Mothers, Wives and Changing Lives

Brian Brown, Sally Baker

Description

Despite the great changes that the twentieth century brought to the lives and roles of the women of rural Wales, there has been scant attention paid to the topic by social scientists and historians, even within Wales. "Mothers, Wives and Changing Lives" rectifies that mistake, drawing on a wealth of family stories about women's roles in education, the church, and the family in order to address significant gaps in our knowledge of women and Welsh culture.

Sujets

• Women's Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• 20th century
• Wales

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708323359
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Mothers, Wives and Changing Lives

Women in Mid-Twentieth Century Rural Wales

B. J. Brown and Sally Baker

University of Wales Press

MOTHERS,WIVES AND CHANGING LIVES

Mothers,Wives and Changing Lives WOMEN IN MID TWENTIETH-CENTURY RURAL WALES

B. J. Brown and Sally Baker

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS CARDIFF 2011

© B. J. Brown and Sally Baker, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CIP A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-2334-2 e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2335-9

The rights of B. J. Brown and Sally Baker to be identified as authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typeset by Mark Heslington Ltd, Scarborough, NorthYorkshire Printed in Wales by Dinefwr Press, Llandybïe

This book is dedicated to R. Merfyn Jones, Graham Day and Duncan Tanner

In memoriamDuncan Tanner (1958–2010)

Acknowledgements

a

We extend our thanks to the many people who agreed to be interviewed for this book and who subsequently gave so gener- ously of their time, providing fascinating and moving narratives of their earlier lives.We also need to thank numerous friends and neighbours who for years have provided us with information and anecdotes regarding the recent past of rural Wales that stimulated our interest in the socio-politics of a region of Britain in many ways very different from the one in which we originated, long before we began formally researching it. We are especially grateful to Derek Robbins of the University of East London, who provided critical feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript, and it was at his urging that we explored the parallels between our respondents’ lives and culture and Bourdieu’s ethnographic work. We have benefited enormously from the enthusiasm and expertise of colleagues at Bangor University, especially Merfyn Jones, whose work on the subject initially inter- ested us in researching this fascinating region, and Graham Day, whose willingness to share his vast knowledge and experience in the sociology of Wales is invaluable. Particular thanks are also due to Howard Davis (who has an uncanny ability to spot potential problems) and to Ian Rees Jones.We have not been able to use in this volume all of the material that we collected during the inter- views.We have further publications planned. It was a privilege to have planned the future work with Duncan Tanner, Professor of Modern History at Bangor University, who was generous in his encouragement of scholars lesser than himself. His recent untimely

Acknowledgements

death has stolen from us a guide and a friend.This volume builds therefore on the intellectual capital of different scholars and disci- plines, and represents a trajectory which was at times arduous but was also enormously rewarding. The fieldwork for this book was funded by British Academy Grant SG-45236 and we are most grateful for this support.