Section 3: The Great war and its impact 1914-1939
Social developments 1914-1939
“The years between 1914 and 1939 were marked by extensive social change and improvement’.
Assess the validity of this view.
Intro:
→ Elements of work, class, health, home, region, public attitudes, public participation etc.
Women experienced social change in WW1 when they escaped the private sphere and joined the war effort,
worked in a range of new jobs in the public sphere but especially in industry; the franchise was extended to
them afterwards but only very limited and slow social emancipation followed and the social developments of
WW1 Were largely reversed until WW2. ILS was present in the IWYs; the experience was very unequal and
determined by class, work and region. One of the most important social developments was the decline in
birth rate which had important consequences for women, poverty and housing.
Paragraph 1: ● Political emancipation achieved by ROPA 1918 and Equal Franchise Act 1928
Female BUT:
Emancipation → only 2.3% of MPs were female (15 MPs) and only one female cabinet member.
● Sex Disqualification Act 1919 allowed women to stand for parliament, enter most
professions and serve on juries
BUT:
→ Informal marriage bar restricted recruitment and retention of married women in
most professions until it was outlawed in 1975 and many women hid their marital
status from employers. The 1919 Act was a broken reed.
● Women worked in the 1WW e.g. 35% of workers in industry were female in July
1918: 1.7m in industry; 250,000 in agriculture; 200,000 in army nursing
BUT:
→ Restoration of Pre-war Practices Act after the war led to the dismissal of 775,000
women from industry and men returned to their traditional places of work; women
always paid less. Unions and Labour believed in gender roles and the family wage.
July 1920: 27% of workers in industry were female.
BUT:
→ Pre-1WW female work pattern continued in retail, officies, teaching and, to a lesser
extent in domestic service - all subject to the marriage bar.
→ Women largely agreed with the state of affairs apart from feminists like Brittain and
Rathbone because female work was mostly poorl paid and tedious + real wage of
, husbands sufficient.
→ 1931 only 6.25m women in work - increase of only 0.75m from 1911
→ 1931: 1.3m women in domestic service - many trained in and transferred to it by
government programs in the declining region.
→ Women married earlier in the IWYs than in the Victorian period; only 6% ended in
divorced.
→ Birth Rate declined - by 1939 it was half the rate of 50 years before. Family: 2.2 not
5 children. Significant impact (potentially) on women and, definitely, on living
standards
→ Family planning developed slowly in the 1930s after condemnation by churches
and governments (and Labour) in the 1920’s
→ Women not covered by National Insurance.
Paragraph 2: ● ILS:
Living Conditions → 1929-32: money wages declined by 4% but prices by 25%. Real wages increased
and wages + by 17%. Most kept their jobs. Employers after 1926 agreed with workers: no cuts in
Regions wages as long as job reductions. Miners did, however, suffer both wage cuts and
employment.
→ Life Expectancy increased from 55 (1910) to 66 (1938) for a woman; from 52 to 61
for a man.
→ Infant mortality declined in the 1930s (61:1000 live births in 1940) with serious
regional differences; 138/1000 in Wigan; 73 in Harlow.
→ Rowntree: over half of w/c cohorts born in 1936 would experience poverty in an
early and important part of their lives due to the poverty cycle. 31% of York lived in
poverty independent of unemployment. State pensions increased to 10s for a single
person but still below the poverty line.
→ Council housing built, rent-control present, private-housing boom in 1930s. Better
built with indoor WCs, bathrooms and gardens not yards.
→ Growth in the property-owning demographic, 10% owned their own house.
● Regions:
→ 1930’ known as ‘hungry 30’s’, BUT: there was a recovery and many experienced an
enormous impact on their lives. Rise in real wages of 17%, unemployed in North & NE
did not experience a rise. Unemployment rates of 20%.
→ Reality of the ‘Hungry Thirties’ for the unemployed (miners, ship builders, textile
workers, tin miners of Cornwall, rural migration),
→ NE, NW, S Wales, Glasgow & Belfast vs New industries of SE and Midlands where
skilled work was present.
→ Lancashire, Clyde River: experienced mass-long term unemployment, human
consequences; mortality rate etc.
, → JB Priestley identified Four Englands during these years:
1) The 19th C England of the industrial north;
2) The England of the dole (North, Wales, NI, Scotland),
3) The traditional rural society of the southern counties; and
4) The 20th C England of the home counties, bypasses, new housing estates, the
suburban villas and metropolitan cocktail bars with chrome furniture.
→ Growth of the M/Cs, cheap mortgages, domestic servants, property-owning
democracy (10% to 31% owner-occupation) + social season in Belgravia.
→ 15m did not have access to a radio and the effect of the poverty cycle on most
workers as children and pensioners.
Paragraph 3: → Annual tobacco consumption doubled to £564m by 1938 from £42m in 1914; 80%
Consumption of men and 60% of women smoked.
→ 93m tickets to the cinemas were purchased every week. Women could attend
cinema, not a pub without a man and often went twice a week as did youth.
→ 1938: 903m admission to cinema by 1934 - 80% of taxable entertainment spending.
The remaining 20%: tobacco and alcohol. The came
→ Radio: 1922: 36,000 licences; 1939: 23m. Reithian BBc
→ Pubs decline but still central part of w/c culture: 99,500 pubs in 1907; 77,500 in
1935 but half of alcohol; expenditures are by off-licences.
→ Fish and chips grew; 1929: 1m packets of crisps sold for the first time in one year.
→ Football Pools invented: 1930s turnover: £300-£500m; by 1938 10m did it.
Greyhound racing boomed to 18m attendances in 1938. But most did not bet or attend
‘the dogs’
→ Sport: average match attendance 30,000; 150,000 at FA cup final.
→ Paid holidays; 1920s; 1.5m 1939; 11m. Butlins, 7m visitors in Blackpool; 1m went
abroad.
→ Media: 16% of the country is illiterate, the rest read a newspaper every single day.
News of the World, Daily Mail/Mirror/Express. Sales of books, magazines and libraries
boomed.
Judgement:
Social developments 1914-1939
“The years between 1914 and 1939 were marked by extensive social change and improvement’.
Assess the validity of this view.
Intro:
→ Elements of work, class, health, home, region, public attitudes, public participation etc.
Women experienced social change in WW1 when they escaped the private sphere and joined the war effort,
worked in a range of new jobs in the public sphere but especially in industry; the franchise was extended to
them afterwards but only very limited and slow social emancipation followed and the social developments of
WW1 Were largely reversed until WW2. ILS was present in the IWYs; the experience was very unequal and
determined by class, work and region. One of the most important social developments was the decline in
birth rate which had important consequences for women, poverty and housing.
Paragraph 1: ● Political emancipation achieved by ROPA 1918 and Equal Franchise Act 1928
Female BUT:
Emancipation → only 2.3% of MPs were female (15 MPs) and only one female cabinet member.
● Sex Disqualification Act 1919 allowed women to stand for parliament, enter most
professions and serve on juries
BUT:
→ Informal marriage bar restricted recruitment and retention of married women in
most professions until it was outlawed in 1975 and many women hid their marital
status from employers. The 1919 Act was a broken reed.
● Women worked in the 1WW e.g. 35% of workers in industry were female in July
1918: 1.7m in industry; 250,000 in agriculture; 200,000 in army nursing
BUT:
→ Restoration of Pre-war Practices Act after the war led to the dismissal of 775,000
women from industry and men returned to their traditional places of work; women
always paid less. Unions and Labour believed in gender roles and the family wage.
July 1920: 27% of workers in industry were female.
BUT:
→ Pre-1WW female work pattern continued in retail, officies, teaching and, to a lesser
extent in domestic service - all subject to the marriage bar.
→ Women largely agreed with the state of affairs apart from feminists like Brittain and
Rathbone because female work was mostly poorl paid and tedious + real wage of
, husbands sufficient.
→ 1931 only 6.25m women in work - increase of only 0.75m from 1911
→ 1931: 1.3m women in domestic service - many trained in and transferred to it by
government programs in the declining region.
→ Women married earlier in the IWYs than in the Victorian period; only 6% ended in
divorced.
→ Birth Rate declined - by 1939 it was half the rate of 50 years before. Family: 2.2 not
5 children. Significant impact (potentially) on women and, definitely, on living
standards
→ Family planning developed slowly in the 1930s after condemnation by churches
and governments (and Labour) in the 1920’s
→ Women not covered by National Insurance.
Paragraph 2: ● ILS:
Living Conditions → 1929-32: money wages declined by 4% but prices by 25%. Real wages increased
and wages + by 17%. Most kept their jobs. Employers after 1926 agreed with workers: no cuts in
Regions wages as long as job reductions. Miners did, however, suffer both wage cuts and
employment.
→ Life Expectancy increased from 55 (1910) to 66 (1938) for a woman; from 52 to 61
for a man.
→ Infant mortality declined in the 1930s (61:1000 live births in 1940) with serious
regional differences; 138/1000 in Wigan; 73 in Harlow.
→ Rowntree: over half of w/c cohorts born in 1936 would experience poverty in an
early and important part of their lives due to the poverty cycle. 31% of York lived in
poverty independent of unemployment. State pensions increased to 10s for a single
person but still below the poverty line.
→ Council housing built, rent-control present, private-housing boom in 1930s. Better
built with indoor WCs, bathrooms and gardens not yards.
→ Growth in the property-owning demographic, 10% owned their own house.
● Regions:
→ 1930’ known as ‘hungry 30’s’, BUT: there was a recovery and many experienced an
enormous impact on their lives. Rise in real wages of 17%, unemployed in North & NE
did not experience a rise. Unemployment rates of 20%.
→ Reality of the ‘Hungry Thirties’ for the unemployed (miners, ship builders, textile
workers, tin miners of Cornwall, rural migration),
→ NE, NW, S Wales, Glasgow & Belfast vs New industries of SE and Midlands where
skilled work was present.
→ Lancashire, Clyde River: experienced mass-long term unemployment, human
consequences; mortality rate etc.
, → JB Priestley identified Four Englands during these years:
1) The 19th C England of the industrial north;
2) The England of the dole (North, Wales, NI, Scotland),
3) The traditional rural society of the southern counties; and
4) The 20th C England of the home counties, bypasses, new housing estates, the
suburban villas and metropolitan cocktail bars with chrome furniture.
→ Growth of the M/Cs, cheap mortgages, domestic servants, property-owning
democracy (10% to 31% owner-occupation) + social season in Belgravia.
→ 15m did not have access to a radio and the effect of the poverty cycle on most
workers as children and pensioners.
Paragraph 3: → Annual tobacco consumption doubled to £564m by 1938 from £42m in 1914; 80%
Consumption of men and 60% of women smoked.
→ 93m tickets to the cinemas were purchased every week. Women could attend
cinema, not a pub without a man and often went twice a week as did youth.
→ 1938: 903m admission to cinema by 1934 - 80% of taxable entertainment spending.
The remaining 20%: tobacco and alcohol. The came
→ Radio: 1922: 36,000 licences; 1939: 23m. Reithian BBc
→ Pubs decline but still central part of w/c culture: 99,500 pubs in 1907; 77,500 in
1935 but half of alcohol; expenditures are by off-licences.
→ Fish and chips grew; 1929: 1m packets of crisps sold for the first time in one year.
→ Football Pools invented: 1930s turnover: £300-£500m; by 1938 10m did it.
Greyhound racing boomed to 18m attendances in 1938. But most did not bet or attend
‘the dogs’
→ Sport: average match attendance 30,000; 150,000 at FA cup final.
→ Paid holidays; 1920s; 1.5m 1939; 11m. Butlins, 7m visitors in Blackpool; 1m went
abroad.
→ Media: 16% of the country is illiterate, the rest read a newspaper every single day.
News of the World, Daily Mail/Mirror/Express. Sales of books, magazines and libraries
boomed.
Judgement:
