'Jolly good reading' for girls: Discourses of library work and femininity in career novels

Women's History Review

Volumn 8, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 489-504

  Kerslake, Evelyn ^a   Liladhar, Janine ^b  

^a LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; EMPLOYMENT; ETHNOLOGY; FEMALE; FEMININITY; GENDER IDENTITY; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; LIBRARY; LITERATURE; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; UNITED KINGDOM; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS;

EMPLOYMENT; FEMALE; FEMININITY; GENDER IDENTITY; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; LIBRARIES; LITERATURE; WOMEN; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS;

EID: 34247293260     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612029900200214     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. From the book jacket of J. Llewelyn Owens (1957) A Library Life for Deborah (London: Chatto & Windus).
2. For example, A.G.S. Enser (1948) Shall the Msses be Masters, Library Association Record, 5(50), pp. 124-125.
3. A.G. S. Enser (1951) Figures and facts, Library Association Record, 1(53), pp. 14-15.
4. T. Kelly (1977) History of Public Libraries in Great Britain 1845-1975 (London: Library Association).
5. M Crouch (1972) The Nesbit Tradition. The Children's Novel in England, 1945-1970 (London: Ernest Benn);
6. H. Carpenter & M Prichard (1984) The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
7. B. Lonsdale (1954) Molly Hilton: library assistant (London: Bodley Head);
8. B. Lonsdale (1958) Molly Qualifies as a Librarian (London: Bodley Head);
9. Llewelyn Owens, A Library Life for Deborah.
10. Other novels that may be categorised as career novels are those in which information about the particular career is not emphasised but where the chosen career is central to the narrative, such as P. Sumrnerhayes (1949) Girls in Green. A Novel of Library Life between the Wars (London: Hutchinson).
11. Yet other forms of career books include autobiographical narratives, such as E. Colwell (1956) How I Became a Librarian (London: Nelson)
12. and career guides in dictionary form, for example, M Fuge (Ed.) (1951) Careers and Vocational Training. A Guide to the Professions and Occupations of Educated Women and Girls, 12th edn (London: Women's Employment Publishing Company).
13. Couch, The Nesbit Tradition, p. 186.
14. Carpenter & Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, p. 96.
15. See prefaces to Lonsdale, Molly Hilton and Lonsdale, Molly Qualifies.
16. P. Hawken (1952) Air Hostess Ann (London: Bodley Head);
17. P. Hawken (1954) Pan Stevens: secretary (London, Lane);
18. J. Llewelyn Owens (1954) Sally Grayson: Wren (London: Bodley Head);
19. M E. Patchett (1953) The Lee Twins: beauty students (London: Lane).
20. E. Forbes (1954) Brenda Buys a Beauty Salon (London: Chatto & Windus);
21. L. Cochrane (1955) Marion Turns Teacher (London: Chatto & Windus);
22. J. Selby-Lowndes (1956) Sally Dances (London: Chatto & Windus);
23. A Mack (1958) Continuity Girl (London: Chatto & Windus).
24. D. Garrison (1979) Apostles of Culture: the public librarian and American society, 1876-1920 (New York: Free Press);
25. S. Hildenbrand (1983) Revision versus reality: women in the history of the public library movement, 1876-1920, in K M Heim (Ed.) The Status of Women in Librarianship: historical, sociological and economic issues (New York: Neal-Schuman).
26. See, for example, J. Lewis (1984) Women in England 1870-1950: sexual division and social change (Brighton: Wheatsheaf).
27. See, for example, C. Blake (1990) The Charge of the Parasols. Women's Entry to the Medical Profession (London: Women's Press).
28. Lewis, Women in England, p. 65.
29. R. Crompton & G. Jones (1984) White Collar Proletariat. Deskilling and Gender in Clerical Work, pp. 18-19 (London: Macmillan).
30. P. Summerfield (1987) Women and the professional labour market, 1900-1950: the case of the secondary schoolmistress, in P. Summerfield (Ed.) Women, Education and the Professions (Leicester: History of Education Society).
31. Published studies include: A Clarke (1977) Few and far between: women librarians in the nineteenth century, in M Wise (Ed.) One Hundred Years. A Collection to Celebrate the Library Association Centenary (Aberystwyth: College of Librarianship);
32. N. Webber (1984) Prospect and prejudice, or women and librarianship 1880-1914, Library History, 6, pp. 153-162;
33. J. Taylor (1995) Left on the shelf? The issues and challenges facing women employed in libraries from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s, Library History, 2, pp. 96-107.
34. Bibliographies of United Kingdom library history document the extent of this work: D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1972) British Library History: bibliography 1962-1968 (London: Library Association);
35. D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1975) British-Library History: bibliography 1969-1972 (London: Library Association);
36. D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1979) British Library History: bibliography 1973-1976 (London: Library Association);
37. D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1983) British Library History: bibliography 1977-1980 (London: Library Association);
38. D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1987) British Library History: bibliography 1981-1984 (London: Library Association);
39. D. F. Keeling (Ed.) (1991) British Library History: bibliography 1985-1988 (London: Library Association).
40. Library Association (London and Home Counties Branch) (1955) Report of the Public Library System of London and the Home Counties 1954 (Eastbourne: Library Association [London and Home Counties Branch]);
41. Library Association (London and Home Counties Branch) Report of the Public Library System of London and the Home Counties 1959 (Purley: Library Association [London and Home Counties Branch]).
42. P. Layzell Ward (1966) Women and Librarianship (London: Library Association), Table 5.
43. L. R. McColvin (1942) The Public Library System of Great Britain. A Report on its Present Condition with Proposals for Post-war Reorganization (London: Library Association).
44. See L. R. McColvin (1939) Library Staffs, ch. 2 (London: Allen & Unwin).
45. For a discussion see J. Liladhar & E. Kerslake (1999) No more library classes for Catherine. Marital status, career progression and library employment in 1950s England, Women's Studies International Forum, 22, pp. 215-224.
46. McColvin, The Public Library System, p. 175.
47. McColvin, Library Staffs, p. 114.
48. For example, R. S. Cowper (1940) Not in our stars, Library Association Record, 42, pp. 166-167;
49. M Reed (1911) Women's work in libraries, The Librarian, 2, pp. 115-116.
50. A Black (1996) A New History of the English Public Library, Social and Intellectual Contexts, 1850-1914, p. 197 (London: Leicester University).
51. Cited in A. Day (1974) Those library ladies, New Library World, 74(871), pp. 5-6.
52. M Wildenhart (1956) Women in librarianship, Assistant Librarian, 49 (May), pp. 78-80.
53. W. C. Berwick Sayers (1924) Children's libraries. What is being done at Croydon, Sunday School Chronicle, 21 February.
54. E. M Exley (1951) Public libraries, in Fuge, Careers and Vocational Training.
55. P. C. Clements (1958) Library work with children, Library Association Record, 60, p. 322.
56. R. P. A Edwards (1958) Library work with children, Library Association Record, 60, p. 382.
57. N. Moody (1996) The Boots Booklovers' Libraries, Antiquarian Book Monthly, November, pp. 36-38;
58. E. Kerslake, A history of women library workers 1870-1974, PhD, in progress, Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University.
59. Lonsdale, Molly Hilton, pp. 27-28.
60. A Oakley (1974) Housewife (London: Allen & Unwin).
61. See Liladhar & Kerslake, 'No more library classes for Catherine', for a discussion of how young, heterosexually attractive women in career novels terminate their employment in favour of marriage.
62. B. Skeggs (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: becoming respectable, p. 46 (London: Sage).
63. S. D'Cruze (1995) Women and the family, in J. Purvis Women's History: Britain, 1850-1945 (London: UCL).
64. Skeggs, Formations of Class and Gender, p. 67.
65. J. Mills (1991) Womanwords. A vocabulary of culture and patriarchal society, p. 223 and 70 (London: Virago);
66. P. Hanks (Ed.) (1979) Collins Dictionary of the English Language, p. 425 (Glasgow: Collins).
67. C. Smart (Ed.) (1992) Regulating Womanhood: historical essays on marriage, motherhood and sexuality (London: Routledge).
68. E. Jordan (1996) The lady clerks at the Prudential: The beginning of vertical segregation by sex in clerical work in nineteenth-century Britain, Gender and History, 8, pp. 65-81.
69. Mills, Womanwords, p. 32.