Class/liberal society Flashcards
WW1 had a positive impact on class
Political - between 1915-1918 union membership rose by 4 million but suffered loss in interwar years. However they gained power after WW2 with TUs protected wages and rights and it aided the rise of the Labour party
Homeownership - by 1939 60% middle class were homeowners compared to 20% working class.
Stimulated middle class employment with a 34% growth in commercial and financial jobs 1911-1921
Jobs -growth of white-collar jobs in science, technology, and engineering and an expansion of clerking jobs for women, teaching also grew
WW1 had a negative impact on class
War Deaths
The high death toll (704,803 men) shook the confidence the working class had in upper-class
Old Etonians died – often served as officers – higher mortality rate meant the cost of war rose for the upper class because of the death taxes. Huge increase in income tax meant it was harder to pay for their country estates
Landowners sold off a lot of land – 1/4 land sold between 1918-1920
Rise of Labour
Accelerated the decline of the landed-elite power in the house of commons
Labour MPs were more middle/working class
While healthy landowners made up 40% of MPs in 1910 which fell to around 5% by 1945
Class and social values 1918-39
In 1939, then, the class system and society were not so different from 1914
1919 – gov feared revolt in some parts of the country – result of long-term economic factors, and that working-class attitudes towards other classes changed
1926 – The Times attacked strikers calling them unpatriotic class warriors. Middle-class volunteers organised to break the strike, identifying with what they believed was the national interest.
Late 1920s – strikes were in decline and the Conservative Party had widespread working and middle-class support in general elections – far less class conflict than commentators at the time originally thought.
Great Depression – undermine working-class solidarity because union membership declined due to unemployment
There was a growth of new jobs and affluence in the Midlands and southeast – regions like south Wales and the northeast were severely affected
Unions in affluent areas were unlikely to strike in solidarity with poorer unemployed worker
WW2 had a positive impact on class (reinforced the same system)
Labours landslide victory was not a revolt against the class system but more a recognition that the hardships of the 1930s are not to be repeated
Evacuation from working class London areas to more affluent countryside properties reinforced the class prejudices
Britan’s class system, privilege and deference remained intact – some labour minister believed that institutions like the HoL and elite public schools should be abolished but Atlee gov decided not to
WW2 had a negative impact on class (change in the current system)
Saw both parties campaigning on a platform of greater state intervention in society - attitudes towards the role of the government had changed
Establishment of a Labour government committed to nationalisation and a welfare state changed the role of the state in people’s lives
Evacuation, homelessness via bombing, and rationing hardships – they made things a bit more equal
The decline of deference was for positive reasons
End of rationing in 1954
Relaxation of consumer credit - allowed working class households to have new prosperity - more people started to question the class system
The ‘satire boom’
1960 – ‘Beyond the Fringe’ – played to packed audiences and attracted fierce controversy for making fun of Britain’s establishment: the government, army and the upper classes.
One sketch titled ‘The Aftermyth of the War’ poured scorn on Britain’s war effort, even though for most people the war was a recent memory and a victory of which to feel proud.
‘That Was the Week that Was’ (1962-3) starring David Frost, which combined satirical humour with interviews of leading politicians – first time that the public saw elite political figures on TV being questioned by journalists – it represented a clear change in public attitudes to authority.
‘British New Wave’
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw a profusion of novels about working-class men and women coming to terms with the end of the old working-class world of the pre-war era and the birth of new prosperity.
Saturday Night Sunday Morning (1960) – film – featured an angry young working-class man who has contempt for his bosses, the authorities and his own community. Arthur is an amoral character who is desperate to escape his background, but who enjoys all the benefits of the new consumerism. Far from being a left-wing working-class hero, he is a product of the affluent society. Both the book and the film were very popular and indicated that working-class ideas about respect for authority and the older generations were in decline.
The decline of deference was for negative reasons - John Profumo Sex scandals
Events
Rumours began of elite sex parties regularly held at Cliveden (stately home owned by the Astors).
The satirical magazine Private Eye was particularly important in reporting these rumours, but the rest of the press latched onto them, especially when it was alleged that Minister of War John Profumo was sharing a 19-year-old sexual partner, Christine Keeler, with Soviet attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov.
While there was no evidence Profumo had divulged any state secrets, the potential for blackmail was evident. Prior to the Profumo scandal sexual misconducts of politicians, the royal family and other establishment figures were routinely ignored by Britain’s powerful press barons.
However, in 1963 the Profumo scandal was featured on the front pages of the Mirror, News of the World, Daily Express and Daily Mail. People were shocked by the revelations of sexual activity, especially after Profumo at first vehemently denied such behaviour then later admitted to it. Profumo resigned in March 1963 and some commentators believe that the scandal led to the defeat of the government, by four seats, in the 1964 General Election.
Significance
People were shocked not only that members of the establishment had been indulging in seedy practices but that they routinely lied about such involvement until caught out. This marked a watershed when people realised their leaders were not necessarily paragons of virtue and didn’t deserve people’s trust purely by virtue of position
To an extent, the revelations resulted from the growth of satire, itself a mark of decline in deference - so the scandal both developed and resulted from changing social attitudes.
Attitudes towards class significantly changed
Yes
- Satire boom
- New Wave
- Sex Scandals - shook the faith that the public had in people in government as good people who are honest
- Somewhat increased class mobility
No
There was still a class structure - it just got challenged more often by different classes
The liberal society 1950s
1950s – state had a role in regulating private sexual behaviour, particularly homosexuality, was widely accepted.
1950s – popular foreign view was that the British were reserved and sexually repressed – little sex education – unlikely
Cases of venereal disease were high in Britain until the discovery of penicillin, and prostitution flourished during the Second World War.
1950s survey – 1/5 of women born between 1894-1904 had had pre-marital sex and 1/2 of women (1924-1934) had sex before marriage.
1930s onwards – growing demand for advice books about sex.
Eustace Chesser’s 1941 book Love Without Fear, which explained that both men and women could enjoy sex, had sold 3 million copies by 1964.
This shows that there was a big difference between what British people in the 1950s said about sex and what they did.
Possible to argue that Britain did not experience a sexual revolution in the 1960s, but that sexual behaviour had been steadily changing throughout the century. The liberal society 1960s
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
Penguin Books published it in 1960
The gov prosecutes Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 (meant to relax censorship, allows jury can consider literary merit’)
The jury decided that Lady Chatterley’s Lover had sufficient merit – Publicity caused sales of the book to soar.
Showed laws around obscenity were outdated and Britain’s attitude towards sex and morality was changing.
One result was the growth of the pornography industry.
Areas of cities such as Soho in London became synonymous with shops selling pornography.
Pornography was illegal, but the Obscene Publications Act was so ambiguously worded that prosecuting sellers and publishers was difficult. Low printing costs and corrupt police officers in the Obscene Publications Squad of Scotland Yard enabled the industry to flourish.
The liberal society 1960s
Sex
1965 – Michael Schofield’s The Sexual Behaviour of Young People, was based on interviews with 2,000 teenagers and uncovered that
One in three boys and one in six girls between sixteen and nineteen had had sex.
All of those that had were in established relationships and were not promiscuous.
1970 – Geoffrey Gorer study – similar conclusions as it suggests that attitudes had not particularly changed at all by 1969.
The media
Newspapers – during an age of mass consumerism advertisers paid to place their advertisements in the tabloid press, knowing they would reach a wide audience.
Sex scandals and the discussion of sex in articles – captured a large readership but associated sex with celebrity and consumerism.
Adverts used sexual allure as a sales technique to sell products.
Scandals polarised British public opinion on sex between those who were alarmed about the rise of ‘permissive’ attitudes and those who embraced the new openness.
The states views on sexuality was progressive 1950s-1970s
The Sexual Offences Act, 1967
1958 - Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) founded - followed a letter to The Times calling for a reform to the law, signed by Clement Attlee, intellectual Isaiah Berlin and historian A.J.P. Taylor among others.
The HLRS was active in campaigning for a change to the law and in lobbying the government to implement the Wolfenden recommendations.
From 1960 to 1966, there were various attempts to introduce a Sexual Offences Bill based on the Wolfenden Report and finally, in 1967, the Labour MP Leo Abse’s private member’s bill was passed by a narrow majority.
Home Secretary Roy Jenkins gave the bill parliamentary time, even though he had quite conservative opinions on sexual morality. Jenkins believed that homosexuality should be decriminalised because criminalising aspects of private life was ‘uncivilised’.
Jenkins also allowed parliamentary time for the MP David Steel’s 1967 Abortion Act. Parliament passed the Act, which legalised abortion of a pregnancy up to 28 weeks.
Neither move was particularly popular, showing that despite the new affluence of the 1960s some attitudes towards private life had not changed. Of those interviewed by Schofield and later Gorer, 85% disapproved of homosexuality and half believed it should be punished more severely.
The states views on sexuality were not progressive 1950s-1970s
1957 – Wolfenden Report - LARGELY NOT PROGRESSIVE
Made due to pressure from church groups and moral campaigners
Said that there had been a decline in ‘morality’ since the war and family life weakened. Wolfenden believed that the law against prostitution should be harsher, but that homosexual activity between consenting adults over 21, in private, should be decriminalised.
Wolfenden believed that prostitution was a public display of ‘immorality’ whereas male homosexuality was at least hidden. This meant that the state could police public acts of sexuality, but it had no right to regulate private life.
Attitudes towards the church changed
Lord Longford, a devout Catholic, funded his own report into pornography and visited the sex industry in Copenhagen to investigate the effects of an end to censorship.
He concluded in 1972 that the Obscene Publications Act 1959 had made it easy for pornography to be published and called for new censorship against materials that ‘outrage contemporary standards of decency or humanity accepted by the public at large’.
The overtly evangelical approach of the Festival of Light alienated many people who shared their concerns but who were not church-going Christians.
Mary Whitehouse was significant
1964 – launched a campaign group called Clean Up TV.
Believed TV was the most corrupting medium in modern life and was introducing un-Christian ideas to British youth.
Rapid popularity of Whitehouse’s new organisation indicated that many people agreed with her.
At the first meeting of Clean Up TV over 70 coaches full of campaigners filled Birmingham Town Hall and most of their criticism was directed against the BBC.
She condemned scenes of a sexual nature on television, images of drinking, criticism of the royal family and references to crime and lawlessness.
Often more extreme than those of her supporters. She believed that television and consumerism were eroding faith in God in Britain and that her task was to bring the country back to what she believed were its original Christian roots.
