Livesey, Ruth (1999) Women, class and social action in late-Victorian and Edwardian London. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between class, gender and feminist identity through
an examination of women's involvement in philanthropy and social reform in London
from 1870 to 1906. Middle-class women's engagement in such work — termed
collectively here as 'social action' — has long been claimed as the nursery of first-wave
feminist political identity. Numerous historians have framed social action as the means by
which women moved from the 'private' to the 'public' sphere and the ground where
women developed their claim to a place in national political life in the three decades prior
to the upsurge of suffrage campaigning in 1906. Whilst agreeing with this broad narrative
of the relationship between social action and feminism, the thesis addresses the lack of
discussion of class differences between women in the existing literature on the subject.
The forms of social action examined in detail in this thesis were predicated upon this very
difference between women: on the belief in the power of the lady to reshape the bodies,
characters, homes and workplaces of poor women. Women social activists themselves had
a central role in making identities of class, through the dissemination of their expert
opinions on the domestic life of the urban poor. In the context of the changing
understanding of duty in the later nineteenth century the thesis argues that the agency of
femininity in effecting social change came to be seen as of less significance as the century
progressed. Women social activists instead drew upon codes of class to justify their work,
constructing themselves as authoritative professionals, licenced to speak and act for
working-class women. The thesis brings to the fore the (often strained and contested)
encounters between lady social activists and the women and men who were their objects
of reform using detailed case studies of philanthropic rent-collecting schemes, the London
Charity Organisation Society and the women's factory inspectorate. It concludes that
social action was indeed the material from which modern feminist identity made itself,
but that this identity was founded on middle-class women's differentiation of themselves
from working-class women.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Women social reformers -- England -- London -- 19th century, Women philanthropists -- England -- London -- 19th century, Feminism -- England, Social classes -- England -- London -- 19th century
Official Date:	September 1999
Dates:	Date Event September 1999 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for the Study of Women and Gender
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Steedman, Carolyn
Sponsors:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC) ; University of Warwick ; British Academy ; University of Warwick. Humanities Research Centre
Extent:	283 leaves
Language:	eng

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