Bob Nicholson: America and the Victorians

Dr Nicholson has done research into jokes, slang and the press and his findings have been published in journals, newspapers and on radio.

America and the Victorians

Love it or hate it, America is here stay. Hollywood dominates our cinemas, U.S. pop stars rule the charts, a Starbucks sits on every high street, and even the once-impenetrable fortress of BBC English has been infiltrated by American slang. How did it come to this? When historians have tried to trace the start of this American invasion they’ve generally focused on the inter-war years; a time when jazz music, motor cars, electricity, skyscrapers, and a new generation of glamorous American movie stars supposedly blew away the cobwebs of the nineteenth century and seized hold of our imaginations. However, new research suggests that our love affair with American culture has deeper (and rather more unlikely) roots. As hard as it might be to imagine, it all started with the Victorians. Half a century before Hollywood, respectable Victorian gentlemen and ladies were buying American books, reading American newspapers, laughing at American comedians, attending Wild West Shows, buying American gadgets, telling racy American jokes, and even speaking in the latest Yankee slang. In this talk you’ll find out how it all happened. In the process, we’ll discover how the word ‘skedaddle’ took Britain by storm, how the shop sign of a Nevadan undertaker ended up as a joke told in North Wales, and why a cowboy calling himself the “Champion Shot of the World” was staying at a hotel in Manchester. You’ll never look at the Victorians in the same light again.