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NOTES ON ISSUE 9: HISTORICAL GLOSSARY
PART 2 OF 2
Not the least eager of the eyes
assembled were the eyes of those who could not read. These people,
as they listened to the friendly voice that read aloud—there
was always some such ready to help them—stared at the characters
which meant so much with a vague awe and respect that would
have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance
could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil.
When Dickens arrived in Preston in January 1854 to observe the
strike, he found the town quiet; he wrote to his friend John
Forster that one of the only signs that anything was different
there was the "crowds at the street-corners reading the placards
pro and con." Literacy rates rose during the nineteenth century,
particularly in urban areas, thus creating the vast market for
popular literature that was a major factor in Dickens's own
success. Nevertheless, many of the working class might have
remained unable to read, particularly older workers who had
come of age before then-recent laws requiring children in factories
to receive some schooling.
saying that he was forced
to seek work in another name
During the Victorian period, it was relatively easy for individuals
to take an assumed name or identity. There were at the time
none of the apparatus of identity that we know today (such as
driver's licenses and other bureaucratic papers), and communities
relied on their knowledge of the individual—and his or her truthfulness—to
establish their identities. However, the rise of railroads,
urbanization, and the advent of a more mobile society meant
that people were moving throughout the country more than ever
before, leading to concerns that personal identity was no longer
fixed and reliable. Stephen's letter to Rachael reveals that
he has been able to use this fact to evade an unjust suspicion.
Not long after the time Dickens wrote, the rise of detective
fiction and "sensation" novels also exploited this
phenomenon, and some scholars have attributed the popularity
of these forms to a cultural anxiety over personal identity.
since his sheet-anchor had
come home
A ship's main anchor, used in emergencies; figuratively, a support
in danger. Here, it is used to mean that Louisa had been Gradgrind's
mainstay.
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