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Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood
A groundbreaking history of mothers who worked for pay that will change the way we think about gender, work and equality in modern Britain.
In Britain today, three-quarters of mothers are in employment and paid work is an unremarkable feature of women's lives after childbirth. Yet a century ago, working mothers were in the minority, excluded altogether from many occupations, whilst their wage-earning was widely perceived as a social ill. In Double Lives, Helen McCarthy accounts for this remarkable transformation, whose consequences have been momentous for Britain's society and economy.
Drawing upon a wealth of sources, McCarthy ranges from the smoking chimney-stacks of nineteenth-century Manchester to the shimmering skyscrapers of present-day Canary Wharf. She recovers the everyday worlds of working mothers and traces how women's desires for financial independence and lives beyond home and family were slowly recognised. McCarthy reveals the deep and complicated past of a phenomenon so often assumed to be a product of contemporary lifestyles and aspirations.
This groundbreaking history forces us not only to re-evaluate the past, but to ask anew how current attitudes towards mothers in the workplace have developed and how far we have to go. Through vivid and powerful storytelling, Double Lives offers a social and cultural history for our times.
In Britain today, three-quarters of mothers are in employment and paid work is an unremarkable feature of women's lives after childbirth. Yet a century ago, working mothers were in the minority, excluded altogether from many occupations, whilst their wage-earning was widely perceived as a social ill. In Double Lives, Helen McCarthy accounts for this remarkable transformation, whose consequences have been momentous for Britain's society and economy.
Drawing upon a wealth of sources, McCarthy ranges from the smoking chimney-stacks of nineteenth-century Manchester to the shimmering skyscrapers of present-day Canary Wharf. She recovers the everyday worlds of working mothers and traces how women's desires for financial independence and lives beyond home and family were slowly recognised. McCarthy reveals the deep and complicated past of a phenomenon so often assumed to be a product of contemporary lifestyles and aspirations.
This groundbreaking history forces us not only to re-evaluate the past, but to ask anew how current attitudes towards mothers in the workplace have developed and how far we have to go. Through vivid and powerful storytelling, Double Lives offers a social and cultural history for our times.
537 pages, Hardcover
Published April 16, 2020
11 people are currently reading
442 people want to read
About the author
Helen McCarthy
6 books2 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
University Lecturer in Modern British History - University of Cambridge (UK)
https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/...
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
University Lecturer in Modern British History - University of Cambridge (UK)
https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 19, 2021
Informative, delve into the history of working Motherhood. Covers a sweeping, wide range of topics and decades. Slow paced, but with good social history & individual stories to make it relatable.
April 20, 2025
fascinating
June 9, 2021
I chose this one because it has been shortlisted for this year's Wolfson History Prize.
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood tackles a fascinating subject, and, as Helen McCarthy acknowledges, leaves much to be said and researched on the subject. As with much non-fiction, this book offers a sweeping look at the topic, and hopefully starts a much-needed conversation. However, McCarthy does all she can to avoid generalisations; shining a light on individual cases, and trying to keep an open mind. I like the way McCarthy looks beyond the surface, and openly tackles the contradictions this topic entails. I found Double Lives to be an interesting but relatively slow book, which goes over a lot of familiar ground (albeit with clarity and thoroughness), but also leaves the reader with a lot to think about. I'm glad that I picked it up.
Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood tackles a fascinating subject, and, as Helen McCarthy acknowledges, leaves much to be said and researched on the subject. As with much non-fiction, this book offers a sweeping look at the topic, and hopefully starts a much-needed conversation. However, McCarthy does all she can to avoid generalisations; shining a light on individual cases, and trying to keep an open mind. I like the way McCarthy looks beyond the surface, and openly tackles the contradictions this topic entails. I found Double Lives to be an interesting but relatively slow book, which goes over a lot of familiar ground (albeit with clarity and thoroughness), but also leaves the reader with a lot to think about. I'm glad that I picked it up.
November 27, 2024
Not as intimidating as it looks! It's about 330 pages with lots of notes and citations.
I found this book very interesting because the women in my family have always had to work, despite lots of people's impressions of family as a stay at home mother it hasn't been true for my family, and it was interesting to read about it on a wider scale.
I found this book very interesting because the women in my family have always had to work, despite lots of people's impressions of family as a stay at home mother it hasn't been true for my family, and it was interesting to read about it on a wider scale.
July 28, 2024
Thoroughly researched and human social history
June 14, 2025
Read this in an oddly piecemeal way, but it was extremely interesting, especially last few chapters on 1960s-90s
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews