"The abandoned mother": ageing, old age and missionaries in early and mid nineteenth-century South-east Africa

This essay examines issues of ageing and old age in Xhosa-speaking communities to c. 1860. Drawing primarily on records of the Wesleyan Methodist and London Missionary societies, the article examines the construction of Xhosa ageing, old age and death in missionary writings. The primary medium of missionary reflection was the figure of the ‘Abandoned Mother’, modelled on contemporary British metaphors, that represented yet another atrocity story for legitimating the mission enterprise and the emerging colonial regime. It also argues that there were fundamental contrasts in the images of ageing and dying between those of the Xhosa and those of the missionaries. Though older persons found certain themes in the Christian message attractive, they preferred the local cultural model of ageing, old age and death.

Race, gender, and national identity in the American and British telephone industries

This article compares the racially heterogeneous, privately-owned American telephone industry, and the relatively homogeneous, publicly-owned British system, to examine how race and gender constructions implicit in the national identities of the two countries influence employment opportunities. For all the differences in the histories of the two telephone industries and variations in the construction of racial, national, and gender identities, blacks in the United States and Britain had remarkably similar experiences in obtaining employment as telephone operators. This leads to the conclusion that the power of national identity in the workplace is strongly based on “whiteness”. Despite their limited access to national identity, white women experienced advantages that were denied to black women, which illustrates how race modified the impact of gender on the privileges of national identity.