A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women 1890-1940 (Family, Sexuality and Social Relations in Past Times)

A Woman's Place is based upon Elizabeth Roberts's interviews with 160 elderly people from the towns of Barrow, Lancaster and Preston. They recall their memories of family life as children, youths and adults in the period between the last decade of the nineteenth century and the outbreak of the Second World War. A Woman's Place shows working-class women to be conscious of, and secure in, the separate, private sphere of home and family, with little feeling of male oppression, but more of class oppression and economic injustice to man and woman alike. A woman's key place within the family as budget manager and domestic decision taker was widely recognized. It was, however, a position won at great cost. The hazards of childbirth, the grueling physical routines of washing, cleaning and cooking, the necessity of undertaking part-time, or (in Preston especially) full-time paid employment to boost the family's meager income, were the coin with which that role was bought. This hard female experience from childhood to motherhood is carefully and sensitively recorded, and the oral evidence supported and elucidated by documentary material from a wide range of local and national sources. Elizabeth Roberts's classic work in the oral history of the family is now reissued to coincide with the publication of Women and Families to which it is a direct prequel. Taken together the two books provide an unrivaled picture of almost a century of social change.
ASIN: 0631147543
VSKU: BVV.0631147543.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Roberts, Elizabeth
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.