#seniorseminar: Leonie Alderson & Actresses in Late Victorian England

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I was always drawn to History as a child. It was important to my family too. My granddad had a study lined with books, and my dad told me about history, especially military history. I am more interested in social, intellectual, fashion, and gender history, which means that we can tell each other about the history the other does not know so much. These discussions boosted my confidence. I also loved reading the Royal Diaries series, and I had a passion for the Titanic. That is how I got into History.

Originally, I went to the University of South Florida, but I did not like the commute, and living off campus made it hard to meet new people. A lot of my friends went to Florida State University, and I ended up transferring. It was like one of the best decisions that I made.

What got you interested in taking the senior seminar with Dr. Upchurch? 

I have always been drawn to Victorian Britain, on so many levels, women’s history, intellectual history, social developments. I chose this senior seminar because I felt it aligned best with my interests, and I would be able to create something meaningful to me. It was a wonderful class.

What particular aspect of 19th-century British history did you decide to work on? 

My thesis paper was on actresses in late Victorian England, 1860s-1900s. I investigated the lives of actresses, as well as sex workers in the theaters.  There was a social stigma attached to both, and to any woman who was working in the public eye. Actresses, barmaids, prostitutes, and other women whose job put them in the public unchaperoned were all sexualized.

I found the diary of an actress named Alma Ellerslie. It was written around the 1880s, and the subtitle is “Realities of Stage Life.” Ellerslie came from a middle-class family and becoming an actress was extremely hard for her as middle-class morality was less open to a stage career. Her family saw her as having brought shame on them, and they disowned her. She ended up being poor and having to travel all around the country in search of work. Her diary was incredibly sad to read, but it was an incredible source for my paper.

I also found the memoir of another actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell published in the same decade. She came from a wealthy family and was able to move into aristocratic society. Her experiences were completely different. She had a happy and fulfilling life.

I read several ladies' magazines from the time period. My thesis also touches on scripts and plays that women read or performed at home. I analyzed these texts and found that the themes of forbidden love and forced marriage were quite common. These plays provided an outlet for women to express themselves in a way that they usually could not.

Besides these two key primary sources, there were also many books and journal articles that I read. Almost all of the material I worked with I found online.

Was it difficult to get started with your project?

I was excited, but I was also scared. 

In the past, when I had to write essays, I stressed myself out and overthought things. And those were essays with just around one to two thousand words. Now I have to write 20 pages. I was terrified, but also excited. I thought about this project all day, every day. I would write down ideas, whenever they came to me, on scraps of paper, on my phone, the back of my hand.

I did the bulk of my research before I started writing, mainly because we had to submit an annotated bibliography early on. The way Dr. Upchurch had set up his class helped me write in stages. We had to submit portions of our draft, so the writing unfolded gradually. I became more confident. I would see that I had written five pages already, and it wasn’t such a big deal. Once we received feedback on our work, I did some more research to find more sources. Researching and writing was not a linear process.

What was a challenge or surprise that you had to deal with? 

That there were dead ends to my inquiry. Based on a previous paper, I had thought that there would be greater connections between actresses and sex workers, that the lines were not so firmly drawn. When I looked at the primary source databases available to me, scanned the newspapers etc., I could not find anything to support that assumption. I had to pivot with my inquiry. I realized that sometimes all your research is for nothing.

A major challenge was being confident in what I had written. I started to doubt myself, so I went to office hours to talk with Dr. Upchurch. A large portion of the class was also set aside for peer discussion and review. Our outlines and partial drafts were all read by other people, and we went over them in class. Providing feedback on someone else’s full paper was part of the final grade.

The presentation was hard because I was not used to talking about my work, and I had not done one before. But it was an important learning experience to explain your research in front of the whole class. I want to go to graduate school to study more history, and presenting your work is an important part of that.

What advice would you give to other History majors who are about to take their senior seminar?

Pick a topic that you are passionate about and that you enjoy working on because you will be spending a lot of time on it. Come up with a few ideas of what to research, and then do a Google search or look at the library website to see how much material there is available. You might be passionate about a topic but if there is not enough information available, then you can’t work on it.

Accept that there will be dead ends and don't get frustrated by that.

Also make sure that your work is different from previous research. That you are adding to the scholarship.

Is there any advice you would give yourself if you could go back to the beginning of the fall semester? 

Maybe just to relax. Some nights I worked through, as I was seeking to make things perfect, and I was overthinking my topic. I would tell myself, just relax, you will write better if you sleep.