The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England

By Alex Owen

Book Overview

A highly original study that examines the central role played by women as mediums, healers, and believers during the golden age of spiritualism in the late Victorian era, The Darkened Room is more than a meditation on women mediums-it's an exploration of the era's gender relations.

The hugely popular spiritualist movement, which maintained that women were uniquely qualified to commune with spirits of the dead, offered female mediums a new independence, authority, and potential to undermine conventional class and gender relations in the home and in society.

Using previously unexamined sources and an innovative approach, Alex Owen invokes the Victorian world of darkened s ance rooms, theatrical apparitions, and moving episodes of happiness lost and regained. She charts the struggles between spiritualists and the medical and legal establishments over the issue of female mediumship, and provides new insights into the gendered dynamics of Victorian society.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226642054
• ISBN13: 9780226642055
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

excellent overview of a complex topic

Owens did a first rate job on this complex subject. She shows insight into the many threads that influence women & their power at this point in history.

A very good over view of Victorian Spiritualism

I finally finished "The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England." Once I started reading it went quickly, I don't know why it sat on my shelf for so long. The author, Alex Owen, does a very good job of grounding the reader in the period and issues of the day before going on to explore possible meanings. Two chapters are devoted to case studies, one of a Spiritualist household and one of a woman who was confined to a lunatic asylum against her will. There is an execellent chapter on the lunacy system in England of the time and of some of the reformers that were active. The author used a lot of primary source material and it shows, but not in a way that over-burdens the narrative. The final chapter falters a bit as it is slips into analsys from a modern perspective rather than letting the narrative carry the day. However the rest of the book stands on it's own and is very well written.A good book for people interested in the 1850's -1890's, for people interested in the history of Spiritualism, or in power dynamics and social mores. The end notes alone are worth reading for little mini-biographies of some of the main players and for little stories that the author couldn't fit into the main narrative.