Evaluating Point of View in Reponses to Industrialization
This exercise explores point of view in both textual and visual sources. In textual documents, consider tone, language, the intended audience, and whether the actual document communicates a particular agenda. In visual sources, think about color, style, what is and is not included, and setting. The guiding questions after each source will assist in helping you with the final answer.
1. Document 17.1, Elizabeth Bentley, Factory Worker, Testimony, 1831
Read through Document 17.1 and note passages that indicate Elizabeth Bentley’s point of view. Then answer the question below.
Question
What factors evidence in her testimony shape Bentley’s point of view?
2. Ellen Johnston, An Address to Napier’s Dockyard, c. 1867
Review the Portrait of Ellen Johnston and then read the excerpt below from one of her poems. Then, answer the question that follows.
A thousand times I’d be a Factory Girl!
To live near thee, and thy anvils clink,
And with thy sons that hard-won pleasure drink.
That joy that springs from wealth of daily toil,
Than be a queen sprung forth from royal soil.”
Source: Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, The Factory Girl. Glasgow: William Love, 1867. 9–12.
Question
How does Johnston’s point of view differ from Bentley’s? What might account for this difference? What hints do you get that Johnston shared some of Bentley’s perspective?
3. “Death’s Dispensary” Political Cartoon, 1866
Examine the political cartoon, Death’s Dispensary, taking note of the caption and the specific detail within the image. Then answer the question below.
Question
What is the artist’s point of view about the conditions of the urban poor? What, if anything, can you conclude about the artist and the intended audience for this cartoon? What do you think he would argue should be done?
4. Visual Source 17.3, Eyre Crowe, The Dinner Hour, Wigan, 1874
Examine Visual Source 17.3 and then answer the question below.
Question
What hints does this painting provide about Crowe’s background that might have influenced this point of view? The painting was produced in late Victorian England during the height of the Industrial Age—how might this context influence his point of view?