Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865–1914

by Julie-Marie Strange

A pioneering study of Victorian and Edwardian fatherhood, investigating what being, and having, a father meant to working-class people. Based on working-class autobiography, the book challenges dominant assumptions about absent or 'feckless' fathers, and reintegrates the paternal figure within the emotional life of families. Locating autobiography within broader social and cultural commentary, Julie-Marie Strange considers material culture, everyday practice, obligation, duty and comedy as sites for the development and expression of complex emotional lives. Emphasising the importance of separating men as husbands from men as fathers, Strange explores how emotional ties were formed between fathers and their children, the models of fatherhood available to working-class men, and the ways in which fathers interacted with children inside and outside the home. She explodes the myth that working-class interiorities are inaccessible or unrecoverable, and locates life stories in the context of other sources, including social surveys, visual culture and popular fiction.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2015

Reviews

[Max Borgens · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very interesting topic, but unfortunately the writer did not sufficiently analyse the autobiographies of the working-class families. Although the chapters were well separated by themes, it felt like reading each autobiographer's experiences, very different from each other, as a list, with no relation to the following one. There were some efficient efforts of theorisation though, I especially liked the idea of mothers caring for the children and fathers caring about the children. However, the major problem, but it is comprehensible when using numerous autobiographies, is the lack of cohesion.

[Matthew Gurteen · Rating 4 out of 5]

More studies like this, please! 'Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865-1914' by Julie-Marie Strange is a modern academic work challenging the understanding of paternal relations at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. It uses autobiographies primarily to do this in part of the new wave of academia focusing on masculinity. I, for one, am glad to see it as much of this book has extreme contemporary relevance concerning men as 'breadwinners' and the 'seperate spheres' of the family. For the most part, this was a well-written study, although I did think some of the points were longer than they needed to be with often repetitive evidence. Nevertheless, I would recommend it to anyone studying the subject at a high level.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, a lot of different biographies are mentioned.