Open seminar at Score
Literary collectivities in British civil service periodicals, 1850-1950
The nineteenth century saw the crystallisation of the institutional apparatus of the modern British administrative state, with the emergence of the civil service as a permanent body of salaried departmental staff distinct from the domain of politics. The civil service expanded rapidly and went through a series of organisational shifts, with the introduction of entry exams in the wake of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854 and the increasing employment of women civil servants at the turn of the twentieth century.
This seminar explores how the administrative reforms and institutional changes that took place in British officialdom during the period 1850–1950 can be mapped onto the civil service periodical culture that arose during the period. I will present my ongoing postdoctoral research project which investigates how periodical literature functioned as a site for identity and community formation among civil servants. Focusing on literary contributions to the magazines, the project examines how civil service-wide, departmental, and trade union periodicals such as The Civilian, The Civil Service Times, and Opportunty: The Organ of the Federation of Women Civil Servants mediated and helped construct professional collectivities shaped by factors such as departmental rank, class, and gender. I hope to provide new insights about the cultural history of the British civil service and about the role of cultural production in the formation of professional communities and identities.
