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The Ideological Matrix of Reform in Late-19th-Century America and New Zealand: Reading Bellamy's Looking Backward

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

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The late 19th Century witnessed the beginnings of a profound transformation of the political culture in the industrialized world. With the rise of reform movements concerned with labor, religion, women's rights, and a host of other matters, the winds of change blew around the globe. These crosscurrents were particularly evident in the Anglo-American environment where the ideology of reform reflected certain continuities of culture among the English-speaking countries. In particular, this period of reform saw the development of significant connections between America and New Zealand. While Peter Coleman has ably analyzed the exchanges of ideas that shaped legislation and emergent progressivism in both countries, he has not adequately addressed the complexity of the cultural and ideological dimensions of these exchanges. In considering those cultural and ideological dimensions, I will attempt to offer some insight into the political culture of reform in both countries at the end of the 19th Century.

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Research Article
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

NOTES

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16. Gramsci, , Prison Notebooks, p. 259Google Scholar. An interesting connection here is Hamer's observation that “[v]oting Liberal seemed to be associated with a high level of support for mechanics' institutes, athaneaums, debating societies, and other cultural attributes of the ‘urban frontier’ type of community.” See Hamer, , New Zealand Liberals, p. 151.Google Scholar

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26. Otago Daily Times, 02 25, 1890Google Scholar, Supplement. On the promotion of technological utopianism and Industrial Exhibitions and World's Fairs, see Segal, , Technological Utopianism, passim.Google Scholar

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51. Quoted in Lipow, , Authoritarian Socialism, p. 108Google Scholar. On the role of administrative efficiency for curing the industrial illnesses of late-19th-Century America, see Kasson, John F., Civilizing the Machine: Technology and Republican Values in America, 1776–1900 (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 198.Google Scholar

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56. Richmond, Maurice W., “Looking Backward,” The Monthly Review 1 (09 1889): 449Google Scholar. Further page numbers are noted in the text.

57. Since there is no extensive biography of Richmond, Maurice, these biographical highlights were culled from The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. 1 (Wellington: R. E. Owen, 1896), p. 476Google Scholar; letters in The Richmond-Atkinson Papers, vol. 2, ed. Scholefield, Guy H. (Wellington: R. E. Owen, 1960), esp. p. 535Google Scholar; and the Mary E. Richmond collection (Maurice's mother) in the Turnbull Archives. In the Mary Richmond papers, I found two formal notices from Maurice's Club indicating that the March 31 and April 28, 1890, meetings would discuss Looking Backward.

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60. The series was later collected under Reeves's name as Some Historical Articles on Communism and Socialism (Christchurch: Lyttelton Times, 1890)Google Scholar. All page numbers are references to this text and are cited in the main body of this essay.

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