This time I’m pleased to write about a book I actually enjoyed. “Singled Out” by Virginia Nicholson published by Penguin last year (yes, I know it’s taken me a while to get round to reading it) is an enthralling account of the two million women left single after the carnage of the First World War. They were true pioneers. Previous generations of women had generally been secure in their expectations to get married and have a familiy. That was, quite simply, the way it was.
The Great War changed all that. At a stroke what came to be unkindly known as the “surplus women” found themselves single and, unless very wealthy, in need of gainful employment to keep body and soul together. Hence the entry of women into the workplace on an unprecedented scale, especially the less well off middle class women who in earlier times would never have even thought about paid work. The advent of the “business girls” was an extraordinary phenomenon, changing attitudes to women in the workplace. Although we still need to improve the position of women at work, these were the ones who ploughed the first furrow, often facing not only patronising but downright appalling attitudes.
It almost goes without saying that women’s wages were low, in very many cases hardly enough to live on. Many lived in less than pleasant hostels or other sub-standard accommodation, though on a brighter note there were those who shared houses and flats. State pensions were not at that time paid to women and many of the professions, including teaching - a haven for single women - operated a marriage bar whereby women had to leave work when they married. Though all had to grin and bear it, many of these women led very fulfilling lives. In 1935 Florence White set up the National Spinsters’ Pensions Association to fight for pensions for single women, while Mary Milne was a reforming matron at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
It was, indeed, a new way of life, a social change which has received very little attention. Women were well and truly out of the home and into the workplace and the modern world had begun. From the 20s and 30s onwards there would be more to life than marriage and the family.
I taught Summer courses for Oxford a few years ago in which those themes appeared heavily. Some of the stories werevery touching, and you don’t have to read Arthur Marwick on how total war transformed lives to see the effects.
I like those sorts of intimate histories. I know you don’t have much time, but you might like Montaillou by Ladurie. It would fit with some of your sensibilties, being the tale of the sexual and moral shenanigans of all sorts uncovered by a future pope when he went as part of an Inquisition to record life in a French town. ‘Fire from heaven’, recording the life of Dorset in the seventeenth century would probably also appeal, given what I think are you regional antecedents. You might also like histories of women in the London bridewells in the eighteenth century; some of the stories just reach out and touch. Have you been to the ‘scandalous woman’ historical website? I have a link and will send it to you, but I suspect you prefer tales from below to those from above, as do I.
You will, no doubt, soon have a lot of time to be reading, and good luck to you in it. I love 1920s comedies and films, by the way, and women feature prominently in what you would term an empowered way.
Get yourself a Laurel and Hard or Harold Lloyd boxset–there are pleny of bankrupt dvd stores around–and have a look at the way a former period of social change, unsustainable boom, and big international organisation devolved. They’ll be better than a week of speeches from that fine figure of a Bavarian your flunkies have been stalking….
The site ‘scandalous woman’ on blogspot, for Mary’s readers, is
http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com/
I prseltyse for it from time to time because it records women condemned in history for being what sounds like fun. People should check out the Pauline Bonaparte one–in many ways she was more impressive than her brother.