Mapping the Self: Gender, Space, and Modernity in Mid-Victorian London

In 1857 the first Obscene Publications Act was passed in Britain. In the months leading up to the passing of this legislation, a debate emerged which focused on the spaces of the modern metropolis, the production of modern forms of visual culture, and the possibility of transgressive forms of cultural consumption. One street in London became the symbol for this definition of obscenity—Holywell Street in Westminster, which ran parallel to the Strand from St Clement Danes to St Mary-le-Strand. The narrow contours and crumbling buildings of this Elizabethan alley signified physical, moral, and cultural impurity, in contrast to the modernising ambitions of the city in this period. The display of obscene images in the shop windows enabled a new form of cultural consumption based on looking while moving through the street. As such, it represented a dangerous promiscuity which could address women and men of all classes as they moved through the spaces of the metropolis.