Summary of Kate Murphy's Behind the Wireless

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Elise Sprott was a BBC stalwart. She was the first female employee of the British Broadcasting Company, and she spent the rest of her career promoting the Corporation. She was indomitable, and she helped promote the BBC’s work to women and the world.
#2 The BBC had been established in 1922, an auspicious time for women. The vote had been won in 1918, and the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act had enabled entry to most professions. The BBC tapped into this fresh resource.
#3 The BBC attracted a wide range of people, from the unconventional to the conventional. It was a place where women could find economic necessity, self-fulfilment, vocation, duty, and service.
#4 The BBC was Britain’s first broadcasting industry, and it offered the possibility of creative, administrative, and technological careers for those with the requisite drive and skills. It was also extremely class conscious, and hired women and men from all social classes.

Sujets

• Gender studies

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 24 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781669359364
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Kate Murphy's Behind the Wireless
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Elise Sprott was a BBC stalwart. She was the first female employee of the British Broadcasting Company, and she spent the rest of her career promoting the Corporation. She was indomitable, and she helped promote the BBC’s work to women and the world.

#2

The BBC had been established in 1922, an auspicious time for women. The vote had been won in 1918, and the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act had enabled entry to most professions. The BBC tapped into this fresh resource.

#3

The BBC attracted a wide range of people, from the unconventional to the conventional. It was a place where women could find economic necessity, self-fulfilment, vocation, duty, and service.

#4

The BBC was Britain’s first broadcasting industry, and it offered the possibility of creative, administrative, and technological careers for those with the requisite drive and skills. It was also extremely class conscious, and hired women and men from all social classes.

#5

The BBC was a male-dominated organization, and women were rarely involved in the creative process. However, they were involved in the production of programs aimed at women, such as talks.

#6

The first five chapters of this book are about the BBC as a place for women to work. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the BBC in the 1920s and 1930s, its hierarchies and structures, the nature of men and women’s work, the conditions of employment and welfare provision, and Reith’s relationships with female staff.

#7

The BBC has not been very inclusive of women in its history. The image of the BBC is largely masculine because most books and treatises on the UK’s leading institutions are about men, even if they are not specified as such.

#8

The BBC was not a place where women were heavily involved, and they were mostly absent from other books about the Corporation. However, they were mentioned in Reith’s diaries and the memoirs of BBC men.

#9

The BBC’s staff newsletters and journals were filled with women. The first edition of Ariel was published in 1936, and it included articles about individual achievements, notices of arrivals, departures, and marriages, as well as extensive coverage of the BBC Club with its many sporting activities.

#10

The book aims to put the women of the BBC center stage. The 1920s and 1930s in Britain were a period when there was a buzz about new choices and opportunities for trained and educated women, and this is the first comprehensive study of women’s work in a modern professional industry.

#11

Money was in pounds, shillings, and pence. A pound was 20 shillings, each shilling had 12 pence. A guinea was 21 shillings. For waged staff at the BBC, annual increments were often in amounts of two shillings and six pence, the equivalent in decimal currency of 12. 5 pence.

#12

There are two key studies of professional women in the interwar years that relate to the BBC, Alison Oram on teachers and Helen Glew on women in the GPO. Their focus is predominantly on the discrimination women faced in terms of equal pay, marital status, and promotional prospects.

#13

The BBC was a place where women could work and be recognized for their skills. However, it was also a place where women were expected to stay behind the scenes.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The British Broadcasting Company, founded in 1922, became the pre-eminent social and cultural conduit for the nation. It brought programs as diverse as political debates, dance band concerts, and poetry readings into the home. By 1935, 85 percent of the population had a choice of two programs, one National and one Regional.

#2

The BBC was a new organization, and as such, it had no set practices and structures. It was largely constructed on the hoof. The BBC always employed more men than women because there was a large contingent of engineers, who were roughly a third of staff numbers.

#3

The BBC, in its early days, was a chaotic place. It was a gamble for everyone who joined in the first months of operation, but the enthrallment and dedication of its employees helped create a strong sense of egalitarianism.

#4

The General Strike of May 1926 was the last time that women and men came together for a single cause. By the mid-1920s, the BBC was experiencing rapid growth, and there was a high turnover of senior male staff.

#5

The Broadcasting House was a modernist building with 22 studios, a Concert Hall, dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, lounges, libraries, echo rooms, and scores of offices. It was confusing to navigate, with nine floors of labyrinthine corridors arranged around a central column of studios.

#6

The BBC had many offices around the country, and the London headquarters was not the only one. The staff was constantly changing and expanding, and the hierarchy was under centralised control.

#7

The British Broadcasting Company, led by John Reith, was established in 1922. Reith was ambivalent about young university men, appreciating their intellect and creativity, but feeling threatened by his own lack of an elite education.

#8

The BBC’s Administrative hierarchy was the most pertinent to women because this was the division with responsibility for all staffing issues, including recruitment and pay. The Heads of Administration, including the Women’s Staff Administrator, agreed annual increments, issued directives on Saturday working, and implemented the marriage bar.

#9

There were also multifaceted hierarchies within the ranks of women staff at the BBC. The WSA played a crucial role in the lives of the BBC’s waged female office workers, and they had a small administrative team of their own.

#10

The BBC had a grading system, with eight grades for salaried employees and five wages for the waged employees. The five wages were sub-divided into staffing grades. The BBC liked to present itself as a workplace where advancement was possible.

#11

The BBC had a large House Staff, manual workers who, for example, cleaned studios, maintained heating and lighting systems, transported deliveries, and prepared and served meals. The WSA was party to the welfare and conditions of service of female house staff, but their recruitment and working lives were the responsibility of the House Superintendent H. L. Chilman.

#12

The BBC was a workplace where women and men, although differentiated as salaried or waged, were constantly interacting with each other. There was no evidence that the BBC was any worse than any other workplace.

#13

The UK’s female workforce in the interwar years was predominantly one of youth, predicated by women’s retirement from paid work when they married.