Todd, Selina. (2007) Breadwinners and dependants: working-class young people in England, 1918-1955. International Review of Social History, Vol.52 (No.1). pp. 57-87. ISSN 0020-8590

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Abstract

The prevailing linage of twentieth-century English "youth" is as a triumphal signifier of affluent leisure consumption. By contrast, this article demonstrates the importance of young working-class people's economic role as wage-earners in the mid-twentieth century. This shaped their treatment by the family and the state and the life histories of the adults they became. Juveniles were crucial breadwinners in interwar working-class households. However, the consequences of high unemployment among adult males helped redefine youth as a period of state protection and leisure in the post-1945 decades. Nevertheless, personal affluence remained limited, and young people's economic responsibilities high, until at least the mid-1950s. The history of twentieth-century youth is best understood as one in which young working-class people's fortunes were closely linked to their family's circumstances and their importance as a supply of cheap labour. Social class thus formed, and was formed by, the experience and memory of being young.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Journal or Publication Title:	International Review of Social History
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0020-8590
Date:	April 2007
Volume:	Vol.52
Number:	No.1
Number of Pages:	31
Page Range:	pp. 57-87
Identification Number:	10.1017/S0020859006002781
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/32077

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