Danielle’s Reade Research Questions

In anticipation of tomorrow’s visit, I am most interested in exploring Reade’s notes on women and his insistence on the many social and biological differences dividing the minds and motivations of men and women. This theme appears to play into a number of the notecards, but [17 Q.1] looks particularly promising. If possible, I would also like to explore the rare book co. 171 (no. 99) Miscell [aneous] Feminia. For one, the title is so strangely intriguing. Second, it likely contains a number of Reade’s documented “differences” between the sexes.

Reade’s attitudes toward women, I suspect, are also closely associated with his interpretation of religion, if the fanatical depiction of Jane in Hard Cash is any clue. Reade, from what I have gleaned, relegates religion to the feminine sphere. I would like to look at [11 148-9 S] and investigate what Reade evidently titles the “Romance of Religion.”

Right now, I am having a very hard time actually picturing these “notecards,” their organizational style, and how they are in conversation with one another. How difficult is it for archivists to figure out the “logic” of Reade’s notes? So far, I am finding Reade’s strange lay-out to be rather intimidating.

Finally, given the derogatory portrayal of money in Hard Cash and the radical dangers of what lusting after  ‘Capital’ can do to families, I really hope to learn more about Reade’s attitude toward capitalism. Was he reading Marx and Engels? I know he would have read Locke and Mill for their realism, but what about their economic stances? So far, I haven’t been able to find anything about capitalism in Reade’s notecards, but any insight tomorrow into Reade and economics would be great.