Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Visionary Women and Visible Children, England 1900-1920

Childhood and the Women's Movement

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Berry Mayall

    1. UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Explores how women worked to improve the health and education of elementary school children and to improve their social status
  • Uses the sociology of childhood to investigate children’s experiential knowledge: their duty to help with their family’s economic survival
  • Considers whether and how elementary schooling was important to children

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 1-22

  3. The Women’s Movement and Childhood, 1900–1920

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 23-56

  4. The Economics of Childhood: Home and Neighbourhood

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 57-87

  5. Experiencing Elementary School

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 89-127

  6. Women and Children and the Great War Years

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 129-159

  7. After the Great War

    • Berry Mayall
    Pages 161-191

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 193-229
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book addresses the inter-linked lives and fortunes of children and women in the first two decades of the twentieth century in England. This was a time of shifts in thinking and practice about children’s and women’s status, lived lives and experiences. The book provides a detailed explanation of how children experienced home, neighbourhood and elementary school; as well as discussing the impact of the women’s movement, namely its suffrage and socialist work. These two concerns are linked by the work women did about and for children. Essentially, the book explores childhood and womanhood; generation and gender; and socialism and feminism. Using existing studies on women’s work, and autobiographies and interviews about childhood, Mayall argues that women played a large part in re-thinking childhood as a special period in life, and children as participants in learning and in politics. This book will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of history, education and sociology,particularly those interested in the women’s movement, and the history of childhood. 

Reviews

“A rich and detailed study of the relationship between women and children in the early years of the twentieth century. It sheds important new light on the work of the women’s movement beyond the suffrage campaign, and, through its interesting discussion of personal testimony material, on women and children’s own agency in understanding their lives.” (Angela Davis, History of Education, February, 2019) “By focussing on pioneering women’s work to improve childhood and the social status of children, Berry Mayall re-writes the history of the early women’s movement in England, showing how women pioneers in the early 20C fought for justice for both women and children. Childhood emerges as a social status in society, and children as the new generation on which the nation’s prosperity depended. Alongside their suffrage work, women were at the forefront of work to ensure that children acquired rights and status as deserving of national and international intervention. Through analysis of memoirs, Mayall casts new light on elementary school children’s status as contributors to the economic survival of their families.” (Virginia Morrow, University of Oxford, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom

    Berry Mayall

About the author

Berry Mayall is Professor of Childhood Studies at the UCL Institute of Education, UK. She has conducted many research studies on childhood and has written extensively on sociological approaches to childhood.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Visionary Women and Visible Children, England 1900-1920

  • Book Subtitle: Childhood and the Women's Movement

  • Authors: Berry Mayall

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61207-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-61206-5Published: 08 November 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87025-0Published: 18 May 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-61207-2Published: 26 October 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 229

  • Topics: Early Childhood Education, History of Education, Sociology of Education, Childhood, Adolescence and Society, Social History

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation