![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 All Spanish, French, and German quotes were translated by the author.
2 Certainly, while the general increase in print media and periodicals particularly across the western hemisphere is undisputed (Multigraph Collective Citation2018), the development of print culture varied in the different regions according to political, social, and geographic circumstances. On the evolution of the periodical press in nineteenth-century England, France, and Spain, see Mainardi (Citation2017); Boening (Citation2004); Pereira Castañares and García Sanz (Citation1986).
3 Since the term “ethnographic” is widely associated with the description of distant cultures and ethnic groups, I use – in an admittedly asynchronous way – the terms “sociographic”/“sociography” to refer to the descriptive examination of sociocultural phenomena and subcultures in one’s own society. On the uses of the term sociography as descriptive sociology from the beginning of the early twentieth century, see Brunt (Citation2002).
4 Among others, Lukács (Citation1970) has provided important epistemic tools in order to think of nineteenth-century prose texts as sociographic forms (e.g., the difference between the mode of distanced “observation” and that of “experiencing”). On the multi-genre genealogy of the “sociographic” sketch and its proliferation in England, France, Germany, and Spain, see Schwab (Citation2018), Peñas Ruiz (Citation2012), and Lauster (Citation2007).
5 The sketches’ graphic imagery in both verbal and visual representation refers to traditions of caricature, costume books, fashion magazines, street Cries, and physiognomy, see Schwab (Citation2018, 218–221) and Lauster (Citation2007, 59–84). On the pictorial and epistemic qualities of nineteenth-century sociographic sketch illustrations, see Cuvardic García (Citation2014) and Le Men (Citation1993).
6 For a bibliographic overview of sketch serials and collections in English-, German- and French-speaking contexts, see Lauster (Citation2007, 329–334).
7 El Pobrecito Hablador appeared between August 1832 and March 1833 in fourteen numbered issues, plus one unnumbered issue. It was published by Imprenta Repullés in Madrid. I have no information on its circulation. Scholarship suggests that the periodical ceased operation due to censorship which took umbrage at Larra’s critical readings of contemporary social structures and mores (Medina-Bocos Montarelo [Citation1989]). For more on Larra’s satirical sketches in the context of El Pobrecito Hablador, see Escóbar Arronis (Citation1972).
8 From 1833 to 1835, Dickens published a variety of essays on the metropolis and its inhabitants in The Monthly Magazine, The Morning Chronicle, The Evening Chronicle, and Bell’s Life of London, before they appeared in two illustrated volumes, Sketches by Boz, vols. I and II (1836).
9 With his studies on rural forms of life, which involved direct observation and the collection of statistical data, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl (1823–1897) is regarded as one of the founders of German Volkskunde (folklore studies) (see Altenbockum Citation1994).
10 According to Stiénon’s (Citation2012) study on the French physiologies, a genre closely related to the sociographic sketch (concerning both content as well as conditions and actors of production and distribution), the readership of entertaining sociographic literature was majorly constituted by representatives of the educated middle classes and the rising bourgeoisie (111). This observation is complemented by Anderson’s (Citation1992) analysis of the readership of “mass-market” magazines, which also published entertaining and didactic descriptions of social structures and practices. Anderson emphasized that the composition of the readership of Victorian illustrated magazines was quite heterogeneous, and especially the audience of the cheaper products such as The Penny Magazine involved “a majority of clerks, shopkeepers and the more prosperous strata of the working class” (65). We must also bear in mind that even those parts of the population who could not afford to buy printed materials had access to sociographic periodical literature because it was placed in shop windows and readily accessible in coffeehouses and reading halls (for a contemporary testimony on the diverse public of reading halls and coffeehouses, see Reach [Citation1844]). For more on the expanding readership of nineteenth-century periodicals in France and England, see Lyons (Citation2001) and Altick (Citation1957).
11 Still, in 1897, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) bemoaned that sociology was barely reaching beyond “the stage of … philosophical syntheses” (Durkheim Citation2005 [Citation1952], xxxiii).
12 This perspective complements with some works of the field of literary and cultural studies, where scholars have pointed to the sociological contents of nineteenth-century realistic genres, such as the French physiologies, the journalistic correspondence and the social novel. See Waters (Citation2019); Stiénon (Citation2012); Lauster (Citation2007); Poovey (Citation1995).
13 If there is a proper consensus that “[p]opular culture tends to reflect, or is intentionally aimed toward, the tastes of the public,” there is no agreement on what the distribution volume of a cultural product must be in order to be called “popular” (Askin and Mauskapf Citation2017, 910). This is especially problematic with regard to historical forms of popular culture because we only have imprecise data on reception structures.
14 The sample covers only a small section of texts investigated as mediators between nineteenth-century journalism and the systematization of social inquiry in Europe and beyond. The project Dissecting Society. Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism and the Formation of Ethnographic and Sociological Knowledge, funded by the European Research Council, is carried out at the department of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich.
15 On the formation of different social science disciplines in the second half of the century, see Sala (Citation2017), Eriksen and Nielsen (Citation2013, 46–95), and Bendix (Citation1997).
16 See note 10.
17 On the transregional embeddedness of Spanish sociographic sketches, see Losada (Citation2004); British-French-connections have been outlined by Lauster (Citation2007, 39–43); see also Jay (Citation2016).
18 Mariano José de Larra is counted among the most influential writers of Spanish Romanticism. His contemporary and historical fame is based mainly on his satirical prose writings which deal with political and moral conditions of the country. One of the multiple collections of Larra’s periodical articles on social manners provides the anthology Colección de artículos dramáticos, literarios, políticos y de costumbres (Larra Citation2000).
19 See note 8.
20 The analysis of the social positions of individual writers in entangled sociomedial knowledge networks provides important data to evaluate the position of periodical literature within the systematization of social research in the nineteenth century. However, as the present article is concerned with the formatting and dissemination of (proto-)sociological topics in commercial media texts, the writers themselves and their intellectual networks are not the focus of attention.
21 Already around 1800, as a consequence of the formation of new social groups that were mainly defined in economic terms, the concept of “social class” started to replace previous descriptions of social status based primarily on family descent or occupation (Swingewood Citation1991, 36–40). In the 1810s, Henri de Saint-Simon, who was a highly active publisher and journalist (Petermann Citation1979), predicted the rise of an “industrial class” consisting of both capitalists and workers, which in the near future would form the main pillar of an “industrial society” (165ff.). Simultaneously, the social philosophers Charles Fourier (1772–1837) and Robert Owen (1771–1858) observed the development of new social classes and proclaimed interclass struggles as a principle of societal evolution in treatises and pamphlets (Picon Citation2003, 75–78).
22 The influence of market-oriented print on people’s understanding as social beings was best described by Anderson (Citation2016) who showed how new technologies of communication enabled knowledge transfer and political mobilization across all social strata (see also Multigraph Collective Citation2018, 245–259). More specifically, the pedagogical effects of popular sociographic writings on the public’s social self-perception are evidenced in Lyon-Caen’s (Citation2006) reception study based on an analysis of readers’ letters to Eugene Sue and Honoré de Balzac, which traces how the readership used the provided narratives as “instruments” to “read” and criticize contemporary living conditions (153). Similarly, the French writer and contemporary witness Maxime du Camp stated the social effects of Le Charivari and La Caricature, two Parisian magazines that from the end of the 1820 strongly influenced the fashion of the visual-verbal sociographic sketch. According to du Camp, the two publications “had a very real influence on public opinion” and when “a lively satire against the government was published in Le Charivari, the entire population of Paris knew about it in less than a day” (as quoted in Kerr Citation2000, 234).
23 For more examples of this argumentative method, see for instance, the examples of “El gabán” (Mesonero Romanos Citation1845 [Citation1840]) and “Les pauvres” (Moreau-Christophe Citation1841).
24 Coinciding with the death of Ferdinand VII (1833), the publication of Revista Mensajero changed from a biweekly to a triweekly, and it became a daily from April 1, 1834. After the publication of “El álbum” in this journal, the article was quickly edited and reedited in collected volumes of Larra’s articles, such as Obras completas de Fígaro (1837) and Colección de artículos de Fígaro (1844).
25 On Larra’s moral and political satire in the early 1830s, which especially focused on the country’s reluctance and slowness to overcome traditional orders of society and politics, see Escóbar Arronis (Citation1972).
26 Colloquial Spanish: a language considered incomprehensible.
27 In France, political censorship in the 1830s, especially via the 1835 September Laws, had the effect that the writers and artists who worked for such periodicals increasingly turned from political satire to social satire and description (Kerr Citation2000).
28 This article’s topic reflects the transformation of work and the concomitant rise of recreational activities from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards, first and foremost in English society. See, for an initial overview of Victorian leisure culture, Baker (Citation1979).
29 The Evening Chronicle (1835–1855) was a thrice-weekly offshoot of the at that time whiggish Morning Chronicle (1770–1862) and edited by Dickens’s father-in-law John Hogarth. Altick (Citation1957, 392) estimated a circulation of the newspapers between 1,000 and 5,000 in the 1820s and 1830s.
30 In 1841, Léon Curmer edited an additional volume titled Le Prisme: Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle. The literary and artistic importance of this work in contemporary French society can, besides its length it acquired during its years of publication, be derived from its famous contributors (among which figured Honoré de Balzac, Charles Nodier, Jules Janin, Honoré Daumier, and Paul Gavarni). I have no numbers on the circulation of the volumes. Curmer’s other publishing activities and the elaborate and richly illustrated arrangement of Les Français indicate that this publication was aimed at the affluent parts of the population (although topics and strategies of representation of this serial’s sketches are reproduced from and by numerous sketches published in more affordable and–through reading halls and cafés–widely available periodicals). For more information on the publication context of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, see Le Men (Citation1993).
31 From the fourth volume onwards, Les Français peints par eux-mêmes had the subtitle “Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle.” In the conclusion to the eighth volume, Léon Curmer comments on his encyclopedic enterprise with satisfaction: “toutes les classes de la société ont été explorées, les salons les plus élégants, les bouges les plus honteux … tout a été sondé” (Curmer Citation1842, 457) [“all classes of society have been explored, the most elegant salons, the most disreputable dives … everything has been examined”].
32 I have no further information on this author.
33 Further examples that employ a dialogic technique include the sketches “The British Sailor” (Howard Citation1841) and “La diligencia” (Larra Citation1835c).
34 The emulation of “scientific” principles, which started to shape social thought around 1800, was a response to the new prestige of the natural sciences and their empiricist methods (see Heilbron Citation1995, esp. chapter 8). On the impact of scientific approaches and terms on social sketch writing, especially from the fields of botany, zoology, and physiology, see Stiénon (Citation2012, 52ff.) and Lauster (Citation2005).
35 For more examples of texts that wrap up social “species” or “classes” in types, see, e.g. “La laitière” (Mainzer Citation1841), “El hombre globo” (Larra Citation1835d), and “The Barrister” (Blanchard Citation1841). For an overview of articles on social types that appeared during the 1840s in the magazine Punch, see Altick (Citation1997, esp. chapter 20).
36 It was not possible to identify the writer behind that name.
37 Douglas Jerrold’s multi-authored collection of social type portraits was published in two volumes in 1840 and 1841; since 1838, however, many of the contributions had already been published in journals and magazines (see Peñas Ruiz [Citation2012]). I have no data on readership and circulation, but it is likely that Heads of the People – like Curmer’s serial Les Français peints par eux-mêmes – was a publication aimed at the wealthier classes. However, the authors of this series used the same strategies of representation that would be employed by authors of sketches published in cheaper and – e.g. through reading halls – more easily available periodicals, such as Punch (Altick Citation1997, esp. chapter 20).
38 Each type was preceded by an illustration of the type in question. The illustrations were drawn by the caricaturist Kenny Meadows (1790–1874).
39 I expand on this example of typification in my upcoming article “Sailors, Book Hawkers, and Bricklayer's Laborers: Social Types and the Production of Social Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Periodical Literature,” which will appear in Nineteenth-Century Literature in 2022.
40 Like Jerrold, Mayhew contributed to the magazine Punch. In 1844, he married Jerrold’s daughter Jane Jerrold. After publishing his reports on the urban poor in The Morning Chronicle (1849), Mayhew quickly republished the texts within the framework of a social survey, London Labour and the London Poor (1851).
41 The idea of flânerie as a mode of urban observation was already developed in the 1830s as a literary motif. See, for instance, Burton (Citation1994) and Brand (Citation1991). On the figure of the flâneur in relation to social theory, see Frisby (Citation2001).
42 For instance, in her book The Saleslady (1929), Frances Donovan used the concept as the central category for her study of a large group of women employed as retail sale workers. Leading scholars such as William F. Whyte (Street Corner Society, 1943), Fred Davis (The Cabdriver and His Fare, 1959), Erving Goffman (Asylum, 1961), or Jaqueline P. Wiseman (Stations of the Lost, 1970) have likewise systematically worked with social types.
43 See, e.g. Pierre Bourdieu’s major work La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement (Citation1979), which relates the individual’s taste and practices (as part of its “habitus”) to the possession of social and cultural capital and to the social milieu in which one was socialized.
44 In his work The Theory of the Leisure Class (Citation1899), Veblen inspected, for instance, the uses of narcotics and clothes, which, as objects of “conspicuous consumption” acquired symbolic value.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Christiane Schwab
Christiane Schwab has worked as a professor at the Institute of European Ethnology and Cultural Analysis (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich) since 2019. After completing her Ph.D. in 2013, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Humboldt University (Berlin) and New York University. Since 2020, she has been the principal investigator of a research group funded by the European Research Council (Starting Grant). Her current research focuses on the relationship between nineteenth-century literature and the evolution of sociological and anthropological thought. She has published two monographs and multiple peer-reviewed articles in journals such as History and Anthropology, Urban History, and the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies.