The Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History
ISBN: 9781000507478
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2019-08-12T04:00:00+00:00

Children were certainly present and involved in East London rent strike demonstrations. In some instances, newspaper coverage juxtaposed children with the organised political action, casting children as peaceful, playful, and unthreatening (‘Peaceful’). In contrast, there are reported examples of children being used symbolically by the strikers to make their case. Strikers used slogans such as ‘why let the landlords keep the necessity (meaning milk) from the children’ and told courts that the rent strike had enabled them to feed their children properly (‘Rent “War”’). The mobilisation of children to march was used as a technique, and victories were celebrated with children’s parties, a fact announced to the press (‘Rent Strike Organiser’; ‘Mile End’; ‘Stepney’). Children may have read and seen newspaper coverage of the strikes: Jenkinson’s study shows that they read newspapers. They may also have seen newsreel footage about them or seen the locally screened film shown by the Stepney Tenants’ Defence League (‘Film’; ‘Bristol’s’). However, ‘Casey Court’ depicted children’s active role in a rent strike within a publication targeted specifically at children.

The cartoon (26 August 1939) includes elements noticeably drawn from newspaper coverage of the rent strikes and echoing people’s memories, representing them through humour to a child audience. In the centre of the frame, children throw fruit, flour, and water and ‘noo laid eggs’ at the retreating rent collectors. Tenants of Brady Street and Langdale Mansions reportedly awaited bailiffs armed with ‘flour, soot, bad eggs and overripe vegetables’ (‘Rent “War”’). To the left of this is a building with a barricaded door, guard dog, sentry, and look-out. There are multiple newspaper accounts of the tenants taking ‘Barricade Action’, including photographs (‘Tenants’; ‘Rent “War”’). The barricades that the newspapers describe were constructed in the road, and the striking buildings had gates that opened into courtyards which they secured, rather than individual doors. Nonetheless the cartoon visualises the sense of being barricaded and the descriptions of people keeping watch. Next to the building are a group of children marching with a banner and a makeshift band. This is reminiscent of the many reported marches that children and adults took part in, often accompanied by bands, including an infamous march outside Leman Street Police Station after which the police were accused of brutality (‘Police’; ‘Rent Strike Announcement’). ‘Casey Court’s’ ‘rent strike’ clearly reworks reports of the East London rent strikes to fit them in the mode of the cartoon and to address its child readers.

The cartoon does not require prior knowledge of the strikes, but having some knowledge does add to the joke and increase its relevance. ‘Casey Court’ (26 August 1939) therefore both assumes and creates an informed reader and by doing so includes children in debates about housing. It also shows the material transformations to a place that such political activity creates, such as barricaded doors. Humour is introduced by a play on words, in both the image and text; misspellings; and the apparent reason for striking. The children’s banner says this is because an increase in rent

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