This paper explores how the serialized novel The Gold Thread by Norman MacLeod portrays children as mutual liberators of each other, and attends to the role it played in the social movement which led to the abolition of child labor in 19th century Scotland. British Culture in the 19th century was plagued by a contradiction: on the one hand it idealised childhood such that a so-called "cult of childhood" emerged, and yet on the other hand the intense expansion of industrialisation saw the material conditions of working class children steeply decline and the ubiquity of child labour become essential for the survival of many families (Dennison, 2008; Goose and Honeymoon, 2013). Behind these extremes was an assumption endemic to the poor treatment of working-class children in Britain; whether idealised or exploited children were not considered persons with moral or spiritual agency, but as either financial resources to be exploited or helpless pawns (Benziman, 2012; Varty, 2008). This was reflected in the children’s literature of the Victorian era which was moralised and sentimentalised, emphasising obedience and innocence.
In contrast to the prevailing religious opinions and literary conventions of his day, and in response to the growing crises of conditions for children, the innovative and socially conscious editor of Good Words, Presbyterian minister Norman MacLeod, created a periodical that both affirmed and embodied the conviction the spiritual capacity and moral agency of children. MacLeod’s work responded to the acute crisis of working-class children’s conditions in Glasgow where he served minister. The first religious periodical aimed at working class readers, Good Words took an even more radical turn by making its primary reader children, changing its title to Good Words for the Young. The publication encouraged children to see themselves liberators of one another, drawing upon spiritual strength to make the world a better place (Wolf, 1961). One potent example of this is The Gold Thread, a novella written by Norman MacLeod that initially appeared in serialised form in Good Words.
The story is remarkable in several ways. First, The Gold Thread was the first story written in literary form for children, with allusions to Dante’s Comedia and The Pilgrim’s Progress, marking it as a uniquely sophisticated literary work for children in stark contrast to the highly moralised books deemed appropriate for children at the time. While most Victorian children's literature emphasised obedience to parents, the Gold Thread takes place in the context of the absence of Eric’s father, thus placing an emphasis on Eric (the child) as the locus of spiritual and moral decision making, a radical message which is reflective of MacLeod’s own radical views. Secondly, the story undercuts many of the moralising tropes of Victorian literature, particularly a sort of paternalism toward the poor, depicting children instead in solidarity as mutual liberators of each other. The resistance of the “charity” trop is played out in the reciprocity of gift-giving and liberation between Eric (a Prince) and Wolf (an orphaned pig-hearder), who, throughout the story repeatedly offer each other liberation from entrapment and material help. This emphasis on the moral capacities of children culminates in the central motif of Eric and Wolf liberating one another both literally and spiritually; from the oppressors that make Wolf’s life miserable, and spiritually in their following of the “gold thread,” an allegorical symbol of conscience and the call to do right no matter the circumstances.
While existing research has explored the ways in which Victorian children’s literature exposed the conditions of children, very little has paid attention has been paid to how MacLeod's work in Good Words contributed to the struggle for the liberation of children from labour, which is reflective of an overall inattention to the history of Scotland (Guber, 2009; Darton, 1932; Wood, 2020). I hope to show the role that The Gold Thread and Good Words for the Young played in advocating for the rights, care, and treatment of children in past and how that might provide a creative model for advocating for children's rights and care in the present day. The historic impact and thematic development of The Gold Thread invites us to take seriously the spiritual and moral capacity of children, and the role they might play not only as the recipients of charity or care from parents and guardians but as mutuals liberators of each other, acting in ways that have genuine moral strength and import. Finally, I suggest that MacLeod’s work in the Good Words for the Young and The Gold Thread offers a model for how literary form can help to both represent and advance reality of children’s spiritual capacity and moral agency.
Galia Benziman. Narratives of Child Neglect in Romantic and Victorian Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.
Robyn Boere. Befriending the North Wind. Philadelphia: Fotress Press, 2023.
F.J Harvey Darton. Children’s Books in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1932.
Marah Gubar. Artful Dodgers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Nigel Goose and Katrina Honeyman. Childhood and Child Labour in Industrial England. Surrey: Ashgate, 2013.
Dennis Denison. The Nineteenth-Century Child and Consumer Culture. London: Routledge, 2008.
Anne Varty. Children and Theatre in Victorian Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.
Robert Lee Wolf. The Golden Key. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.
Madeleine Wood. Parents and Children in the Mid-Victorian Novel. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2020.
This paper explores how the serialized novel The Gold Thread by Norman MacLeod portrays children as mutual liberators of each other, and attends to the role it played in the social movement which led to the abolition of child labor in 19th century Scotland. In stark contrast to the highly moralized children's literature of Victorian Britain aimed at the middle class, in The Gold Thread Norman MacLeod uses literary form to create a story affirming the spiritual capacity and moral agency of children as mutual liberators of each other. This affirmation of the spiritual agency of children can be traced in MacLeod's radical publication Good Words for the Young, a periodical created for working class children. This paper offers insights both into the role that literature played in the advancement of the rights of working-class children in Scotland, as well as reflections on how MacLeod’s approach could act as a model for contemporary accounts of the significance of children’s spiritual lives and their status as persons with spiritual capacity and agency for mutual liberation.