Women S Leisure In England 1920 1960

This study examines the complex relationship between women and leisure, drawing upon recent feminist theory. The text charts the changes in perception, representation and experiences of leisure for women between 1920 and 1960, and relates the changes to life cycle lines.

This text draws upon recent feminist theoretical interventions to suggest a framework for the history of women's leisure which explicitly problematises the category leisure and foregrounds its relationship to work within women's lives.

This book analyses women as spectators at men’s association football (soccer) in Britain from 1863 to 1939. The author shows that women have always been present at men’s football in Britain, a fact not always acknowledged in modern popular accounts of the game, albeit as a small minority in overall attendances. Some women have always been ‘authentic’ fans of football, both knowledgeable and enthusiastic in their support, and this book will demonstrate that.

Essays on the history of girlhood in modern Europe.

This fascinating account of young women's lives challenges existing assumptions about working class life and womanhood in England between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the 1950s. While contemporaries commonly portrayed young women as pleasure-loving leisure consumers, this book argues that the world of work was in fact central to their life experiences. Social and economic history are woven together to examine the working, family, and social lives of the maids, factory workers, shop assistants, and clerks who made up the majority of England's young women. Selina Todd traces the complex interaction between class, gender, and locale that shaped young women's roles at work and home, indicating that paid work structured people's lives more profoundly than many social histories suggest. Rich autobiographical accounts show that, while poverty continued to constrain life choices, young women also made their own history. Far from being apathetic workers or pliant consumers, they forged new patterns of occupational and social mobility, were important breadwinners in working class homes, developed a distinct youth culture, and acted as workplace militants. In doing so they helped to shape twentieth-century society.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, Western Europe witnessed the emergence of a 'mass' society. Grand social processes, such as urbanization, industrialization and democratization, blurred the previous sharp distinctions that had divided society. This massive transformation is central to our understanding of modern society. Comparing the British and Dutch experience of mass society in the twentieth century, this book considers five major areas: politics, welfare, media, leisure and youth culture. In each section, two well-known specialists - one from each country - examine the conditions behind the rise of a mass society, and show how these conditions were distinctively British or Dutch. Drawing on history, cultural studies and sociology, the authors bring new insight into the development of modern European society.

Women’s Amateur Theatre in Rural Britain is the first book-length study of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes’ amateur drama groups, which served as an umbrella organisation for women’s amateur drama. This work addresses a key historical gap by covering the activities, lives, and labour of women in rural England, Wales, and Scotland. It challenges gender-based assumptions about the value of women’s amateur theatre, highlighting the need for leisure opportunities and social connections in rural villages. The rapid expansion of women’s amateur drama groups is assessed in conjunction with major developments of the period, including the effect of post-1918 reconstruction efforts in rural regions, the revaluation of informal adult education schemes, the law’s influences and restrictions on amateur performances, and the impact of the Second World War on the ability of the Women’s Institutes to carve out a space for all-women’s drama groups that empowered women through education and skill-building programmes to aid in personal and community development. The broad scope of this research will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars, and non-specialists interested in cultural history and the lives of rural women after the First World War.

Positioning consumer culture in Canada within a wider international context, Consuming Modernity explores the roots of modern Western mass culture between 1919 and 1945, when the female worker, student, and homemaker relied on new products to raise their standards of living and separate themselves from oppressive traditional attitudes. Mass-produced consumer products promised to free up women to pursue other interests shaped by marketing campaigns, advertisements, films, and radio shows. Concerns over fashion, personal hygiene, body image, and health reflected these new expectations. This volume is a fascinating look at how the forces of consumerism defined and redefined a generation.