The politics of preference: Masculinity, marital status and unemployment relief in post-first world war Britain

Cultural and Social History

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 233-252

  Levine Clark, Marjorie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

Government documents; Marital status; Masculinity; Unemployment; Veterans; Welfare

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952931914     PISSN: 14780038     EISSN: 14780046     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2752/147800410X12634795054694     Document Type: Article

References (123)

1. 'Unemployment in Brierley Hill. Relief Committee Formed', County Express, 19 February 1921, p. 7.
2. 'Unemployment Debates. Brierley Hill Scheme Criticized', County Advertiser, 5 March 1921, p. 3.
3. 'Brierley Hill and Distress. How It Is Being Dealt With', County Advertiser, 5 March 1921, p. 5.
4. 'The Unemployed. Brierley Hill Ex-Service Men and Mr H. Bullus', County Express, 12 March 1921, p. 5.
5. 'District News. Brierley Hill. Ex-Service Men on the Defensive', Dudley Chronicle, 12 March 1921, p. 7.
6. 'Mr Bullus and Ex-Service Men', Dudley Chronicle, 2 April 1921, p. 2.
7. See, for example, Nicoletta Gullace, 'The Blood of Our Sons': Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War (New York, 2004), especially Part I.
8. Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain and the GreatWar (London, 1996), pp. 163-4.
9. For an extended discussion of the uses of gender and sexuality to restore 'normalcy' in postwar Britain, see Susan Kingsley Kent, Making Peace: The Reconstruction of Gender in Interwar Britain (Princeton, NJ, 1993).
10. See, for example, George Robb, British Culture and the First World War (New York, 2002), pp. 33-5.
11. Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (New York, 1994), p. 1.
12. See Bourke, Dismembering the Male.
13. Alison Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature, and Conservatism between theWars (New York, 1991).
14. Martin Francis, 'The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Masculinity', Historical Journal, 45 (2002), pp. 637-52.
15. Jessica Meyer, Men ofWar: Masculinity and the FirstWorldWar in Britain (New York, 2009).
16. See, for example, Ann Orloff, 'Gender in theWelfare State', Annual Review of Sociology, 22 (1996), pp. 51-78.
17. Jane Lewis, 'Gender and the Development ofWelfare Regimes', Journal of European Policy, 2 (1992), pp. 159-173.
18. Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the British Welfare State, 1914-1945 (New York, 1993).
19. Mary Daly, The Gender Division ofWelfare: The Impact of the British and GermanWelfare States (New York, 2000).
20. Susan Pedersen, 'Gender, Welfare, and Citizenship in Britain during the Great War', American Historical Review, 95 (1990), pp. 983-1006.
21. John Horne, 'Masculinity in Politics and War in the Age of Nation-States and WorldWars, 1850-1950', in Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann and John Tosh (eds), Masculinities in Politics andWar: Gendering Modern History (Manchester, 2004), p. 34.
22. This is a large and expanding literature. For an introduction, see John Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth Century Britain (New York, 2004).
23. Francis, 'The Domestication of the Male?'.
24. Karen Harvey and Alexandra Shepherd, 'What Have Historians Done with Masculinity? Reflections on Five Centuries of British History, circa 1500-1950', Journal of British Studies, 44 (2005), pp. 274-80.
25. John Tosh, 'Masculinities in an Industrializing Society, 1800-1914', Journal of British Studies, 44 (2005), pp. 330-42.
26. Stephen Heathorn, 'How Stiff Were Their Upper Lips? Research on Late Victorian and Edwardian Masculinity', History Compass, 2 (2004), http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/history/.
27. Michael Roper and John Tosh (eds), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (New York, 1991), especially Introduction.
28. Sonya Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth-Century England (Berkeley, CA, 1992).
29. Keith McClelland, '"England's greatness, the working man"', in Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall (eds), Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender, and the Reform Act of 1867 (New York, 2000), pp. 71-118.
30. Keith McClelland, 'Some Thoughts on Masculinity and the "Representative Artisan" in Britain, 1850-1880', Gender & History, 1 (1989), pp. 164-77.
31. Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity (New York, 1993), especially pp. 62-98.
32. Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939 (Berkeley, CA, 2001), pp. 105-6.
33. Cohen, War Come Home, pp. 105-6.
34. Meyer, Men ofWar, pp. 97-127.
35. For an introduction to the uses and challenges of the idea of 'hegemonic masculinity', see John Tosh, 'Hegemonic Masculinity and the History of Gender', in Dudink, Hagemann and Tosh, Masculinities in Politics andWar, pp. 41-58.
36. As Tosh notes, the concept was first introduced by R.W. Connell, WhichWay Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture (Sydney and London, 1983).
37. Anna Clark's work on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries examines differences between married men and bachelors, in terms of both their cultural and political experiences, at a time of strained resources: The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the BritishWorking Class (Berkeley, CA, 1995).
38. See, for example, Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities, pp. 43, 114.
39. Angus McLaren, The Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870-1930 (Chicago, IL, 1997), p. 55.
40. These are major studies of masculinity which have very little to say about unmarried men.
41. Eric Strikwerda has examined the issue of preference for married men in work relief schemes in Depression-era Canada, and also found that single unemployed men tended to be regarded as a danger to the city to the point that work relief schemes were designed to force them out of the city and onto the prairie.
42. '"Married Men Should, I Feel, Be Treated Differently": Work, Relief, and Unemployed Men on the Urban Canadian Prairie, 1929-32', Left History, 12 (2007), pp. 30-51.
43. McLaren, Trials of Masculinity, pp. 55, 252, n69.
44. See, for example, the influential José Harris, Unemployment and Politics: A Study in English Social Policy, 1886-1914 (Oxford, 1972), pp. 1-2.
45. For an introduction to the Poor Law, see Lynn Hollen Lees, The Solidarities of Strangers: The English Poor Laws and the People, 1700-1948 (New York, 1998).
46. Anthony Brundage, The English Poor Laws, 1700-1930 (New York, 2001).
47. Noel Whiteside and James A. Gillespie, 'Deconstructing Unemployment: Developments in Britain in the Interwar Years', Economic History Review, 44 (1991), pp. 674-5.
48. 'the "unemployed" were distinguished from the rest of the pauper host by their moral superiority: made evident in their previous regular working habits, their independence, thrift, sobriety, and honesty. Policies for the unemployed therefore aimed to save these stout fellows from the horrors of a punitive poor law, on whose tender mercies they might be thrown in hard times, through no fault of their own'.
49. See, for example, David Vincent, Poor Citizens: The State and the Poor in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1991), p. 18.
50. Tosh, Men and Masculinities, p. 36.
51. On the male breadwinner ideal broadly, see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, 'The Origins and Expansion of the Male Breadwinner Family: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Britain', International Review of Social History, 42 (1997), pp. 25-64.
52. A. Janssens, 'The Rise and Decline of theMale Breadwinner Family? An Overview of the Debate', International Review of Social History, 42 (1997), pp. 1-23.
53. Wally Seccombe, 'Patriarchy Stabilized: The Construction of the Male Breadwinner Norm in Nineteenth-Century Britain', Social History, 11 (1986), pp. 53-76.
54. For discussions of the breadwinner ideal in its relationship to welfare in Britain, see, among others, Lees, Solidarities of Strangers.
55. Anna Clark, 'The New Poor Law and the Breadwinner Wage: Contrasting Assumptions', Journal of Social History, 34 (2000), pp. 261-81.
56. Marjorie Levine-Clark, 'Engendering Relief: Women, Ablebodiedness, and the New Poor Law in Early Victorian England', Journal of Women's History, 11 (2000), pp. 107-30.
57. Pedersen, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the British Welfare State.
58. Clark, Struggle for the Breeches.
59. See also McClelland, '"England's greatness, the working man"'.
60. McClelland, 'The "Representative Artisan"'.
61. Rose, Limited Livelihoods.
62. Keith McClelland, 'Masculinity and the "Representative Artisan" in Britain, 1850-80', in Roper and Tosh (eds), Manful Assertions, p. 82.
63. See, for example, Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities, p. 36.
64. Rose, Limited Livelihoods, p. 128.
65. A study of men and welfare notes the staying power of this construction, stressing that: 'Throughout the twentieth century the place and norm of the working man and the socalled "family wage" have continued to be crucial in the governance of welfare.'
66. Jeff Hearn, 'The Welfare of Men?', in Jennie Popay, Jeff Hearn and Jeanette Edwards (eds), Men, Gender Divisions andWelfare (New York, 1998), p. 24.
67. On local work relief schemes, see W.R. Garside, British Unemployment, 1919-1939: A Study in Public Policy (New York, 1990), pp. 299-300.
68. 'Dudley Distress Committee. How Work Is Found for the Genuine Unemployed', Dudley Herald, 23 October 1909, p. 11.
69. John Burnett, Idle Hands: The Experience of Unemployment, 1790-1990 (New York, 1994), p. 196.
70. Lees, Solidarities of Strangers, p. 327.
71. For the post-war unemployment context, see Garside, British Unemployment.
72. Whiteside and Gillespie, 'Deconstructing Unemployment', pp. 665-82.
73. Barry Eichengreen, 'Unemployment in Interwar Britain: Dole or Doldrums', Oxford Economic Papers 39 (1987), pp. 597-623.
74. Vincent, Poor Citizens.
75. Burnett, Idle Hands, pp. 199-264.
76. Keith Laybourn, '"Waking up to the Fact That There Are Any Unemployed": Women, Unemployment, and the Domestic Solution in Britain, 1918-1939', History, 88 (2003), pp. 606-23.
77. 'Stourbridge Guardians', County Express, 22 January 1921, p. 5.
78. 'Stourbridge Guardians', County Express, 23 July 1921, p. 7.
79. 'Tipton Unemployed. Deputation to the Council', Dudley Herald, 10 September 1921, p. 8.
80. Stephen Brumwell, 'Home from the Wars', History Today, 52 (March 2002), p. 44.
81. London, National Archives (NA), T 161/46, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour on the Training of Fit Ex-Service Men, 20 May 1920.
82. NA, T 161/46, Cabinet Draft Minutes on the Training of Fit Ex-Service Men, 24 June 1920.
83. Meyer, Men ofWar, p. 39.
84. David Englander, 'Soldiers and Social Reform in the First and Second World Wars', Historical Research, 67 (1994), p. 318.
85. NA, T 161/41, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour, Cabinet Out ofWork Donation, 17 July 1920.
86. Bentley B. Gilbert, British Social Policy, 1914-1939 (Ithaca, NY, 1970), p. 60.
87. See also Garside, British Unemployment, p. 35.
88. Garside, British Unemployment, pp. 35-6.
89. NA, T 161/41, 'Report on the Enquiry Made to Ascertain what Classes of Ex-Service Men Are Remaining on Donation for Long Periods andWhy Their Unemployment Continues', prepared by Hugh McRae, 15 October 1919.
90. Pedersen, Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the BritishWelfare State, pp. 126-7.
91. NA, T 161/41, 'Report on the Enquiry Made', prepared by Hugh McRae, 15 October 1919.
92. NA, CAB 24/92, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour, 'Out-of-Work-Donation', 5 November 1920.
93. NA, CAB 23/18, CC 4 (19), Cabinet Conclusions, 7 November 1919.
94. NA, CAB 23/22, CC 43 (20), Cabinet Conclusions, 29 July 1920.
95. NA, T 161/41, Memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, n.d. [July 1920].
96. NA, T 161/41, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour, 17 July 1920.
97. NA, CAB 23/22, CC 43 (20), Cabinet Conclusions, 29 July 1920.
98. NA, T 161/41, J.R. Griffin, the General Secretary of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers, 20 July 1920.
99. NA, T 161/41, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour, 24 July 1920. Emphasis is in the original document.
100. See, for example, Bernard Harris, The Origins of the British Welfare State: Social Welfare in England and Wales, 1800-1945 (New York, 2004), p. 204.
101. This was articulated even more clearly in a September 1920 Cabinet discussion which stressed that 'public opinion would not support the Government in referring [exservicemen] to the Poor Law'. NA, CAB 23/22, CC 53 (20), Cabinet Conclusions, 30 September 1920.
102. NA, T 161/41, Draft Cabinet Minutes on Out-of-Work Donation Extension, 29 July 1920.
103. NA, T 161/41, Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Coal Strike and Out of Work Donation, 14 May 1920. My emphasis.
104. NA, LAB 2/856/15/ed5374, 'Report of Proceedings between a Deputation from the British Legion and the Minister of Labour', 17 October 1921, pp. 22-3.
105. For an excellent discussion of disabled ex-servicemen and employment, see Meyer, Men of War, chap. 4, pp. 97-127.
106. Meaghan Kowalsky, '"This Honourable Obligation": The King's Roll National Scheme for Disabled Ex-Servicemen 1915-1944', European Review of History, 14 (2007), pp. 567-84.
107. Cohen, War Come Home, pp. 39-40, 109-10.
108. Cohen, War Come Home, p. 39.
109. Quoted in Cohen, War Come Home, p. 17.
110. Bourke, Dismembering, p. 56.
111. NA, LAB 2/748, From Phillips to Barlow, 11 May 1920.
112. NA, CAB 23/21, CC 37 (20), Cabinet Conclusions, 24 June 1920.
113. On the Unemployment Grants Committee, see Garside, British Unemployment, pp. 303-7.
114. For discussion of the limitations of what could be accomplished by the Unemployment Grants Committee, see K.J. Hancock, 'The Reduction of Unemployment as a Problem of Public Policy', Economic History Review, 15 (1962), pp. 334-8.
115. NA, LAB 4/150, Unemployment Grants Committee, Preference to Ex-Service Men, 1 February 1923.
116. NA, MH 57/126, Unemployment Grants Committee, 'Interim Report of Proceedings from 20th December, 1920 to 2nd March, 1922', p. 7.
117. NA, LAB 2/856/15/ed5374, 'Report of Proceedings between a Deputation from the British Legion and the Minister of Labour', 17 October 1921, p. 28.
118. NA, LAB 4/150, Cabinet Unemployment Committee, Preference for Ex-Service Men on State Assisted Schemes in Relief of Unemployment, n.d. [January 1923?].
119. Cohen, War Come Home, p. 107.
120. Cohen, War Come Home, p. 106.
121. Robb, British Culture and the FirstWorldWar, p. 34.
122. Bourke, Dismembering, p. 70.
123. Bourke, Dismembering, p. 72.