges and Alternatives to the Census

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2011
ISBN
978-1-349-29824-2
Pages
179 –202
DOI
10.1057/9780230337602_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[As the above quotation makes clear, not every one shared the British public’s fascination with the census. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell simply could not fathom what might be interesting about the census, and she was not alone. Yet this lack of interest is surprising given both Gaskell’s own public concerns and the importance of the census in British public life during the nineteenth century. As I have already argued, many of Gaskell’s middle-class, reformminded contemporaries understood the census as a crucial foundation for the nation’s improvement. They believed that by creating understanding and sympathy, the census could create social harmony in a society where it was sadly lacking. Social harmony was Gaskell’s aim as well, and at least one of the reasons that she both did the charitable work she did and wrote stories. As is evident from Gaskell’s letters and fiction, she found social and political conflict to be among the most heartbreaking aspects of the modern nation. Gaskell, however, like many other writers of her day, called for a solution based in literature rather than statistics. She believed that it was through telling stories not about groups but about individuals that social tension could be described and overcome.]

Published: Nov 15, 2015

Keywords: Nineteenth Century; Cultural History; Social Harmony; Class Conflict; Census Report

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