Note: the following text is a DRAFT meant for member comments. Please contact RSVP president Maria Frawley at president@rs4vp.org with comments and suggestions.
THE RESEARCH Society for Victorian Periodicals was founded in December of 1968 at the Modern Language Association conference in New York by an interdisciplinary group of scholars led by Michael Wolff, who became its first president. Most of its founding members belonged to the informal scholarly collective engaged in research for Walter Houghton's Wellesley Index of Victorian Periodicals and were eager to give a permanent organizational embodiment to the intellectual energy and enthusiasm generated by that remarkable project.
The 1960s witnessed an enormous upsurge of interest in interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly in the area of Victorian Studies. The vast range and number of Victorian periodicals was being recognized as an ideal resource for such scholarship since there existed periodicals touching on virtually every conceivable aspect of Victorian life. RSVP's official organ, Victorian Periodicals Review, in fact came into existence even before RSVP itself.
Commencing as the Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, the first number appeared in January of 1968 under the founding editorship of Michael Wolff. The journal began as a sort of intellectual clearinghouse for information, ideas, and projects relating to Victorian periodicals and evolved with the development of the interdisciplinary studies it represented into its present form. Its present title was adopted in 1978: for an excellent, detailed account of the founding of both VPR and RSVP, see N. Merrill Distad, "The Origins and History of Victorian Periodicals Review, 1954-84." Victorian Periodicals Review 18.3 (Fall 1985), 86-98).
Despite its American birthplace, RSVP has from the beginning been an international society of scholars with a strong membership presence in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australasia, and significant membership in a number of European countries.Members span the globe and include colleagues from Japan, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Society hopes through scholarship to increase awareness of Victorian journals, proprietors, editors, illustrators, publishers and authors and the role of the press in shaping Victorians' beliefs and debates about their society, culture, and politics.
RSVP has held its annual conferences in the following cities:
- New York City 1969 & 1970
- Urbana, IL 1971
- Cambridge, MA 1972
- Washington, DC 1973
- Minneapolis, MN 1974
- Toronto, ON 1975
- Leicester, UK 1976
- Chicago, IL 1977
- New York City 1978
- St. Louis, MO 1979
- Philadelphia, PA 1980
- Tacoma, WA 1981
- New York City 1982
- Leicester, UK 1983
- Cambridge, MA 1984
- Toronto, ON 1985
- New York City 1986
- Aberystwyth, Wales 1987
- Chicago, IL 1988
- Pasadena, CA 1989
- Waco, TX 1990
- Washington, DC 1991
- Manchester, UK 1992
- Ann Arbor, MI 1993
- Tampa, FL 1994
- Edinburgh, Scotland 1995
- Portland, OR 1996
- Chicago, IL 1997
- Vancouver, BC 1998
- New Haven, CT 1999
- London, UK 2000
- New York City 2001
- Ann Arbor, MI 2002
- Edmonton, AB 1993
- Ghent, Belgium 2004
- Washington, DC 2005
- New York City 2006
- Richmond, VA 2007
- London, UK 2008
- Saint Louis, MO 2009 (?)
- Michael Wolff (1969-1973)
- Josef Altholz (1973-1975)
- William Scheuerle (1975-1977)
- Scott Bennett (1977-1981)
- Rosemary Van Arsdel (1981-1983)
- Joel Wiener (1983-1985)
- Merrill Distad (1985-1987)
- Sally Mitchell (1987-1989)
- Richard Fulton (1989-1991)
- Penny Kanner (1991-1993)
- Christopher Dahl (1993-1995)
- Barbara Quinn Schmidt (1995-1997)
- Linda Hughes (1997-1999)
- Julie Codell (1999-2001)
- Christopher Kent (2001-2003)
- Laurel Brake (2003-2005)
- Anne Humpherys (2005-2007)
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Last updated 9 October 2007. Report broken links to webmaster @ rs4vp.org.