Originally published in 1994, This Working-Day World is lively collection of essays presenting a social, political and cultural view of British women’s lives in the period 1914–45. The volume describes women’s activities in many different areas, ranging from the weekly wash to the rescue of child refugees. Each essay, from an international list of contributors, is based on new research which will complement existing studies in a range of disciplines by adding information on, among other topics, women’s teacher training colleges, and women in the BBC, in medical laboratories and in Art schools. The book does not, however, idealise women: the militarism and racism of the period infected women too, and this is revealed in the account of women in the British Union of Fascists, and the analysis of the Pankhursts’ merging of patriotism and gender issues.
Through studies and personal accounts, This Working-Day World reveals past issues that are still pertinent to debates in today’s society. As we read the chapter on the recently discovered Diary of Doreen Bates which outlines possibly the first female civil servant campaign for rights as a single mother, we hear echoes of issues being discussed today. Indeed, as we approach the end of the century it is a good moment to look back and re-evaluate areas and degrees of progress – or the reverse – in society, and in British women’s lives in particular. With its unusual photographs, this accessible and informative collection provides a rich resource for students in twentieth century social and cultural history, and women’s studies courses, and an enlightening volume for general readers.
Author(s): Sybil Oldfield
Series: Routledge Library Editions: Women and Work, 13
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 220
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Original Title Page
Original Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Section I: Social History
Chapter 1: The Weekly Wash
Chapter 2: A ‘Trade Union for Married Women’: The Women’s Co-Operative Guild 1914–1920
Chapter 3: The Women’s Institute Movement – The Acceptable Face of Feminism?
Chapter 4: A Woman’s Right to Work? The Role of Women in the Unemployed Movement Between the Wars
Chapter 5: The Culture of Femininity in Women’s Teacher Training Colleges 1914–1945
Chapter 6: The Diary of Doreen Bates: Single Parenthood and the Civil Service
Section II: Political History
Chapter 7: Gendering Patriotism: Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and World War One
Chapter 8: England’s Cassandras in World War One
Chapter 9: Women in the British Union of Fascists, 1932–1940
Chapter 10: British Feminists and Anti-Fascism in the 1930s
Chapter 11: Working with the ‘Kindertransports’
Chapter 12: An Austrian Refugee in Wartime Manchester
Section III: Cultural History
Chapter 13: ‘A Fair Field and No Favour’: Women Artists Working in Britain Between the Wars
Chapter 14: British Women Surrealists – Deviants from Deviance?
Chapter 15: Hilda Matheson and the BBC, 1926–1940
Chapter 16: ‘Nothing is Impracticable for a Single, Middle-Aged Woman with an Income of her Own’: The Spinster in Women’s Fiction of the 1920s
Chapter 17: Chloe, Olivia, Isabel, Letitia, Harriette, Honor, and Many More: Women in Medicine and Biomedical Science, 1914–1945
Notes on Contributors
Appendix: Archive Resources for Research on 20th Century
Index
