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COSMOPOLITANISM, FEMINISM, AND THE MOVING BODY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2010

Judith R. Walkowitz
Judith R. Walkowitz*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

In October 1894, Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant, a feminist purity reformer, successfully challenged the music and dancing license of the Empire Theatre of Varieties before the licensing committee of the London County Council. Mrs. Chant raised two objections to the management of the Empire: first, that “the promenade, an open space behind the dress circle in front of the bar,” where 500 people circulated nightly, was used “as the habitual resort of prostitutes in pursuit of their traffic.” Her “second indictment” was that parts of the performance on stage were exceedingly indecent, including the costumes of the ballet dancers (“London County Council”). Chant had gone to the Empire promenade, twice dressed in her “best” evening gown, and been herself accosted. Her protest, declared The Sketch, provoked the “battle of the Empire,” a “great fight . . . waged with a war of words, a battery of correspondence, and a skirmish of sketches” (qtd in Faulk 77). Visually commemorated in the illustrated press and in numerous music hall spoofs, the “Battle of the Empire” was most extensively covered in the correspondence columns of the Daily Telegraph, under the heading, “Prudes on the Prowl.”

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Articles
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , September 2010 , pp. 427 - 449
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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