Between attraction and instruction: Lantern shows in British poor relief

Abstract

Abstract Projection media was intensively used in British poor relief at the turn of the nineteenth century. While social organizations communicated their aims, they also attached importance to entertaining their clientele. Developing ingenious distribution strategies to find their audiences, their lantern shows proved very popular. The massive non‐commercial use of lantern slides and professional structures of their media work point to the success of the magic lantern in poor relief as well. Welfare organizations ensured the reception of their concerns by regulating lantern shows in advance and by creating both instructive and attractive programmes. Although their exhibitions differed from commercial ones in their intentions, they created multimedia shows with well‐directed performances, appealing to the senses of the spectators. This article investigates how instruction and attraction were combined in lantern shows, organized for propagating welfare concerns, fundraising, moral and religious instruction of poor people, socio‐political agitation or just offering relief to the needy. Focusing on the presentation of lantern slides, it also describes the context for and significance of their exhibition. The study of lantern programmes and the performances will illuminate the effects these non‐commercial lantern shows had on audiences: arousing emotions of compassion and shame, these multimedia spectacles encouraged spectators to identify with social organizations and support their activities. Lantern shows in British poor relief served perfectly to persuade their audiences of welfare purposes, enriched exhibition culture in an alternative way and had a global impact on the establishment of projection media. Keywords: lantern showdistributionexhibitionreceptionperformancenon‐commercial Notes 1. The story is quite typical of temperance material from this time. Jamie, a little boy, is determined to lead his father, who plunges his wife and the four children into poverty and destitution by drink, back to the right path; the family has to move to the slums of a big city where Jamie, his brother Harry and his sister Kitty have to work on the street. While the youngest child, a baby, dies, Jamie and other street children found the Cold Water Army, a Temperance society. Only after Jamie's death does his father, who hit him during a quarrel, give up drinking and return to being the responsible and honest man he once was. The Greys return to their home town, where Jamie's father gets back his former job and is offered the partnership in the company. He also defends Christian values and advocates Temperance ideas (Riley Brothers Ltd. Citation1905, 80, 106; Lucerna). 2. Reception is especially difficult to study in this field, where testimonies are hard to find and the source texts, mainly coming from welfare organizations' organs, have qualities similar to advertising: as these organizations had a vested interest in reporting their own shows in the best light, their reports may not be absolutely reliable. Therefore, it is important to judge statements about spectators' reactions critically and to carefully include consideration of the role of emotion within shows intended to convey welfare messages. Reports from local newspapers (i.e. the Holmfirth Express) can be helpful to verify statements of welfare organizations. 3. Although this study mainly refers to the exhibition of lantern slides, I use the term 'projection media' to take into account that British welfare organizations also organized cinematograph exhibitions combining fixed with moving images (see for example the analysis of HE Citation1904 in this article). This takes into account Vogl‐Bienek's plea for use of the comprehensive historical term 'the art of projecting' (Citation1994, 12) and for the concept of a screen history, defended by Musser (Citation1990, 15–54). 4. The few studies concentrate on selected aspects of the non‐commercial use of such media. For example, Crangle (Citation2005) deals with the foundation of a nationwide Lantern Mission for welfare purposes, an idea pursued by journalist W.T. Stead in the 1890s. Crangle and Heard give an overview about the use of lantern slides by the British Temperance movement in the nineteenth century (Citation2005). Gärtner writes about lantern work of the Sunday School Union (Citation2006) and the Church Army (2008). Burton's study (Citation2005) is, to my knowledge, the only monograph to examine in more detail the lantern work of a social organization (the Co‐operative Movement); it focuses, however, on the use of film. Some recent local studies touch on the use of the lantern for social or other non‐commercial purposes (Borton Citation2005; Herbert Citation2005; Simkin Citation2005). 5. The Church Army has shared these features with the Salvation Army, which has always been, however, an independent religious community. The use of projection media by the British Salvation Army is the subject of my paper Feeding and Entertaining the Poor: Lantern and Cinematograph Shows in British Poor Relief Around the Turn of the Nineteenth Century at the DOMITOR conference 2010 and will be further examined in my thesis, Lantern Shows in British Poor Relief around the Turn of the Nineteenth Century: Distribution, Exhibition Practices, Reception.Undertaken within the project Screen1990: The Social Question is Lantern Shows and Early Cinema at the University of Trier, Germany. 6. This figure is based on Torsten Gärtner's projection (Gärtner Citation2008, 138). 7. This figure becomes even more significant when considering that the audiences outside the Church Army Van Mission are not included. 8. The Church Army and the Band of Hope also report on their advantageous loan conditions (The Church Army Citation1895, 11; 1907, 58; 1910, 95; United Kingdom Band of Hope Union Citation1883, 15; Citation1886, 12; Citation1887, 17). 9. Although not examined in this study, it has to be mentioned that the exhibition venues communicated welfare aims as well. When slides were projected during a church service or in a Temperance Hall, the audience reception differed profoundly from that at commercial places like music halls or vaudeville theatres. 10. The amusing story is about a sweep and a whitewasher who, after taking a drink together, mutually disturb each others' work so that at the end, the sweep appears in white and the whitewasher in black (Riley Brothers Ltd. Citation1905, 20; Lucerna). In contemporary slide catalogues, this set is entitled The Sweep and the Whitewasher(Lucerna). 11. Co‐operative societies organized magic lantern lectures with dance, too, to propagate their economic ideas (CN Citation1900a, Citation1900b). 12. This manufacturing method, used from the late 1870s onwards, meant that real actors posed in front of mostly painted backdrops. While projected, the photographic images had a particularly naturalistic effect (Vogl‐Bienek Citation2009, 136–44). 13. According to the Magic Lantern Web Resource Lucerna, the different versions of this slide set appear in several commercial catalogues: 34 plus 17 optional slides (manufactured by Bamforth & Co., first in 1896) A detailed catalogue of photographic lantern slides, life models &c. (Holmfirth: Bamforth & Co., 1910), 144–5 10 slides plus 18 hymn slides for use as service of song (manufactured by York & Son, latest possible manufacture in 1889) Catalogue of lanterns, slides and accessories (London: J.W. Butcher, n.d.), 246 Catalogue of optical lantern slides (Glasgow: William Roberton, n.d.), 87 Catalogue of optical lantern slides (Bradford: Riley Brothers, Citation1905), 40 30 slides (manufactured by G.M. Mason, date of first manufacture unknown) Catalogue of photographic slides for the optical lantern (Southampton: G.M. Mason, c. 1917), 72. 14. Services of songs were presentations of stories with songs in which audiences partly joined in. They were easily to be integrated in the liturgy, and often illustrated with lantern slides. 15. The rental of costumes for use in Sunday School lantern shows and other entertainments proved highly popular for a period of at least 30 years. See, for example, SSC 1876d; The Sunday School Union Citation1901, 37; 1907, 57. 16. From about 1890 on, probably in the course of professionalizing social work, Christian and labour organizations alike documented their activities. The source texts reveal that they were predominantly used in adult education. 17. The anecdote was about a co‐operative member who wanted to get married in London but whose best man didn't show up. In his distress, he turned to the Co‐operative Wholesale Society, which helpfully dispatched a clerk to his wedding. 18. Gärtner draws the same conclusion in reference to the Church Army (Citation2008, 139). 19. See, for example, Church of England Temperance Society Citation1896, general balance sheet. 20. The life‐model set, first manufactured by Bamforth & Co. in 1889, tells the story of Ben and his sister Nell who prefer the street to a home without warmth and security: their father drinks, their mother is dead, their stepmother heartless. They find accommodation at the house of an old lady who brings them up within the Christian faith. Nell's death plunges Benny into desperation until Eva, a girl from a rich family, procures him a job in her father's company. Yet, falsely accused of theft, he ends up on the street again. Wandering around for several days, he gets to a village where a religious family takes care for him. After many years, he by coincidence meets Eva; the error being resolved, he marries her. Moreover, Ben becomes her father's business partner (Riley Brothers Ltd. Citation1905, 38; Lucerna).