Women in Fifties Britain: A New Look

Contented housewives, glamorous women, jive-mad teenagers – all are common figures in popular perceptions of 1950s Britain. But what more did it mean to be a girl or woman in the fifties? And what are the implications of this history for understanding post-war Britain? Women in Fifties Britain explores the lived experience of girls and women, and the way in which their story has been told. Crossing boundaries – disciplinary, conceptual and thematic – and drawing creatively on new and established sources, it extends and enriches the terrain of women’s history. Diverse groups of women come into view, including farmer’s wives, university-educated women, activist housewives, working mothers, Jewish refugees, girls ‘at risk’ and private secretaries. Revealing that their private, public and professional lives were central to reshaping society, the collection engages with the legacy of World War II, and with questions about the distinctiveness of the 1950s. Embracing emotion, labour, gender, class, race, sociability, sexuality and much more, the authors offer penetrating exploration of established and new categories of historical analysis. Placing the politics of gender at the heart of Britain’s reconstruction, this engaging and important collection re-visions 1950s Britain and the women that made it.This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s History Review.

About the Author

Penny Tinkler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK. Her publications include Constructing Girlhood (1995), Smoke Signals: Women, Smoking and Visual Culture (2006) and Using Photographs in Social and Historical Research (2013). She currently holds an ESRC award: ‘Transitions and Mobilities: Girls growing up in Britain 1954-76 and the implications for later-life experience and identity’. Stephanie Spencer is Professor of the History of Women’s Education at the University of Winchester, UK. Her publications include Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s (2005), and Alumni Voices: The Changing Experience of Higher Education (2015). She is currently researching British and American school stories for girls. Claire Langhamer is Professor of Modern British History at the University of Sussex, UK. Her publications include Women’s Leisure in England, 1920–1960 (2000) and The English in Love: The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution (2013). She is currently researching feelings at work in post-war Britain.