ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates Dallas’s two main claims regarding periodical authorship. The first is that the long-standing convention of anonymity, though increasingly under attack, in fact saves the press from personalities and aligns periodicals with the interests not of private individuals but of civic groups, providing the foundation for a healthy regime of public communication. Here there is an analysis of the arguments, which reflect a combination of political, social, and economic determinants, in the lively debate between those defending the editorial ‘we’, and those advocating the first-person singular. Dallas’s second claim is that, due to the growth of journal titles, writing for publication was being transformed from an expert practice available only to professionals to an amateur activity free to all. Here, the focus is on the slow professionalization of authorship in Britain, as well as the changing conceptualizations of journalism as a practice. These are reflected in developments in participation according to gender and class, in particular, as reflected in the decennial census records. Regarding the increasing involvement of women in particular, there is a discussion of the groundbreaking careers of Christie Johnstone at Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, Harriet Martineau at the Daily News, and Margaret Oliphant at Blackwood’s Magazine.
