Men's fears and women's work: Responses to unemployment in London between the wars

Gender and History

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 401-425

  Alexander, Sally ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 0040807645     PISSN: 09535233     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.00189     Document Type: Article

References (130)

1. Edith Hall, Canary Girls and Stockpots (WEA, Luton, 1977), p. 30.
2. 'Some women met with physical violence, many met with verbal abuse when women first entered the various existing factories of the Arsenal'. See Deborah Thorn, 'Tommy's Sister: Women at Woolwich in World War One', in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vol. 2, Minorities and Outsiders, ed. Raphael Samuel (Routledge, London, 1989), pp. 147-8; Report on Women in Industry During the War, Parliamentary Papers 1919, XXX, Cmd.135, pp. 219-24.
3. 'Some women met with physical violence, many met with verbal abuse when women first entered the various existing factories of the Arsenal'. See Deborah Thorn, 'Tommy's Sister: Women at Woolwich in World War One', in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vol. 2, Minorities and Outsiders, ed. Raphael Samuel (Routledge, London, 1989), pp. 147-8; Report on Women in Industry During the War, Parliamentary Papers 1919, XXX, Cmd.135, pp. 219-24.
4. Barbara Drake, Women in Trade Unions (Trade Union Series No. 6, Labour Research Department, London, 1920), ch. 5, is the best account. See also Barbara Drake, Women in the Engineering Trades (Trade Union Series No.3, Fabian Research Department, London, 1917), ch. 2.
5. Barbara Drake, Women in Trade Unions (Trade Union Series No. 6, Labour Research Department, London, 1920), ch. 5, is the best account. See also Barbara Drake, Women in the Engineering Trades (Trade Union Series No.3, Fabian Research Department, London, 1917), ch. 2.
6. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Week-End: A Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939 (Faber and Faber, London, 1941), p. 27.
7. Ben Thomas, Ben's Limehouse: Recollections (Ragged School Books, Colchester, 1987), pp. 54-7.
8. Stan Hall in The Times of our Lives: Growing up in the Southtwark Area, 1900-1945, ed. Peckham People's History (Peckham Publishing Project, London, 1983), p. 52. Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain and the Great War (Reaktion Books, London, 1999), p. 33: in 1920, 31,500 men were being paid compensation for having had a limb amputated; in 1939, 660,000 officers and men were being paid pensions for disability in the First World War.
9. Stan Hall in The Times of our Lives: Growing up in the Southtwark Area, 1900-1945, ed. Peckham People's History (Peckham Publishing Project, London, 1983), p. 52. Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain and the Great War (Reaktion Books, London, 1999), p. 33: in 1920, 31,500 men were being paid compensation for having had a limb amputated; in 1939, 660,000 officers and men were being paid pensions for disability in the First World War.
10. Doris M. Bailey, Children of the Green (Stepney Books, London, 1981), p. 106.
11. For example, The Ministry of Labour Gazette (December 1934), pp. 432-5, esp. p. 435; H. Llewellyn Smith, The New Survey of London Life and London Labour, vol. 2, Industries I (P. S. King, London, 1932), p. 20.
12. For example, The Ministry of Labour Gazette (December 1934), pp. 432-5, esp. p. 435; H. Llewellyn Smith, The New Survey of London Life and London Labour, vol. 2, Industries I (P. S. King, London, 1932), p. 20.
13. For a discussion of these themes in the previous century, see Keith McClelland, 'Time to Work, Time to Live: Some Aspects of Work and the Reformation of Class in Britain 1850-1880', in The Historical Meanings of Work, ed. Patrick Joyce (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 180-209.
14. E. Wight Bakke, The Unemployed Man (London, 1933), pp. 2-4.
15. Men without Work: A Report Made to the Pilgrim Trust, with an Introduction by the Archbishop of York, and a Preface by Lord Macmillan, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1938), p. 160.
16. The 1920 Unemployment Insurance Act provided 15s (75p) a week for fifteen weeks for those men and women in the insured trades. In 1921, during the industrial depression, it became clear that social insurance would not cover the numbers unemployed. Extended benefits were introduced for up to forty-seven weeks, and allowances introduced for wives and children of the unemployed. In 1922, restrictions were placed on some extended benefits. Those not 'genuinely seeking fulltime employment' were excluded (which excluded thousands of women unwilling to take live-in domestic service), and a means test aimed at the single out-of-works living at home, and a husband or wife whose spouse was working was introduced. Throughout the 1920s claimants disallowed could appeal to Courts of Referees or, failing that, the Poor Law Guardians. The Guardians, whose estimations varied from locality to locality, awarded cash and food tickets, often with 'test work'. The Guardians were abolished in 1929 and replaced with Public Assistance Committees (PAC). The Unemployed Assistance Board (UAB) replaced the PACs in 1934, but kept the household means test. The terms and procedures of the means tests were most bitterly resisted by the unemployed. Benefits were unevenly assessed, and depended on the clause 'genuinely seeking work'. Unemployment benefit beyond the insured period was discretionary, not a right, Burnett points out; it rested upon a test of character and the household means test. The insured workforce covered all manual workers except youths aged fourteen to sixteen, agricultural workers, indoor domestic servants, and non-manual workers except those earning more than £250 per year. See John Burnett, Idle Hands: The Experience of Unemployment, 1750-1950 (Roudedge, London, 1994), pp. 201, 204-5, 258-60, 262.
17. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 264.
18. H. L. Beales and R. S. Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed (Victor Gollancz, London, 1934), pp. 70, 180.
19. 'And the women stood foursquare behind them … the older children sense it would have been better if they hadn't been born, and apologised by being quiet and undemanding; an obituary for a generation', Winifred Foley, A Child in the Forest (1974; repr. Futura, London, 1982), p. 101.
20. Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan, vol. 1, 1897-1945 (1977; repr. Granada Publishing, London, 1979), p. 163.
21. The Western Mail, 4 March 1935.
22. For example, Arthur Newton, Years of Change, Autobiography of a Hackney Shoemaker (Centreprise Publications, London, 1974), pp. 56-7: 'Many a marriage was rocked in those days through the fact that a man had been at his place of work all the week, and took home peanuts on Friday.'
23. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 94.
24. Quoted in Paul Addison's review of Correlli Barnett, The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation (Macmillan, London, 1986), London Review of Books, 24 July 1986, p. 6.
25. Jose Harris, William Beveridge: A Biography (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997), chs 14, 16.
26. Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the Thirties (Allen and Unwin, London, 1987), ch. 4. See Peter Clarke, 'J. M. Keynes, 1883-1946, "The Best of both Worlds"', in After the Victorians, ed. S. Pederson and P. Mandler (Routledge, London, 1994), pp. 171-87, for discussion of the relationship between economics, policy and politics.
27. Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the Thirties (Allen and Unwin, London, 1987), ch. 4. See Peter Clarke, 'J. M. Keynes, 1883-1946, "The Best of both Worlds"', in After the Victorians, ed. S. Pederson and P. Mandler (Routledge, London, 1994), pp. 171-87, for discussion of the relationship between economics, policy and politics.
28. Sir William H. Beveridge, The Pillars of Security (Allen and Unwin, London, 1943); Jose Harris, 'Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870-1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy', Past and Present, 135 (1992), pp. 116-41; Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2, The Economist As Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992; Penguin, London, 1995), esp. chs 11, 14.
29. Sir William H. Beveridge, The Pillars of Security (Allen and Unwin, London, 1943); Jose Harris, 'Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870-1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy', Past and Present, 135 (1992), pp. 116-41; Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2, The Economist As Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992; Penguin, London, 1995), esp. chs 11, 14.
30. Sir William H. Beveridge, The Pillars of Security (Allen and Unwin, London, 1943); Jose Harris, 'Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870-1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy', Past and Present, 135 (1992), pp. 116-41; Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, vol. 2, The Economist As Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992; Penguin, London, 1995), esp. chs 11, 14.
31. E. P. Thompson, 'Mr Attlee and the Gadarene Swine', Guardian, 3 March 1984, p. 9.
32. Paul Addison, The Road to 1945, British Politics and the Second World War (1977; Quartet Books, London, 1982), pp. 165-6.
33. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Thirties, 1930-1940 in Great Britain (1940; repr. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989), p. 46; Peter Hennessy, Never Again, Britain, 1945-1951 (Vintage Books, London, 1993).
34. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Thirties, 1930-1940 in Great Britain (1940; repr. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989), p. 46; Peter Hennessy, Never Again, Britain, 1945-1951 (Vintage Books, London, 1993).
35. For an account of the Fulham Centre for the Unemployed in London, one of hundreds of such centres in the thirties, see Ann Oakley, Man and Wife, Richard and Kay Titmuss: My Parents' Early Years (Flamingo, London, 1996), ch. 3; Harris, William Beveridge, pp. 366-9, for the growing critique of social welfare pre-Second World War. See also Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, Part 5, 'The Social Service Movement', and p. 412 below.
36. For an account of the Fulham Centre for the Unemployed in London, one of hundreds of such centres in the thirties, see Ann Oakley, Man and Wife, Richard and Kay Titmuss: My Parents' Early Years (Flamingo, London, 1996), ch. 3; Harris, William Beveridge, pp. 366-9, for the growing critique of social welfare pre-Second World War. See also Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, Part 5, 'The Social Service Movement', and p. 412 below.
37. For an account of the Fulham Centre for the Unemployed in London, one of hundreds of such centres in the thirties, see Ann Oakley, Man and Wife, Richard and Kay Titmuss: My Parents' Early Years (Flamingo, London, 1996), ch. 3; Harris, William Beveridge, pp. 366-9, for the growing critique of social welfare pre-Second World War. See also Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, Part 5, 'The Social Service Movement', and p. 412 below.
38. Ellen Wilkinson, The Town That Was Murdered: The Life-Story of Jarrow (Victor Gollancz, London, 1939), ch.12 and p. 259.
39. See note 12 for the insured trades.
40. Patrick O'Brien, 'Britain's Economy between the Wars: A Survey of a Counter-revolution in Economic History', Past and Present, 115 (1987), p. 107.
41. W. H. Beveridge, Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909; reprinted and revised 1930), remained the standard text on unemployment, yet barely discussed structural or cyclical unemployment; see Harris, William Beveridge, pp. 310-12.
42. W. H. Beveridge, Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909; reprinted and revised 1930), remained the standard text on unemployment, yet barely discussed structural or cyclical unemployment; see Harris, William Beveridge, pp. 310-12.
43. Wilkinson, Town That Was Murdered, p. 259.
44. See Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 17-19, for the patchiness of unemployment.
45. Virginia Woolf, 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown', A Woman's Essays: Selected Essays, vol. 1, ed. and introd. Rachel Bowlby (Penguin, London, 1992), pp. 70-71.
46. Beveridge, Unemployment, p. 95. The New Survey of London Life and Labour [NSL], vol. 1, Forty Years of Change (P. S. King and Sons, London, 1930), Introduction, pp. 31-3, addresses casual labour's effect on the 'subnormal'; it underestimated the extent of casual labour. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 223, cites Harry Fletcher, the shipbuilder from Hull who had forty-six jobs between 1922 and 1938.
47. Beveridge, Unemployment, p. 95. The New Survey of London Life and Labour [NSL], vol. 1, Forty Years of Change (P. S. King and Sons, London, 1930), Introduction, pp. 31-3, addresses casual labour's effect on the 'subnormal'; it underestimated the extent of casual labour. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 223, cites Harry Fletcher, the shipbuilder from Hull who had forty-six jobs between 1922 and 1938.
48. Beveridge, Unemployment, p. 95. The New Survey of London Life and Labour [NSL], vol. 1, Forty Years of Change (P. S. King and Sons, London, 1930), Introduction, pp. 31-3, addresses casual labour's effect on the 'subnormal'; it underestimated the extent of casual labour. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 223, cites Harry Fletcher, the shipbuilder from Hull who had forty-six jobs between 1922 and 1938.
49. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (Victor Gollancz, London, 1937).
50. See Bakke, Unemployed Man, pp. 249-50, for the men of Greenwich's lack of confidence in the labour exchanges. They were often the target of attack of unemployed demonstrations; see p. 418 below.
51. See note 12 for the insured trades. Women were further eliminated from the out-of-work statistics by changes in the benefit rules. In the mid twenties women were refused benefits if they would not accept a live-in job in domestic service. After 1931 the nomalies Regulations wiped more married women from the registers because claims were assessed by household income.
52. H. A. Clegg, A History of British Trade Unions since 1889, vol. 2, 1911-1933 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984), pp. 532-4. In 1933, the Journal of the General and Municipal Workers' Union remarked, after a successful strike at ICI in Derbyshire, 'Workmen with a sense of freedom and manliness resent the implications of the Bedaux system', Ray Strachey, 'Current Social Statistics: the census; occupations of women', The Political Quarterly, 5 (1935), p. 550.
53. H. A. Clegg, A History of British Trade Unions since 1889, vol. 2, 1911-1933 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984), pp. 532-4. In 1933, the Journal of the General and Municipal Workers' Union remarked, after a successful strike at ICI in Derbyshire, 'Workmen with a sense of freedom and manliness resent the implications of the Bedaux system', Ray Strachey, 'Current Social Statistics: the census; occupations of women', The Political Quarterly, 5 (1935), p. 550.
54. For the strain of misogyny in the left literature of lament in the thirties, see Sally Alexander, 'Becoming a Woman', in Becoming A Woman: Essays in 19th and 20th Century Feminist History (Virago, London, 1994), pp. 203-24.
55. See, for example, Minutes of the Special Committee on Unemployment (in the Greater London Record Office), vol. 1, 19 October 1920-6 December 1926, pp. 4 and 11ff.
56. Pimlott, Labour and the Left, p. 14.
57. See, for example, Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie (eds), The Power to Alter Things: The Diary of Beatrice Webb, vol. 3, 1905-1924 (Virago, London, 1984), pp. 324-6; Clegg, History of British Trade Unions, vol. 2, p. 314; Storm Jameson, 'The Single Heart', Women Against Men (Virago, London, 1982), p. 173.
58. See, for example, Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie (eds), The Power to Alter Things: The Diary of Beatrice Webb, vol. 3, 1905-1924 (Virago, London, 1984), pp. 324-6; Clegg, History of British Trade Unions, vol. 2, p. 314; Storm Jameson, 'The Single Heart', Women Against Men (Virago, London, 1982), p. 173.
59. See, for example, Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie (eds), The Power to Alter Things: The Diary of Beatrice Webb, vol. 3, 1905-1924 (Virago, London, 1984), pp. 324-6; Clegg, History of British Trade Unions, vol. 2, p. 314; Storm Jameson, 'The Single Heart', Women Against Men (Virago, London, 1982), p. 173.
60. Bakke, like the Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, distinguished between the attitudes of the skilled and unskilled; the most likely to be out-of-work for long periods were those who had left school at fourteen years or younger.
61. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 8.
62. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. and gen. ed. James Strachey, vol. 18, 1920-22 (Hogarth Press, London, 1955), pp. 67-143.
63. For instance, Elizabeth Bowen, To the North (1932; repr. Vintage, London, 1999), p. 177: 'Across the mind's surface, on which a world's apprehension, strain at home and in Europe, were gravely written -'. See also, Storm Jameson, Love in Winter (Virago, London, 1984), ch. 15 and passim; Wal Hannington, The Problem of the Distressed Areas (Gollancz, London, 1937), ch. 12. For a different approach to these questions, Ross McKibbin, 'The "Social-Psychology" of Unemployment in Inter-war Britain', The Ideologies of Class (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), pp. 228-58.
64. For instance, Elizabeth Bowen, To the North (1932; repr. Vintage, London, 1999), p. 177: 'Across the mind's surface, on which a world's apprehension, strain at home and in Europe, were gravely written -'. See also, Storm Jameson, Love in Winter (Virago, London, 1984), ch. 15 and passim; Wal Hannington, The Problem of the Distressed Areas (Gollancz, London, 1937), ch. 12. For a different approach to these questions, Ross McKibbin, 'The "Social-Psychology" of Unemployment in Inter-war Britain', The Ideologies of Class (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), pp. 228-58.
65. For instance, Elizabeth Bowen, To the North (1932; repr. Vintage, London, 1999), p. 177: 'Across the mind's surface, on which a world's apprehension, strain at home and in Europe, were gravely written -'. See also, Storm Jameson, Love in Winter (Virago, London, 1984), ch. 15 and passim; Wal Hannington, The Problem of the Distressed Areas (Gollancz, London, 1937), ch. 12. For a different approach to these questions, Ross McKibbin, 'The "Social-Psychology" of Unemployment in Inter-war Britain', The Ideologies of Class (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), pp. 228-58.
66. For instance, Elizabeth Bowen, To the North (1932; repr. Vintage, London, 1999), p. 177: 'Across the mind's surface, on which a world's apprehension, strain at home and in Europe, were gravely written -'. See also, Storm Jameson, Love in Winter (Virago, London, 1984), ch. 15 and passim; Wal Hannington, The Problem of the Distressed Areas (Gollancz, London, 1937), ch. 12. For a different approach to these questions, Ross McKibbin, 'The "Social-Psychology" of Unemployment in Inter-war Britain', The Ideologies of Class (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990), pp. 228-58.
67. Burnett, Idle Hands, pp. 234-5, finds that cycles of crime did not correspond with cycles of unemployment in different districts.
68. Allen Hutt, The Condition of the Working Class in Britain, introd. Harry Pollitt, (repr. Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1983), p. 157.
69. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 39, 86, 104, 222. It was unlikely that lower food prices affected many working-class budgets in the short run, since most bought their food in small quantities, daily or weekly from corner-shops.
70. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 149, 209, 91.
71. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 210.
72. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 33. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 136-7, measured the cycle in terms of mental and physical health.
73. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 33. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 136-7, measured the cycle in terms of mental and physical health.
74. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 30, 229, and no. 20, for suicidal feelings. Max Cohen, I Was One of the Unemployed (Gollancz, London, 1945), a meticulous study of the disintegration of the unemployed man, was evidently no. 21 of Beales and Lambert's anthology. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 234, argues that the correlation between unemployment and suicide is not demonstrated by the figures, but is likely.
75. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 30, 229, and no. 20, for suicidal feelings. Max Cohen, I Was One of the Unemployed (Gollancz, London, 1945), a meticulous study of the disintegration of the unemployed man, was evidently no. 21 of Beales and Lambert's anthology. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 234, argues that the correlation between unemployment and suicide is not demonstrated by the figures, but is likely.
76. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 30, 229, and no. 20, for suicidal feelings. Max Cohen, I Was One of the Unemployed (Gollancz, London, 1945), a meticulous study of the disintegration of the unemployed man, was evidently no. 21 of Beales and Lambert's anthology. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 234, argues that the correlation between unemployment and suicide is not demonstrated by the figures, but is likely.
77. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 10, 13.
78. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 118.
79. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 240-11. But see also Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum, Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 198-9.
80. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 240-11. But see also Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum, Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 198-9.
81. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 154-5.
82. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 39. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 257, points out that, while unemployment increased political awareness, it did not increase political participation: 'it burnt into the souls of the many who found no acceptable remedy for their discontent until 1945'.
83. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 39. Burnett, Idle Hands, p. 257, points out that, while unemployment increased political awareness, it did not increase political participation: 'it burnt into the souls of the many who found no acceptable remedy for their discontent until 1945'.
84. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 89.
85. In a BBC Radio 4 'Today' interview with some long-term unemployed steelworkers and miners on Teeside (19 April 1998), the men described the same cycle of hope and despair. One who had taken a degree was still unemployed. It's worth noting that likening the worker to a cog in a machine was a critical metaphor of modern industry in interwar left rhetoric.
86. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 73, 90, 180, for example.
87. Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (1968; repr. Penguin, London, 1983), pp. 152-3, for shame as the fear of ridicule, the failure to live up to one's internal ideal standards; it is closely associated with bodily sensations, and is most often a response to uncodified social rules.
88. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 187, 190, 196.
89. See Mrs Hesketh's father who 'always had that little wallet at the back that wasn't ours', E. Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women, 1890-1940 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1984), p. 119.
90. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 199-200.
91. Grace Foakes, My Part of the River: Memories of People and Places in the East End of Edwardian London (Futura, London, 1976), p. 15; Jean Moremont, in Dutiful Daughters: Women Talk about their Lives, ed. Jean McCrindle and Sheila Rowbotham (Allen Lane, London, 1977), p. 141.
92. Grace Foakes, My Part of the River: Memories of People and Places in the East End of Edwardian London (Futura, London, 1976), p. 15; Jean Moremont, in Dutiful Daughters: Women Talk about their Lives, ed. Jean McCrindle and Sheila Rowbotham (Allen Lane, London, 1977), p. 141.
93. Ann Joseph, interview with S. Alexander, February 1977 (unpub. transcript), p. 14.
94. Willy Goodman, East End My Cradle: Portrait of an Environment (1940; Robson Books, London, 1988), ch. 14.
95. John Burnett (ed.), Useful Toil: Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s (Allen Lane, London, 1974), p. 352.
96. Simon Blumenfield, Jew Boy (1935; Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1986), p. 318.
97. Mark Benney, Low Company (1936; Caliban Books, Sussex, 1981), pp. 25-7. Mark Benney was clearly one of Beales and Lambert's contributors.
98. NSL, vol. 111, Social Survey Eastern Area (P. S. King, London, 1932), p. 39.
99. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, p. 59.
100. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 45, 145.
101. Bakke, The Unemployed Man, p. 159.
102. For example, Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 74, 82, 89, 156, 171. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 146-7, on reasons for wives and husbands living apart; and see note 18.
103. For example, Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, pp. 74, 82, 89, 156, 171. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 146-7, on reasons for wives and husbands living apart; and see note 18.
104. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 61, 101, 112, 127-41.
105. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, pp. 230-1.
106. Strachey, 'Current Social Statistics', pp. 549-61: 51/2 million women occupied in the 1931 Census, 37 per cent of the total female population over the age of fourteen; 76 per cent of the girls aged between fourteen and seventeen were occupied and the numbers had increased since 1921.
107. Report of the Committee to Enquire into Present Conditions as to the Supply of Female Domestic Servants (Ministry of Labour, 1923), para. 35, pp.18-19.
108. Sheila Lewenhak, Women and Trade Unions: An Outline History of Women in The Trade Union Movement (Ernest Benn, London, 1977), ch. 13.
109. S. Alexander, Becoming, pp. 212, 224.
110. V. Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929; repr. Granada, London, 1984), p. 16.
111. J. M. Winter, The Great War and the British People (Macmillan, London, 1985), p. 265.
112. Most working girls in a Liverpool survey expressed a wish to marry, preferably someone rich! Only two out of the sixty-four interviewed spoke of their present work as having any interest beyond the immediate and neither of them was a factory girl. Some wanted a profession beyond their reach: 'One would have like to be a kindergarten teacher or dancer, another a trained children's nurse, another a stewardess as a means of seeing the world' (Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, p. 254).
113. Katherine Holden, 'The Shadow of Marriage: Single Women in England, 1919-1939' (unpub. PhD thesis, University of Essex, 1995).
114. Ruth Bowley, 'The Cost of Living of Girls, Professionally Employed in the County of London', Economic Journal, 4 (1934), pp. 328-33, esp. pp. 328-9.
115. Rose Gamble, Chelsea Child (Ariel Books, London, 1979), p. 26. The 'sallies' might have been the Salvation Army - though it seems unlikely. See also, for example, Ian Niall, A London Boyhood (Heinemann, London, 1974), p. 23; Sheila Grant Duff, The Parting of Ways: A Personal Account of the Thirties (Unwin, London, 1984), p. 21.
116. Rose Gamble, Chelsea Child (Ariel Books, London, 1979), p. 26. The 'sallies' might have been the Salvation Army - though it seems unlikely. See also, for example, Ian Niall, A London Boyhood (Heinemann, London, 1974), p. 23; Sheila Grant Duff, The Parting of Ways: A Personal Account of the Thirties (Unwin, London, 1984), p. 21.
117. Rose Gamble, Chelsea Child (Ariel Books, London, 1979), p. 26. The 'sallies' might have been the Salvation Army - though it seems unlikely. See also, for example, Ian Niall, A London Boyhood (Heinemann, London, 1974), p. 23; Sheila Grant Duff, The Parting of Ways: A Personal Account of the Thirties (Unwin, London, 1984), p. 21.
118. Mrs Philo, interview with Anna Davin (unpub. transcript, n.d.), p. 5.
119. Wal Hannington, Unemployed Struggles, 1919-1936: My Life and Struggles Amongst the Unemployed (1936; repr. Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1979), ch. 1. The first factories targeted were in Kilburn, Tottenham, Walthamstow, Edmonton, Islington.
120. Wal Hannington's Scrapbooks, in the Marx Memorial Library, London, record most of these encounters, and his part in them.
121. National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement (NUWCM), 5th National Conference, Report, p. 10. (The NUWM was known also as the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement.) For a fuller story of the hunger marches, see Peter Kingsford, The Hunger Marcher in Britain, 1920-1940 (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1982).
122. National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement (NUWCM), 5th National Conference, Report, p. 10. (The NUWM was known also as the National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement.) For a fuller story of the hunger marches, see Peter Kingsford, The Hunger Marcher in Britain, 1920-1940 (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1982).
123. NUWCM, 6th Report, p. 22. See also, Sue Bruley, 'A Woman's Right to Work? The Role of Women in the Unemployed Movement between the Wars', in This Working-Day World: Women's Lives and Cultures in Britain, 1914-1945, ed. Sybil Oldfield (Taylor and Francis, London, 1994), pp. 40-53.
124. NUWCM, 6th Report, p. 22. See also, Sue Bruley, 'A Woman's Right to Work? The Role of Women in the Unemployed Movement between the Wars', in This Working-Day World: Women's Lives and Cultures in Britain, 1914-1945, ed. Sybil Oldfield (Taylor and Francis, London, 1994), pp. 40-53.
125. Interview with Violette Boulton, August 1984 (unpub. transcript), p. 6.
126. Beales and Lambert, Memoirs of the Unemployed, p. 49.
127. Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, p. 184.
128. Hilary Land, 'The Myth of the Male Breadwinner', New Society, 9 October 1975, p. 71, for an early criticism of women's economic dependence within welfare legislation.
129. At moments the Pilgrim Trust's authors are uncertain how to read the meaning of women's unemployment, for instance. They offer two sides of the contentious question of the effects of women's unemployment when discussing Blackburn, a textile town where a man's wages were low because the expectation was that there would be more than one earner in the family. On the one hand, women's unemployment was not a serious problem, because the family gained from it, and women over forty themselves preferred it. On the other hand, there was the view to be considered that the status that the wage could bring might be of value to women themselves (Part FV).
130. D. M. Winnicott, Home is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst, compiled and ed. Clare Winnicott, Ray Shepherd, Madeline Davis (Penguin, London, 1986), 'Some Thoughts on the Meaning of Democracy', for example.