Time, Space, and Gender in the Digitised Periodical

Abstract

This essay uses the leading Chartist weekly, the Northern Star, as a case study to explore what the digitised archive can tell us about time, place, and gender in the Chartist movement. Margaret Beetham’s studies of the Victorian periodical draw attention to the occupation and, especially in the case of working-class women, the assertion of space and time. More recently, she has argued the crucial role of the Victorian periodical in recontextualising time and “the now” during the industrial process. Building on Beetham’s work, I consider how the contents of Victorian periodicals were and continue to be taken out of context and consumed in new times and places.