Margaret Harkness, W. T. Stead, and the transatlantic social gospel network

Abstract

This chapter examines how Harkness and her contemporary W. T. Stead navigated the position of journalists with an activist agenda in a transatlantic market for socially engaged publications. It explores the extent to which both Harkness and Stead made use of the ‘rhetoric of progressive Protestantism’ across the generic categories of their writing: realist fiction, activist journalism, and critical travel writing. In examining the ‘clash between socialist and evangelical rhetoric’ in the context of emerging ‘modern marketing methods’, the chapter exposes the problems inherent in labels of ideological inconsistency as applied on gendered terms.