Hidden From History: Rediscovering Women in History From the 17th Century to The Present

232 Pages·1976·25.42 MB·English

by  Sheila Rowbotham

V-621/$3.95
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Hidden from History
Hidden
VINTAGE BOOKS
|J#
Rowbotham
Sheila
from
History:
RediscoveringWomen in History
From the 17th Century to the Present
ADivisionofRandomHouse,NewYork
FIRSTVINTAGE BOOKS EDITION,February 1976
Copyright© 1973byPlutoPress,Ltd.,London
Introduction copyright© 1974byRandom House,Inc.,
NewYork.
AllrightsreservedunderInternationaland
Pan-American CopyrightConventions.Publishedin the
United StatesbyRandomHouse,Inc.,NewYork.
Originallypublishedin theUnited Statesby Pantheon
Books,adivision ofRandom House,Inc.,in 1974; andin
GreatBritainbyPlutoPress,Ltd.,London.
Excerptfrom'In SearchofOurMothers'Gardens'by
AliceWalkerreprintedbypermissionofJulian Bach
LiteraryAgency,Inc.; copyright©1974 byAliceWalker.
LibraryofCongress CataloginginPublicationData
Rowbotham,Sheila.
Hiddenfromhistory.
— — —
1.Women History.2.Women GreatBritain History
I.Title.
[HQ1597.R68 1976] 301.41'2'0941 75-28146
ISBN0-394-71621-3
Manufacturedinthe United StatesofAmerica
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
IntroductiontotheAmericanedition ix
Preface xxxv
1 Work, the family and the development
of early capitalism 1
2 Puritans and prophetesses 8
3 The restoration 13
4 The new radicalism of the eighteenth century 19
5 The agricultural and industrial revolution 23
6 New means of resisting 31
7 Birth control and early
nineteenth century radicalism 36
8 Feminism in the radical and
early socialist movement 39
9 Middle-class women begin to organise 47
10 Feminism and rescue work 51
11 The position of working-class women in the
nineteenth century 55
12 Women and trade unions 60
13 Socialism, the family and sexuality 65
14 The struggle for birth control
at the end of the nineteenth century 74
15 The vote 77
16 Some responses to feminism in
the socialist movement before 1914 90
17 The war 108
18 Anti-feminism 123
19 Work, trade unions and the unemployed after
World War I 128
20 The family and sexual radicalism 137
21 Motherhood and the family 144
22 Birth control, abortion and sexual
self-determination 149
23 Feminism and socialism after World War I 159
Postscript 167
Bibliography 170
Bibliographicalpostscript 176
Index 177
Abouttheauthor 185
List of Abbreviations Used
]
ILP East London Federation of the Suffragettes
ELFS Independent Labour Party
SDF Social Democratic Federation
WSPU Socialist Labour Party
SLP Women's Social and Political Union
Acknowledgements
For ideas, information and help I would like to thank:
Joan Smith whose paper on women's production and the family at the
International Socialists' day school on the family in spring 1972 forced
me to re-examine my own ideas historically.
Keith Thomas for sending me his articles on the double standard of
sexual morality and women in the puritan sects.
Christopher Hill for his talk to the Ruskin History Workshop in 1972 on
the family and his talk on 'Sex and Sects' at a meeting of London
Workers Education Association history tutors in January 1973.
Hermione Harris, whose interest in spirit possession, prophecy and
witchcraft and the relationship of myths and magic to social reality has
helped me to think about these subjects.
Edward Thompson for sending me his article on the moral economy of
the eighteenth century crowd, Mary Collier's poem and Tom Mann's
article on co-operative households and both him and Dorothy Thompson
for their criticisms of Women, Resistance and Revolution and for letting
me read Alf Mattison's letter book and their copies of Commonweal.
Gay Webber for lending me her paper on the background to nineteenth
century anthropology.
Suzy Fleming for help on the Women's Labour League.
Gloden Dallas for long conversations about socialism and feminism in
Leeds before 1914.
Anna Davin for telling me about the conditions of women's work in
London in the late nineteenth century.
Florence Exten-Hann and Maurice Hann for giving me their time
in remembering socialism, feminism and the trade union movement in
Bristol and Southampton in the early 1900s.
Bill Fishman for introducing me to East End anarchism in the same
period.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
viii
Barbara Winslow for lending me her thesis on Sylvia Pankhurst and
the East London Federation of the Suffragettes.
Wilhelmina Schroeder and the Institute of Social History in Amsterdam
for allowing me to consult the Sylvia Pankhurst papers.
Sheffield Public Libraryfor letting me use the Carpenter collection.
Julian Harber and Chris Goodey for help on the shop steward move-
ment during World War L
Jean Gardiner for the use of her unpublished paper on the effect of the
1914-18 war on women's position in the economy.
Stanmore and West Wickham WEA classes for their accounts of their
experiences which range from childhood in the 1900s, dilution and war
workto feminism and nursery education in the twenties and the situation
of women teachers and clerical workers in the depression.
Ralph Bond for information about Lily Webb and the organisation of
the unemployed.
Keith Hindel for information about Stella Browne.
Finally for their encouragement, criticism and labour:
Anne Scott and Val Clarke who between them transformed my messy
drafts into typewriting.
Richard Kuper, comrade and publisher, who disentangled my anarchical
use of tenses and scrupulously made clear his political disagreements
while still helping me to say what I wanted to say without imposing his
own views.
David Widgery whose patience and sustained interest in my outpourings
amazes me and who read the text as it was being written, between
snatched Guinnesses when he emerged exhausted from being a house-
surgeonand from his own writingand organising.
And to all the women in women's liberation and without, whose
action, ideas and organisation while this was being written directed
many of the questions I was asking about the past. In particular the
Fakenham women who occupied their factory, the London cleaners who
went on strike, and the women in the claimants union who in campaign-
ing against the cohabitation clause are confronting patriarchy and the
state.