Chapter 11

Question 1

What percentage did unemployment remain at throughout the 1920s?

Answer 1

10-15%

Question 2

What did the 1923 Matrimonial Causes Act legislate?

Answer 2

Women no longer had to prove cruelty, desertion or another ‘cause’ in addition to adultery to divorce her husband

Question 3

What did the 1924 Guardianship of Infants Act legislate?

Answer 3

It gave guardianship of infant children to both parents jointly

Question 4

What did the 1926 New English Law of Property legislate?

Answer 4

It allowed both married and single women to hold property on the same terms as men

Question 5

What did the 1928 Representation of the People Act legislate?

Answer 5

It gave women over the age of 21 the vote

Question 6

How many women were employed in domestic service as of 1931?

Answer 6

1.6 million women

Question 7

What did the 1919 Sex Disqualification Act legislate?

Answer 7

Women could no longer be barred from a career in the law or the civil service on the basis of their gender

Question 8

What was the ‘marriage bar’?

Answer 8

Female employees, particularly teachers, nurses and doctors were sacked as soon as they married

Question 9

How many civil servants were expelled each year due to their marital status?

Answer 9

4%

Question 10

How many women were adopted as parliamentary candidates by 1929?

Answer 10

69 by 1929

Question 11

How many female MPs were there in 1924 and what percentage of parliament did they make up?

Answer 11

12 (roughly 1%)

Question 12

Who was the first female cabinet minister?

Answer 12

Margaret Bondfield in the Second Labour government

Question 13

How else did women play a key role in organisations outside of formal government?

Answer 13

The National Union for the Societies of Equal Citizenship lobbied parliament to give further legislative equality

Question 14

What were the roles of Women’s Institutes?

Answer 14

Women could meet other women, organise charitable events, and hear speakers

Question 15

How did new fashions reflect the new freedoms of women in work?

Answer 15

Elaborate dress disappeared, hems rose, waistlines dropped, jewellery became more prominent, hair was now cut short

Question 16

What other changes in lifestyle reflected less social restraints of women?

Answer 16

Women were seen in public more, could wear makeup, could attend cinemas, and use birth control

Question 17

What sorts of female magazines were in high circulation?

Answer 17

Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Women’s Weekly which gave hints on fashion and cosmetics and advertised household appliances

Question 18

What were some of the titles of magazines made accessible to children?

Answer 18

Adventure, The Rover and The Wizard

Question 19

Why were cinemas the most popular medium of entertainment?

Answer 19

They were relatively cheap, were comfortable and quite luxurious

Question 20

What did the 1927 Cinematograph Act change about cinemas?

Answer 20

It stated that 7.5% of films shown in the cinemas had to be British, out of a fear of Americanisation

Question 21

What unexpected social change did cinemas cause?

Answer 21

It played an important role in distracting young people from heavy drinking and violence

Question 22

What was the first major public corporation in twentieth-century Britain?

Answer 22

The British Broadcasting Corporation (1926) - independent of the government but under the Paymaster General

Question 23

What did Lord Reith claim the purpose of the BBC was?

Answer 23

To ‘inform, education and entertain’

Question 24

How much had the licenses of radios increased by from 1922 to the late 1930s?

Answer 24

It had risen from 36,000 in 1922 to over 8 million

Question 25

What were the largest cultural changes in art and literature?

Answer 25

Art movements such as ‘Dada’ protested against bourgeois, nationalist and colonialist interests and in literature war veterans and female writers challenged pre-war assumptions

Question 26

What movement experienced widespread support post-war?

Answer 26

Disarmament and the League of Nations