Travel Writing/Writing Travel

Session Organizer: Susan Morgan
Miami University, Ohio

"Certainly the Most Notorious": Iddon, Newman, and Streatfeild on Hollywood in the 1940s

British commentators during and after the war evaluated everything from Chicago hoods and midwest farmers to New York newsboys and railroad porters in attempting to grasp the soul of America. Hollywood—"probably the best-known place in the whole of the United States of America: certainly the most notorious," according to Bernard Newman—was a key crucible for the analysis of American values. Three writers who reviewed the U.S. for British audiences were especially effective in probing complex issues of the day through the prism of Hollywood. Don Iddon's 1945-1946 series of crisp columns for the LondonDaily Mail provide a stream of wry commentary on subjects ranging from Lassie's income to labor violence; Iddon also takes a cold look at broader problems of propaganda and censorship. Bernard Newman's Hollywood chapter in his 1943 American Journey tackles art vs. finance, war-consciousness, and the supreme role of Walt Disney. Noel Streatfeild's The Painted Garden (1949) features razor-sharp travel writing and scrutinizes Hollywood in a novel about a ration-weary British family in post-war Los Angeles. Iddon, Newman and Streatfeild emerge from the 1940s as discerning and predictive critics of American attitudes and culture.

Sally Sims Stokes
Independent Scholar
sallystokes@comcast.net

The Steiners of Nukubati Island

Nukubati, Fiji’s second largest island, located off the north coast of Vanua Levu, has been in the hands of the Steiner family since the first Jacob Steiner, a gunsmith and great-grandfather of the current Jacob Steiner, jumped a whaling ship in the 1860's , allied himself with the great local chief, Tui Macuata, and married his sister. In pre-colonial days–Fiji was a British colony from 1874 to 1970–there was considerable warring between chiefs, and many of the early Western “beachcombers” were allied with one or another. There is now a sizeable population of 4 th and 5 th generation Fijians of European descent located throughout Fiji. Drawing on published materials, but primarily on my own interviews with the current Jacob Steiner and his family, I look at this little corner of the colonial experience, in which the practice of the original European settlers/interlopers of marrying other Europeans (first cousin marriages were common) was adhered to until approximately 40 years ago, when all Fijians began to attend the same schools. The result, at least on Nukabati Island, is a “white chief”, fluent in all things Fijian, but to all appearances, European.

Eric Goodman
Miami University, Ohio
goodmaek@muohhio.edu

His and Hers Disguises: Edward W. Lane’s and Sophia Lane Poole’s Interpretations of Egyptian Culture in an Imperial Age

Scholars like Shirley Foster and Maria Frawley argue that women travelers saw and wrote differently than men. Since most feminist studies of travel literature have focused on texts by women, however, we have few studies that directly compare men’s and women’s writing. In this paper I will advance our understanding of this problem by comparing a male-authored text with a female-authored one: Edward W. Lane’s An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836) and his sister Sophia Lane Poole’s The Englishwoman in Egypt (1844). Both Lane and Lane Poole learned Arabic and adopted Egyptian customs when living in Cairo in the 1830’s and 1840’s, and naturally they share some opinions on Egypt; however, the differences between the two texts show how gender may play a role in the way a traveler writes about another culture. While Lane Poole’s voice can be considered as evidence of a woman writer’s less authoritative posture, it also complicates and problematizes European discourse on the Orient.

S. Vida Muse
University of North Carolina
kevinandvidamuse@access4Less.net

Eating India: Food and the British Imperial Enterprise

The question of what to eat (and drink) in India held the attention of its British occupiers at every level of social class, in every sort of relation to British India. Quite as much as sexuality, food was a central issue in the ongoing question of successful colonial control. The East India Company’s 1810 Vade-Mecum, the travel guide for visiting and living in India, spent many pages carefully outlining its dietary expectations. In this brief essay I will particularize a few of the ways in which the interrelation between food and colonial control worked, trace some of the changes in dietary preferences, and note some connections between issues of food and the racial and gender policies of the East India Company.

Susan Morgan
Miami University, Ohio
morgansj@muohiho.edu