Love letters and amanuenses: Beginning the cultural history of the workingclass private sphere in southern Africa, 1900-1933

This is a study of letter writing amongst migrant workers on the Witwatersr and before World War II. It moves from a consideration of the paradoxical c haracter of literacy amongst migrant mineworkers to a discussion about the history of privacy in South Africa. The paper suggests that both the field of popular culture and the politics of democracy can be better understood b y paying attention to the particular forms of letter correspondence that ha ve developed in 20th century South Africa.