Jesse Woodrum

17 November 2011

Acknowledging the Middle Class…Or Not

Dror Wahrman’s 1995 book Imagining the Middle Class has more of an antithesis than it does a thesis.  It seems that the primary concern of this work is to debunk, or at least problematize the common narrative about the rise of the middle class in industrialized society.  The story goes like this. 1) Late 18^th century- and early 19^th century-Britain saw the emergence of the industrial revolution: 2) which was accompanied by the introduction of a new “middle class,” among the economic landscape.  3) This middle class was a source of innovation and growing power and led to the Reform Bill of 1832 which granted them formal access to the political system.  Wahrman’s references to this story and its supposed over-simplicity begin on the first page and continue throughout.  His positive proposition is that the rise of the middle class or of its influence lies not in the aggregate economic picture of Britain, but in the story of the middle class as a mindset.  He argues that the emergence of the middle class was not an economic one as much as an intellectual one.  Although he admits that the two phenomena are mutually reinforcing.  Weaving his own narrative, Wahrman uses the motif of “political language” to trace changing attitudes about what the middle class constitutes and who chooses to self-identify as such from about the 1780s through the 1830s.  The differences between how we choose to characterize British society during this time and the actual lived experiences lies, according to the author, in the difference “between social reality and its representation.” (Wahrman pp 6)

            In any discussion of class in Europe of this time is incomplete without mentioning the enormous psychological effects of the French Revolution, and Wahrman argues that it foregrounds the idea of a middle class into English political dialogue.  Here a short review of political language concerning the middle class over a few short years shows changes in how it is used according to shifting popular British opinion.  Perhaps the Revolution’s most famous commentator, Edmund Burke, and Scottish writer James Macintosh have a disagreement over the nature of the “monied interest” (middle class) as they are manifested in the French National Assembly.  Wahrman summarizes Burke’s view of them as “inferior lawyers and medical practitioners, a few ‘country clowns,’ even more ‘traders, who…had never known anything beyond their counting-house... ‘who must be eager, at any expense, to change their ideal paper wealth for the more solid substance of land.’  Mackintosh says of the same group: “[They have] been less prejudiced, more liberal, and more intelligent, than the landed gentry. (Wahrman pp 24)  Elsewhere Mackintosh says they form “the majority of that middle rank among whom almost all the sense and virtue of society reside.” (Wahrman pp 24)

            After the Reign of Terror, when English attitudes toward the Revolution had mostly turned cold, writers had a different opinion of the class situation and its role in the events in France.  Suddenly the middle class disappears from the equation altogether and it is their absence which caused all the turmoil.  William Williams says in 1796 that the political problems arise because in France society “had been for ages in the situation of all despotic states, composed of only two classes of men, the rich and the poor.” Wahrman (pp 27)  An anonymous “British Merchant” writes in a 1794 treatise “Under the arbitrary government of France, there was no yeomanry, no middle class of people, all were either Princes or beggars, Lords or Vassals.” (Wahrman pp26)  The revolution was a source, alternately, of incredible anxiety and inspiration to the people of Britain, and Wahrman sees its thinkers as fusing their observations with the observation that something is changing in the economic and social orders of their own nation.  To Burke, the middle class was the overambitious social boogeyman.  To Mackintosh and others it was a crucial buffer in a society characterized by wealth imbalance. 

            The moment of historical importance in the British narrative of the middle class, as it is presented here, is the Reform Act of 1832 which redistributed seats in the House of Commons to recognize rising and falling economic centers.  By this decade the rhetoric regarding class had changed markedly and the middle class was taken for granted as a formidable political entity—what we would call in modern American politics a voting bloc.  The then-unknown Isaac Tompkins wrote a pamphlet in which he declared “The middle, not the upper class, are the part of the nation which is entitled to command respect…They read, they reflect, they reason, they think for themselves…They are the nation—the people—in every rational or correct sense of the word.” (Wahrman pp 334)  Two other writers would follow suit with similar rhetoric and praise for Tompkins.  All three (or at least the first two) turn out to be the pseudonyms of a high ranking aristocrat, Lord Henry Brougham. (Wahrman pp 335)  The irony is not lost on Wahrman as it is not lost on Brougham’s contemporary critics, but what is lost on this latter is the power Brougham commands in identifying as part of this important rising entity. 

            By now the middle class has arrived.  What Wahrman’s story does is demonstrate that it was not an economic phenomenon alone, but an intellectual effort—a dialogue—that created the middle class as a distinct part of the British political landscape.  He challenges us to avoid seeing the present teleologically, as a natural product of historical forces, but as a “charged and contingent historical invention.”  (Wahrman pp 408)

            The publication of Frances Burney’s Evelina was in 1778 (Burney, title page) and its events are contemporaneous with its publication.  It takes place during that time, according to Wahrman, that the middling class had been economically created but not politically or socially realized.  The stand-ins for the middle class in Burney’s novel are Evelina’s distant relative’s the Brangtons and their acquaintances Messrs Brown and Smith.  The Brangtons operate a silver shop in London and even rent out rooms.  Burney uses every opportunity to show how vulgar they are compared to the well-bred Evelina.  The salient characteristic of all of these people is pettiness.  Mr. Smith, who affects to be a gentlemen, toys with the desires of Miss Brangton in order to evoke jealousy from Evelina who remains unmoved by his transparency.  Young Mr. Brangton’s favorite hobby is laughing at people publicly and pointing out their folly—of course he has awkward designs on Evelina (his cousin) himself.  In the entire time Evelina spends outside of high-society she meets with no character presented as positive—with the exception of McCartney who is so poor he is separate from the middle class.  He is so destitute he cannot possibly present a threat to the upper class with which Burney identifies.  He effectively becomes an upper-class charity case. 

            One of the most devastating scenes for the character of the Brangton’s – and by implication the middling class at large—occurs in Volume II when Evelina has been forced into the company of Madame Duval and the Brangtons.  When they are caught in a  rainstorm the Brangtons and Madame. Duval abuses Evelina’s acquaintance with Lord Orville to make use of his coach to get them home.  Evelina is mortified and does everything she can to prevent this faux pas.  Their behavior in this episode is atrociously unmannerly from beginning to end.  They impertinently make demands of another’s servant.  Young Mr. Brangton foolishly breaks the glass in Orville’s carriage.  And finally, when he goes to apologize, he uses Evelina’s name against her will to speak to Orville and uses the meeting to try to advance his family’s business interests. (Burney pp 371-377)

            Every move by the Brangton’s is completely hapless and tactless.  Nowhere here is the innovative spirit Mackintosh observes among the middle class.  Absent is the learned reflection of Brougham’s observations on those same people.  It’s possible that Burney does not comment on innovation as a social value because, for her, it is not a personal one.  The mark of virtue in her universe is the aptitude with which one navigates the social landscape according to prescribed rules.  She is concerned with manners and not innovation.  Another virtue which enriches Evelina’s character is her sensuality—she is attuned to the value of the finer things in life like the opera and music in general—also she is more attuned to the suffering of other people.  Her compassion for McCartney is more about rounding out the character of Evelina and setting her against the drole attitude of the Brangtons toward McCartney than it is about altruism for its own sake. 

            To be sure, Burney does present aristocratic figures who are foolish and drole in their own right—Lady Louisa foremost among them—but she has to present a variety among the privileged class because that is her primary concern.  In about 600 pages over four volumes, Burney never takes any opportunity to comment positively on the emerging class of traders and craftsmen changing the economic landscape of her country. 

Works Cited

Wahrman, Dror. Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780-1840. New York, NY; University of Cambridge Press Syndicate, 1995. Print

Burney, Frances. Evelina. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Ltd, 2000. Print.