Popular culture up to 1914

Question 1

Give examples of Empire’s influence in literature

Answer 1

• Rudyard Kipling shaped British attitudes before 1914.
  -> had an almost religious belief in Empire and filled his work with reference to Britain’s higher goals e.g. The White Man’s Burden.
• Samuel Baker and G.A. Henty’s tales of military campaigns proved bestsellers.
• Gertrude Page emigrated to Rhodesia and wrote over 20 novels set there.
• British India was the most popular setting and Anglo-Indian love stories proliferated from the 1890s – Maud
  Diver wrote many accounts of British Romance and Heroism there.

Question 2

Give examples of Empire’s influence in music

Answer 2

• Henry Coward took a Sheffield Choir on a musical tour of the Dominions in 1911.
• Nationalist and Imperialist themes were also present in music.
  -> ‘Imperial’ ballads, patriotic hymns, stirring
  choral works and military marches were often performed.
• Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas often conveyed a patriotic and imperialist message in a humorous way.

Question 3

Give examples of Empire’s influence in Youth movements

Answer 3

• Robert Baden-Powell, hero of the Boer War, set up the Boy Scouts movement in 1908, followed by the girl
  guides in 1912.
  -> It was the most successful attempt to mobilise young people behind imperial themes.
• Children took part in Empire Day.
• Howard Handley Spicer published Boys of Our Empire magazine, set up the Boys’ empire league (7000 members in 1900) and an annual book focusing on the colonies.

Question 4

Give examples of Empire’s influence in youth movements

Answer 4

• Imperialist messaged spread through books, organisations, and schools and young people were reminded of their mission and duty.
• Increased literacy rates produced new markets for books and comics which had stories of adventures with
  imperial themes and celebrated military and missionary activities e.g. Brett’s Boys of the Empire (1888-1900).
• History and geography books emphasised the glories of empire and presented explores and missionaries as
  heroes.

Question 5

Give examples of Empire’s influence in adverts

Answer 5

• Images and motifs helped to spread awareness of the empire.
• They frequently used Imperial themes and connotations to sell their goods – suggesting that the British public
  felt favourably disposed towards the empire.

Question 6

give examples of empire’s influence in festivals and exhibitions

Answer 6

• Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee 1897 celebrated the military power of Britain.
• Souvenir books and postcards, as well as the media reports all, helped convey the value of Empire to the
  general public
• King George V’s coronation was celebrated with a Festival of Empire at the Crystal Palace in 1911.
  -> 3⁄4 size models of the parliament buildings around the Empire were constructed to display exhibitions.
  -> There was an inter-empire sports championship which was a forerunner to the British Empire Games (Common-wealth
  games).

Question 7

Give examples of empire’s influence in popular press

Answer 7

• Alfred Harmsworth pioneers the production of a new form of cheap, populist newspaper in 1896 with the Daily Mail which was deliberately aimed at the lower middle classes.
  -> During the Boer War, it sold over a million copies a day – filling its pages with the war, damning the Boer and praising the British.
  -> Hobson criticised it ‘cruel sensationalism’.
• The Mail serialised a number of patriotic books.
  -> e.g. Headon Hill’s The Spies of Wright, Walter Wood’s The
  Enemy in Our Midst.