Constructing citizenship? Women, welfare and refugees in France, 1939-1940

Women were central to the provision of welfare services in France during the refugee crises of the late 1930s. By building on the services created during the First World War, women, as either volunteers or professionals, actively cared for refugees and others during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the phoney war (September 1939-May 1940) and the German invasion of 1940. French women's involvement with refugee aid enabled them to develop a sense of autonomous civil and political activism, especially—although not exclusively—in their work with the French Red Cross. In addition, the history of welfare activities for refugees illuminates how ordinary people dealt with the extraordinary circumstances of war, invasion and the forced movement of populations.     

Women,Godliness and Personal Appearance in Seventeenth‐Century England 1

This article discusses Lady Jersey's brief sojourn in New South Wales in 1891-92, as the wife of the colonial governor. In the context of colonial anxieties and hopes about the contemporary women's movement, Lady Jersey's aristocratic confidence and imperial authority gave her the appearance of an ‘Advanced Woman’. A published writer and confident public speaker before she arrived in the colony, Lady Jersey took a keen interest in local political affairs, and her demeanour and activity were swiftly satirised in the radical nationalist and frequently misogynist Bulletin. Local feminist groups, perhaps craving some of the legitimate public authority she so readily exercised, sought her patronage and support but were generally doomed to disappointment. The article suggests that Lady Jersey, despite her own conservatism, offered an ambiguous role model for those seeking positive ways in which to imagine female power.     

Repertoires of industrial conflict in a modern city. Łódź, Central Poland 1861-1921

ABSTRACT

This article examines the changing patterns of industrial conflict in a rapidly modernizing Eastern European city, focusing on a multi-ethnic industrial hub. I follow repertoires of contention in four crucial moments characterized by shifting scales of the geopolitical embeddedness of the city: (1) an early Luddite riot of 1861 in the Polish autonomous sub-state within the Russian Empire, (2) the first massive labor protest and the following pogrom of 1892 in the city already fully subsumed under the imperial governance, (3) a failed revolution of 1905 with a sophisticated feedback loop between party politics and street emotions, (4) mobilization practices during the German military occupation during the IWW culminating in the tram workers strike of 1917, (5) developing forms of industrial bargaining in the early Polish state after 1918. This broad picture spanning over 60 years (1861–1921) is grounded in the existing secondary literature, extensive queries of primary sources such as administration reports, court proceedings and petitions, and the analysis of political leaflets and biographical testimonies of the working class militants. Such a cross temporal comparison brings a broader outlook on the labor unrest in Russian Poland and beyond, which before was researched only in a fragmented manner.     

From Communism to Capitalism? Russia's Agrarian Relations in the Twentieth Century and Beyond

The introduction to this collection discusses Russia's agrarian relations in a historical and contemporary context, placing questions of current economic development firmly within the political economy issues that were relevant in the early twentieth century in Russia. The analysis focuses on the question of peasant adaptation and resistance. The concept of resistance is discussed comparatively and as it pertains to contemporary Russia. Survey data from 800 households in five regions are used to explore rural adaptation according to economic strata. Specifically, data are presented on business income, total landholdings and total household income in order to address the issue of who adapted. Statistical analysis is presented to explore the relationship between household affluence and the use of social networks, and between household affluence and household satisfaction.     

A Transnational Project? Women and Gender in the Social Sciences in Australia, 1890–1945

This article presents a broad overview of the gendered regimes which shaped the development of social scientific knowledge in Australia, and the position of women within the field, from 1890 to 1945. It particularly explores the local desire to emulate developments in Europe and the United States. Australian women were prominent in early ‘amateur’ social science, which was strongly linked to social reforming activities. However, the social sciences developed exceedingly slowly within the Australian academy and rather continued to be sustained largely by the social reform movement. The continuing lack of formal institutionalisation, well into the twentieth century, provided considerable scope for some (privileged) women to create themselves as social scientific experts. Indeed, it was largely the interests of women social reformers who eventually drove professionalisation of the social sciences from the 1930s. Nevertheless, when professionalisation and institutionalisation did finally come in the 1940s, Australia followed remarkably similar patterns to those seen in the United States and United Kingdom nearly 50 years earlier. Women were largely regulated to the lower‐status, applied, feminine field of social work while men took over the new and more prestigious academic arena.     

Filipino Elite Women and Public Health in the American Colonial Era, 1906–1940

This article is the first step in the process of writing Filipino elite women into the history of public health by focusing on those who were not health practitioners (not doctors, nurses or midwives), but who were heavily involved in the campaign against infant mortality in the American colonial period. It argues that Filipino elite women fulfilled the extremely important role of administrators of organizations that addressed infant care and maternal and child health, in the distribution of milk and the dissemination of information about maternal and children's health. Using hitherto unused sources from the archives of La Protección de la Infancia, the periodicals of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, and colonial records, this study reveals how the public health movement in the Philippines was gendered, and analyzes the contributions made by Filipino elite women that have to date not yet been acknowledged in the scholarship.     

Sporting Women and Machonas: negotiating gender through sports in Argentina, 1900–1946

This article shows how sports contributed to create new experiences and expressions of gender in Argentina in the first half of the twentieth century. The sportswoman embodied a new model of femininity, a novel type of modern, healthy and active womanhood that defied traditional constructions of gender. Sports affected women's experience of gender, providing a site for the development of an emotional and spiritual well-being by fostering personal and psychological qualities like self-esteem, self-satisfaction and self-determination. Participation in sports also helped to redefine how women related to their environment by widening their social circles and relationships. These changes triggered a number of fears and anxieties about sport's potential for gender dis-order. In particular, the figure of the machona, a masculinized, unattractive, and mannish woman, became a symbol of this dis-order. The use of humor, parody, and theatrical displays of gender became ways through which these fears were both expressed and negotiated.     

Turkish Women Architects in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era, 1908–1950

This article examines the public status and educational background of Turkish women architects from 1908 to 1950. Writings on the history of architecture in Turkey, as in the West, have focused on heroic male figures. Key works produced before the late 1970s used data gathered mainly from Arkitekt, the first Turkish architectural magazine, whilst a second generation of Turkish architectural historians has preferred to investigate state and private archives. It is impossible to find a mention of women as architects in either bodies of work, although their contributions are indeed evident in the pages of Arkitekt. This article aims to fill some of these gaps in the highly gendered history of modern Turkish architecture by identifying and examining women’s work as architects in Turkey in the first half of the twentieth century. It also explores the relationship between the women’s liberation movement, the discipline of architecture, and modernization ideology associated with the Turkish Republic. It argues that women architects, who undertook important private commissions and were permitted to enter public competitions as anonymous entrants, did not encounter overt discrimination until the 1940s. Nevertheless, forms of indirect discrimination across the period served to silence women in the pages of the architectural press and to occlude them from key public commissions and offices.     

Another look at E. P. Thompson and British Communism, 1937–1955

Examination of E. P. Thompson’s activism in the Communist Party (CPGB) has been limited. Some historians, basing themselves on his memories and interpretations of his 1955 biography of William Morris, have portrayed him as a dissenter, at best a loyal critic of CPGB policy. Others have deduced political conformity from his fourteen years membership of a declining organisation. This article reappraises the literature and reassesses the making and unmaking of a Communist intellectual. It explores Thompson’s contemporary writings – rarely exposed to critical scrutiny – and employs recently released security files to reconstruct the historian’s ideas and activity across the post-war decade. The article concludes that in these years Thompson remained a faithful supporter of the Soviet Union, the party line and ‘high Stalinism’. Khruschev’s ‘Secret Speech’ and the Russian invasion of Hungary did not validate pre-existing dissent. They were the pivotal factors provoking a rupture with the Stalinism Thompson had championed from 1942 to 1955.     

Women facing the state: Childcare policy process in Canada and Finland, 1960–90

The examination of women's influence on government policy is an integral part of comparative research into women and the welfare state. Focusing on the process of childcare policy development in Canada and Finland, this article suggests that the degree and nature of women's influence depend on the extent to which women's organizations representing different gender ideologies have established an effective presence in official politics. Furthermore, this study suggests that the political structure and process provide a material basis for the development of alliances and solidarity within the women's movement.     

Moral Dilemmas and Women’s Rights: the attitude of the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women’s League to divorce,birth control and abortion in England, 1928–1939

In order to ensure that women benefited from their newly won rights as citizens in 1918 and 1928, the Mothers’ Union and Catholic Women’s League campaigned, along with feminist and political women’s organisations, to enhance the role and status of women in society. Difficulties emerged, however, when changes in public attitudes led to the liberalisation of the law in relation to divorce and birth control coupled with the growing demand within the women’s movement for safe and legal abortion. This article examines the arguments put forward by the two groups on how these reforms would undermine the role of women as housewives, mothers and citizens. It is argued that despite the fact that both groups appeared to be out of step with the wider women’s movement, they succeeded in highlighting a number of major social and welfare concerns facing many women at this time. As a result, they too made a significant contribution to the campaign for women’s rights during the interwar years.