Fatherhood and the British Fathercraft Movement, 1919-39

Gender and History

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 441-462

  Fisher, Tim ^a  

^a STETSON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHILD WELFARE; GENDER; MATERNAL CARE;

EID: 33645054798     PISSN: 09535233     EISSN: 14680424     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.0953-5233.2006.00388.x     Document Type: Article

References (153)

1. See, for example, Jane Lewis, The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England, 1900-1939 (London: Croom Helm, 1980)
2. Deborah Dwork, War is Good for Babies and Other Young Children: A History of the Infant and Child Welfare Movement in England, 1898-1918 (London: Tavistock, 1987)
3. Anna Davin, 'Imperialism and Motherhood', History Workshop Journal 5 (1978), pp. 9-65
4. Magali Gente, 'The Ideological Contribution of The Times in Favour of Motherhood in Great Britain between 1910 and 1920', The Historian 78 (2003), pp. 25-32.
5. Christina Hardyment, Dream Babies: Child Care from Locke to Spock (London: Cape, 1983), p. 122.
6. See also, Daniel Beekman, The Mechanical Baby: A Popular History of the Theory and Practice of Child Rearing (London: Dobson, 1979).
7. Davin, 'Imperialism and Motherhood', p. 40
8. I. G. Gibbon, Infant Welfare Centres: The Work of Infant Consultations, School for Mothers, and Similar Institutions (London: National League for Physical Education and Improvement 1913), p. 27.
9. Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1927-1928, pp. 6-7.
10. Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1934-1935, p. 9.
11. For example, Dr A. R. Forbes (of the School Medical Service) was the leader of the North Bristol Fathers' Council; Dr F. G. Caley (Medical Officer of Health for Wandsworth) presided over the Putney Fathers' Council and Dr Q. Lennane (Medical Officer of Health for Battersea) was President of the Battersea Fathers' Council until he retired in 1933, after which he was replaced as President by the new Medical Officer of Health, Dr Macdonald.
12. Pauline King and Rosalind O'Brien, '"You Didn't Get Much Help in Them Days, You Just Had to Get on With It": Parenting in Hertfordshire in the 1920s and 1930s', Oral History 23 (1995), pp. 54-62.
13. Jay Mechling, 'Advice to Historians on Advice to Mothers', Journal of Social History 9 (1975), pp. 44-63.
14. For detail on the formation of the Central Union and its workings, see Mother and Child 5 (1934), pp. 1-2, 18-19, 28-30.
15. For the Central Union's objectives see Mother and Child 6 (1935), pp. 22-3.
16. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 130.
17. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 130
18. Mother and Child 10 (1939), p. 118.
19. 'The Man about the House', National Health 242 (1929), p. 143.
20. For the film see, Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1933-34.
21. For the parade see, 'Father's Day', National Health 236 (1929), p. 385.
22. Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 3. Total membership numbers in all probability included those (middle-class) committee members who formed and ran the council.
23. Mother and Child 4 (1933), p. 30
24. Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1933-34, p. 6.
25. 'New Fathers' Council Formed', Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 452.
26. See also, 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 129.
27. 'Preparation for Parenthood', Mother and Child 8 (1937), p. 42.
28. 'Correspondence', Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 312.
29. See also, National Health, 194 (1925), p. 164.
30. 'Pioneering Fathers' Committee', Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 440.
31. 'Pioneering Fathers' Committee', p. 440.
32. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 129.
33. Alfred Jenkins, 'A Man's World' Production Material, transcript to rolls 58-63 (British Film Institute, London, 1996) pp. 67-8. This is one of the original interviews conducted by Steve Humphries and Pamela Gordon as part of their BBC television series'A Man's World'.
34. See also, Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (1970; repr. London: Penguin, 1990), pp. 53-4.
35. 'Fathers' Council', National Health 194 (1925), pp. 155-6.
36. Pat Ayres and Jan Lambertz, 'Marriage Relations, Money, and Domestic Violence in Working-Class Liverpool, 1919-39', in Jane Lewis (ed.), Labour and Love: Women's Experience of Home and Family 1850-1940 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp. 195-219, here p. 207.
37. Wives were described as often 'facile in handing over to their husbands the importance of the useful lessons they learned at the infant welfare centre'. 'New Fathers' Councils', Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 452.
38. Jenkins, 'A Man's World', p. 63.
39. Anna Martin, The Married Working Women: A Study (London: National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1911), p. 29.
40. Mary Read, Mothercraft Manual (London: George G. Harrop & Co, 1917), pp. 31-2.
41. Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960 (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 67.
42. See also, Jane Lewis, 'The Working-Class Wife and Mother and State Intervention, 1870-1918', in Lewis (ed), Labour and Love, pp. 99-120.
43. In some communities, women were less hostile to their husband's involvement in the home. Diana Gittins, Fair Sex: Family Size and Structure, 1900-1939 (London: Hutchinson, 1982), esp. ch. 5
44. Trevor Lummis, 'The Historical Dimension of Fatherhood: A Case Study 1890-1914', in Lorna McKee and Margaret O'Brien (eds), The Father Figure (London: Tavistock, 1982), pp. 43-57.
45. Ayres and Lambertz, 'Marriage Relations, Money, and Domestic Violence', p. 208.
46. 'The Functions of Fathers in Propaganda', Mother and Child 6 (1935), p. 212.
47. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 129.
48. Margaret Arnot, 'Infant Death, Child Care and the State', Continuity and Change 9 (1994), pp. 271-311, here p. 275
49. Pamela Horn, Children's Work and Welfare, 1780-1890 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
50. 'Pioneering Fathers' Committee', p. 440.
51. 'Pioneering Fathers' Committee', p. 440.
52. Annual Reports of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1927-39.
53. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a good example of welfare initiatives that, in order to help children, often demonised the father. See George Behlmer, Child Abuse and Moral Reform in England, 1870-1908 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982).
54. Elizabeth Roberts, 'Women's Strategies, 1890-1940', in Lewis (ed.), Labour & Love, pp. 223-49, here p. 207
55. Ellen Ross, 'Survival Networks: Women's Neighbourhood Sharing in London Before World War 1', History Workshop Journal 15 (1983), pp. 4-27.
56. See Andrew Davies, Gender, Leisure and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900-1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992), ch. 2
57. Mass Observation, The Pub and the People: A Worktown Study (1943; repr. London: Hutchinson, 1987), p. 186.
58. See 'The Best Fathercraft Paper', National Health 229 (1928), pp. 134-6
59. Mother and Child 9 (1938), pp. 213-17
60. Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 13
61. Mother and Child 7 (1936), pp. 148-9.
62. 'Correspondence', Mother and Child 8 (1938), pp. 439-40
63. Father's Natural Fitness', letter to The Times, 4 January 1938, p. 9.
64. 'Fathers or Grandmothers?', Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 302. The effort of educating fathers, Booth continued, would be more sensibly focused on educating grandmothers because they were the ones who most directly influenced child rearing.
65. 'An Examination in Fathercraft', Mother and Child 7 (1936), p. 148.
66. Letter to The Times, 4 January 1938, p. 9.
67. Letter to Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 303.
68. Letter to Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 303.
69. 'Fathercraft', Mother and Child 6 (1935), p. 22 (emphasis added).
70. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', Mother and Child 9 (1939), p. 416.
71. Letter to Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 342.
72. Letter to Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 342.
73. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 18.
74. Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 205.
75. Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 2.
76. For example, Lancaster Road Fathers' Council held concerts at which their male-voice choir performed, and there were Christmas draws and annual dinners. Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1927-1939, pp. 6, 9
77. 'Federation of Fathers', Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 246.
78. See National Health 196 (1926), pp. 178-9
79. Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 246
80. Mother and Child 9 (1938), pp. 28-30.
81. Bourke argues that the interwar years witnessed a huge expansion of do-it-yourself for men: Working-Class Cultures in Britain, pp. 81-9.
82. 'The Functions of Fathers in Propaganda', p. 211.
83. 'Fathercraft', p. 23 (emphasis in original).
84. Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 129.
85. Mother and Child 7 (1936), p. 233
86. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 412.
87. 'Editorial', Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 206.
88. Mother and Child 8 (1937), p. 187.
89. Annual Report of the Lancaster Road Welfare Centre and Day Nursery, 1934-1935, p. 5.
90. The list of lectures given at Putney Fathers' Council in the year to September 1938 included 'Housing in Relation to Maternity and Child Welfare'
91. 'Existing Powers to Improve Housing Conditions'
92. The First Eight Years of School Life' and 'Physical Fitness Begins at the Welfare Clinic', 'Notes from Kindred Societies', Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 242.
93. 'Fathers' Clubs', National Health 206 (1926), p. 128.
94. 'The Functions of Fathers in Propaganda', p. 213.
95. 'Fathers in the Child Welfare Movement', p. 130.
96. 'Pioneering Fathers' Committee', Mother and Child 3 (1933), p. 440.
97. 'The Man about the House', p. 144.
98. The notion that a father acted as an 'overseer' was common in middle-class ideologies of the family. See Helen Bosanquet, The Family (London: Macmillan & Co., 1906), pp. 273-4.
99. Mother and Child 5 (1934), p. 2.
100. Letter to Mother and Child 3 (1932), p. 343.
101. See 'The Best Fathercraft Paper', pp. 134-5
102. 'Success in Fathercraft', Mother and Child 1 (1930), p. 219.
103. 'Editorial', Mother and Child 10 (1939), p. 118.
104. Lynn Abrams, '"There was Nobody like my Daddy": Fathers, the Family and the Marginalisation of Men in Modern Scotland', Scottish Historical Review 78 (1999), pp. 218-42, here p. 228.
105. M. E. Bibby, 1The Semi-Parented Child', The Child: A Monthly Journal Devoted to Child Welfare 4 (1914), pp. 714-16.
106. Bibby, 'The Semi-Parented Child'.
107. Ralph LaRossa, The Modernization of Fatherhood: A Social and Political History (London: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
108. For example, 'I take charge while she rests for a while ... I dive in and follow the instructions she leaves me', Mother and Child 7 (1936), p. 233.
109. See also, for example, 'Editorial', Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 206.
110. Joe Croft, 'A Man's World' Production Material', transcript to rolls 67-71 (British Film Institute library London, 1996) p. 80.
111. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 415.
112. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 413.
113. Gittins, Fair Sex, p. 142.
114. 'To an Expectant Father', National Health, 225 (1928), p. 453.
115. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 453.
116. 'Fathercraft', p. 213.
117. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 415.
118. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 415.
119. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 437.
120. 'The Functions of Fathers in Propaganda', Mother and Child 6 (1935), pp. 210-2.
121. Michael Anderson, 'Highly Restricted Fertility: Very Small Families in the British Fertility Decline', Population Studies 52 (1998), pp. 177-99, here p. 178.
122. John Benson, The Working Class in Britain, 1850-1930 (London: Longman, 1989), p. 100.
123. Benson, The Working Class in Britain, p. 79.
124. Andrzej Olechnowicz, Working Class Housing in England between the Wars: The Becontree Estate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) p. 212 (emphasis in original).
125. Hugh Cunningham, 'Leisure and Culture', in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750-1950, vol. 2: People and their Environments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
126. Cathy Urwin and Elaine Sharland, 'From Bodies to Mind in Childcare Literature: Advice to Parents in Inter-war Britain', in Roger Cooter (ed.), In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940 (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 174-99.
127. Urwin and Sharland, 'From Bodies to Mind in Childcare Literature', p. 186.
128. Deborah Thom, 'Wishes, Anxieties, Play, and Gestures: Child Guidance in Inter-war Britain', in Cooter (ed.), In the Name of the Child, pp. 200-19.
129. Denise Riley, War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother (London: Virago, 1983), pp. 80-109
130. Harry Hendrick, Children, Childhood and English Society 1880-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 28-35
131. Hardyment, Dream Babies, ch. 4.
132. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 413.
133. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', pp. 415-16.
134. Mother and Child 9 (1938), p. 215.
135. 'Preparation for Parenthood', p. 42.
136. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', p. 413.
137. 'Fathercraft', p. 215.
138. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 437.
139. 'Preparation for Parenthood', p. 42.
140. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 437.
141. 'Fathercraft', p. 215.
142. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 435.
143. Julie Grant, 'A "Real Boy" and not a Sissy: Gender, Childhood, and Masculinity, 1890-1940', Journal of Social History 37 (2004), pp. 829-50, here p. 838.
144. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', pp. 412-417.
145. 'Modern Aspects of Fathercraft', pp. 412-417.
146. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 438.
147. 'To an Expectant Father', p. 438.
148. 'Modern Fathers', National Health, 236 (1929), p. 384.
149. 'Parents in Partnership', The Times, 21 June 1939, p. 21.
150. 'Fathercraft', p. 215.
151. Beekman, The Mechanical Baby; Hardyment, Dream Babies.
152. 'Preparation for Parenthood', p. 42.
153. Charlie Lewis and Margaret O'Brien, 'Constraints of Fathers: Research, Theory and Clinical Practice', in Charlie Lewis and Margaret O'Brien (eds), Reassessing Fatherhood: New Observations on Fathers and the Modern Family (1987; repr. London: Sage, 1990), p. 1.