Imperialism and Motherhood

Question 1

What does C.F.G. Masterman argue in ‘The Condition of England’ (1909)

Answer 1

Masterman emphasises the significance of the city-bred race as the battleground for the future of a race and national character

Increasingly, the population of the city is bred in the city. (Link to not survive 3 generations)

The City above all provides multiple opportunities for crowds to form. The crowd has no moral sense (Freudianism). The individual sense departs you, group acts on urge and feeling (Edwardian view)

Question 2

What does Sir Edward Maurice exclaim in the context of the Report on Physical Deterioration

How does it link to the report’s findings

Answer 2

“Of those who wish to be soldiers, only two out of five are to be found in the ranks at the end of the two years”

Committee contradicts Sir Fredrick’s claim. Mainly as there’s no evidence which could support such claims and therefore could not support the alarmist statement.

Question 3

What does the report on Physical Deterioration focus on

Answer 3

Urbanisation
Local government responses
Factory issues
Alcohol
Depletion of the countryside (negative feedback loop) 
Eugenics 
Food 
Motherhood

Childhood was a crucial focus - among the 53 recommendations, 30 concerned with children or mothers

Question 4

What were the findings of the report on physical deterioration

Answer 4

Rejects progressive deterioration.

Abundant signs of physical defect were not due to nature but to nurture

Determined the direction of future reforms to improve the fitness of the nation. Most historians suggest that such proposals were very bold.

Question 5

What recommendations were made by the report on physical deterioration

Answer 5

Anthropometric survey of school children

Labour colonies are commended, but not the kind proposed by Charles Booth. Instead commended those by the Salvation Army – genuinely meant to help.

Accepted the proposals from the medical officers of health: partly a matter of food, partly environment.

Teaching mothers to cook nutritionally. Avoid the alteration of foods

• Feeding of children
• Training mothers

Question 6

What percentage of women were employed in 1881 and 1911 outside of the home

Answer 6

1881 - 39%

1911 - 35%

Question 7

Why might there be a fall in women in employment 1891-1911

Answer 7

Perhaps due to the emphasis on motherhood:

- Domestic service accounts for most young women (45% and 39% respectively)

Question 8

Give a counter argument to the fall of female employment 1891-1911

Answer 8

Whilst the percentage of women employed decreased slightly, the numbers still rose from 3.8 million (1891) to 5.4 million (1911)

Equally, whilst the percentage of women in the employment sector was falling, this was mainly in sector such as Domestic Services (6% drop) and Textiles (3% drop)

However. the percentage of women employed in skilled sectors actually increased:

• Professional Occupations (5.2% - 7.1%)
• Commercial Occupations (0.3% - 2.0%)
• Public administration (0.2% - 0.9%)

Equally, the number of women employed in services outside of domestic service increased form 50.3% to 55.5%

Question 9

What did the the Royal Commission on the Civil Service conclude in 1912

Answer 9

“In power of sustained work, in the continuity of service, and in adaptability to varying service conditions, the advantage lies with men”

Question 10

What did Emma Paterson argue in her article in the Labour News in 1874

Answer 10

“Not only are women frequently paid half or less than half for doing as well and as quickly as men… skilled women whose labour requires delicacy of touch, the result of long training as well as thoughtfulness, receive from 11/- to 16/- or 17/- a week, whilst the roughest unskilled labour of a man is worth at least 18/”

Question 11

Give a counterargument to women being unionised

Answer 11

Even in circumstances where women were unionised, they were not unionised for their own benefit but for the benefit of men.

Male cotton spinners unionised earlier. But the women sector is un-unionized. Fear that if they went on strike, employers would ask the women to replace their jobs as in reality cotton spinning is not a skilled job.

So they unionise the women to strengthen the position of male cotton spinners - ended the possibility of the strike failing

Question 12

What did Samual Smiles argue in ‘Life and Labour’ in 1887

Answer 12

“There can be no doubt that Christian civilisation has greatly elevated the position of woman and enabled her to preserve that manhood of the soul which acknowledges no sex. It is through her that men and women are taught these divine lessons of morality…that woman rules the world”

(Women most important influence in society)

Question 13

Give some background to Samuel Smiles

Answer 13

Smiles mainly discussed women in their supportive role to men as ‘help-meets’.

Smiles supported the higher education of women, though not as a means of changing their place in society, but as a way of enhancing the fulfilment of their basic domestic role.

Question 14

What did John Ruskins argue in ‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865)

Positive

Answer 14

Men’s place is with the ‘rough work of the open world’ and women’s is in the home – protected from all danger and temptation

• Man’s power is active and progressive, women is for rule
• Woman’s role as ruler requires her to be incorruptibly good and incapable of error.
• In some abstract sense, women rule and adjudicate men’s work.
• What women are to the home, they must be to the nation

Question 15

Give a quote from John Ruskins describing the positive influence of women

Answer 15

“Queens you must always be” - they alone “can feel the depth of pain and conceive of its healing”

Question 16

What did John Ruskins argue in ‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865)

Negative

Answer 16

Elevates women to an impossible degree

Criticises women for failing to match such expectations, they are often “too idle and carless queens”

• Women avoid duties
• Women choose worthless goals rather than moral and spiritual duties
• Blames women for the ills of the world which alone they could prevent - “The guilt lies with you”

Question 17

What does Anna Davin argue about Malthusians in ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’

Answer 17

• During the 19thC, most political economists tended to side with Thomas Malthus - that excessive population was dangerous (led to the depletion of resources, war, disease, and other natural checks on growth)
• This was strengthened by Darwinist for the struggle of the existence of the race
• In the last decades of the century Malthusians recommended contraception to avoid poverty - argued that wages were surpassed by completion for employment. Supported by eugenics who wanted a selective limitation of population growth, to prevent the ‘deterioration of the race’.

Question 18

What does Anna Davin argue replaced Malthusian fears in the 1870s

Answer 18

Charles Kingsley argued that over-population was impossible in a country that held a huge empire (1858)

In governing the largest empire the world has ever seen, a larger population is needed for its maintenance. New anxiety over infant-mortality rates and low birth rate

Enthusiasts for empire tended to see population as crucial, especially after the publication of an influential work by J.R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, in 1883, and they were disturbed by the falling birth rate which each census after 1881 confirmed.

Question 19

What does Anna Davin argue became the solution to the problem of under-population

Answer 19

Looked for in terms of individuals, of a particular role – the mother, and a social institution – the family

The family remained the basic institution of society, and women’s domestic role remained supreme, but gradually it was her function as mother that was being more stressed, rather than her function as wife

Question 20

What does John burn say in 1906

Answer 20

“What the mother is the children are. The stream is no purer than the source”

Question 21

Who is George Newman

Answer 21

Achieves prominence before WWI by looking at infant mortality and writing books like ‘The health of the Nation’

Simultaneously blames environment and mothers

Question 21

Who is George Newman

Answer 21

Achieves prominence before WWI by looking at infant mortality and writing books like ‘The health of the Nation’

Simultaneously blames environment and mothers

Question 22

What does George Newman argue

Answer 22

• High infant mortality rate indicates “the existence of evil conditions in the mothers…Poverty is not alone responsible, for many poor communities infant mortality is low”.
• Accepts that environment is a key cause of difficulty. But not the sole cause as there are parts of London here conditions are identical but infant deaths differ. Must then relate to the ability of mothers
• The main lines of reform are to ensure physical efficiency in the mother, an improvement in the nursing and management of infancy. “So if we would solve this great national problem, it would appear that we must fist start with the mother”.

Question 23

What are George Newman’s recommendations

Answer 23

A woman should be relieved of hard work of any kind for some time before and after childbirth

A child-bearing woman should be supplied with sufficient and nourishing food. This is perhaps one of the primary duties of the father of the child, but the state should step in when required (Germany)