Taking Up Space: Tracing the Representation of Female Medium Emma Hardinge Britten in the Spiritualist Periodicals, The Spiritualist (1869-70) and The Two Worlds (1887) by Sarah Dutson

Article Information

Published: 2024
Type: brief communication (2,000 – 5,000 words)
Author(s): Sarah Dutson
ISSN: 2977-3954
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60844/7sq7-ws42
Download: Full Article

Abstract

This article will consider the representation of the influential female medium Emma Hardinge Britten (1823 1899) within the context of the spiritualist periodical in Victorian Britain from 1869 to 1887. Much contemporary academic work has been conducted to examine the role of women in the spiritualist movement and to take the female medium out of the margins and into the centre (Basham, 1992; Oppenheim, 1985; Owen, 2004; Kontou, 2009). Therefore, considering women as fundamental to the movement, coupled with the fact that more women journalists and editors emerged in the nineteenth century, we would expect to find substantial evidence of women’s voices within the spiritualist press. This article will examine if this is the case through the lens of Emma Hardinge Britten, whose career developed from female medium to founder and editor of a spiritualist periodical, The Two Worlds (published 1887 1892). Looking first at The Spiritualist (published 1869-1882) to establish the space allotted to early representations of Emma Hardinge Britten, then to The Two Worlds to see a more dominant and established voice through self-representation, the article will show how women were able to take up significant space in the spiritualist periodical.

Keywords

Spiritualism; Female Medium; Editor; Spiritualist Periodical; Gender Representation

Biography

Sarah Dutson is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University within the Department of English, where she recently completed her MA in Gothic Studies. Her research interests include women’s writing and the supernatural, with a particular focus on spiritualism and the occult in neo-Victorian women’s Gothic fiction. Sarah’s current research examines the figure of the female medium, exploring how neo-Victorian Gothic novels by women writers use this character to reflect and interrogate the societal position of women.