Introduction: The Transformation of Petitioning in the Long Nineteenth Century (1780–1914)

Abstract

This introductory essay, firstly, offers a comparative, historical perspective on the transformation of petitioning into a vehicle for mass popular politics across North America and Western Europe during the “long” nineteenth century (1780–1914). While petitions were well established as an instrument of state in many early modern states, from the late eighteenth century a new type of mass, public, collective petitioning, based on established or invoked rights, emerged on an unprecedented scale in many countries. Mass petitioning underpinned the nascent repertoires of collective action pioneered by social movements. At the same time, the reception of petitions was institutionalized by political authorities, particularly legislatures elected under limited suffrage, as a potential source of legitimation. Secondly, the introduction suggests why people petitioned, and continued to petition, when their campaigns were often unsuccessful in achieving immediate results. The answer lies in the manifold advantages of petitioning in enabling political organization, mobilization, identity formation, citizenship, political change, and the forming of networks with elite political actors. By shaping an emerging field examining petitioning and petitions, raising awareness of petitions as sources and the methodologies to exploit them, and addressing broad questions of interest to historians and social scientists, this special issue hopes to stimulate further research and contribute to a rich dialogue in the years to come.

A Nation of Petitioners

“…76 The emergence of petitioning on public issues in the UK, as in other polities, was closely linked with the development of organised petition drives often co-ordinated by single-issue associations. 77 The growth of this phenomenon explains why Charles Tilly found a 'parliamentarization' of popular contention during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century: his database of newspaper reports captured how popular gatherings increasingly directed demands to national authorities, especially the legislature, rather than local officials. 78 Petitions to the House of Commons I: Scale and Trends The growth of mass petition drives generating more than 500 petitions in a session, non-existent before 1800 with the exception of the anti-slavery movement, was a crucial driver of the take-off of petitioning in the 1820s.…”

These oppressions won’t cease: The political thought of the Cape Khoesan, 1777-1879, An anthology

“…Interest in political petitions is at an all time high. 7 In 2019, Social Science History dedicated its entire third issue to "The transformation of petitioning" with articles examining petitioning practices in nineteenth-century Spain, 8 in Early Colonial India, 9 and in chartist petitioning in Britain, 10 for instance. Two decades earlier, the International Review of Social History similarly devoted a supplementary issue to the potential of petitions as a social history source.…”