PhD Proposal: Influences of women on the agricultural sector and rural communities from the interwar period through 1950 in England.

Title:

Influences of women on the agricultural sector and rural communities from the interwar period through 1950 in England.

Background:

Gender identity roles within rural farm laborers changed drastically during the first and second World Wars in Great Britain. With men called upon for the war effort during the First World War, women were recruited to assist in the new Land Army and leave their homes to work within the male-dominated agricultural sphere (Goodman and Mathieson, 2014).  Their competency and tenacity assisted in changing the view of a woman’s place and capacity throughout the nation, including spurring on the newly created suffragette movement which gave a voice to nearly half the population leading to Votes for Women! finally being secured (Riddell, 2018). While many women returned home following the war, others continued their volunteer work in the new Women’s Institute (WI) (1915), the British Red Cross, and the YMCA National Women’s Auxiliaries (The Women’s Institute, n.d.). As the threat of a second war loomed, enrollment increased in these and other organizations, including the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) (1938) and the associated Women’s Voluntary Services (WVS) (Storey and Housego, 2018) . The WVS and WI were instrumental in assisting with the Dig for Victory campaign, the Women’s Land Army, and the national fruit preservation scheme; all three of which were tied to the creation and preservation of food for the nation (Kramer, 2008; Powell and Westacott, 1997; Storey and Housego, 2018).  

At the start of the Second World War, nearly seventeen thousand women volunteered to ‘work the land’ as part of the WLA, with eighty thousand active members at its peak in 1943(Storey and Housego, 2018). Inclusion of additional women onto farms and into the rural communities had a variety of results including the creation of agricultural colleges, regional specialist trainings, the establishment of equal pay regulations for female farm laborers, and established weekends, holidays, and sick leave (Ambrose and Jensen, 2017). Women took on a variety of roles within agriculture, from working in the Timber Corp to running poultry farms, to working in agricultural gangs (Geere, 1987). However, they did so from both urban and rural environments. Smaller homesteaders were not always registered as agricultural holdings, yet this did not dissuade women from managing smaller holdings to assist with urban and suburban farming (Ball, 1989). It also brought women out of the cities and into the countryside and affected the rates of marriage, child birth, and divorce (Perry, 1968). These changes in population, with a baby boom following the war years both in 1921 (~357,000 males and 385, 000 females aged 3-4) and in 1951 (~430,000 males aged 3-4; ~409,000 females aged 3-4) (Neilan, 2014), coincided with increased marriage rates at the start and end of the war, followed by an increase in divorce and adoption rates at the end of the war (Office of National Statistics, 2015). Some of these can be attributed to new legislation, but others show a trend in the separation of family finances and the ability for women to manage on their own away from a husband’s watchful eye (Perry, 1968).

Objectives and Research Questions:

While women have always held a role in agriculture they were often placed into the role of ‘farmer’s wife’ or ‘farmer’s daughter,’ not simply ‘farmer’ (Ball, 1989; Sachs, 1983). Changing attitudes of today can be traced back to the various Land Armies and Friendly Societies of the World Wars and while women own and operate both small and large scale farms, are active in every level of the supply chain, and develop agricultural policies, current views of femininity and women’s roles in society seems to be making a paradigm shift across the world (Ambrose and Jensen, 2017). However, current literature focuses on the relationship between fertility rates and women’s employment (Engelhardt et al., 2004; Joshi and Hinde, 1991), the changes in agricultural education (Brook, 2011), women’s underrepresentation within census data (Higgs and Wilkinson, 2016), feminism and legislative reform (Lewis, 1985), and the state of agriculture and spheres of women’s influence (Anderson, 2014; Fairbanks and Haakenson, 2017; Whatmore, 1991). While focused on the microspheres these questions entail, few broad-spectrum approaches take into account how women’s influences on farms and in the rural community change the very foundation of basic family lifestyles, such as food choices, migratory patterns, changes in voluntary service work, agricultural supply chains, and changes in family dynamics. Considering these aspects, this research is a timely analysis of the role women play, both in the public and private spheres of agriculture and rural communities.

It is this broader view that we will focus on including the following questions:

• Did the addition of women onto farms (during /after WW1&2) beget a reversal of two centuries worth of migration leading to the growth of rural villages and towns?
• Did the relationship between working women change the dynamic for the modern family unit?
• Did women’s farming activities create a ‘new norm’ when discussing women’s capabilities?
• Did the inclusion of women onto farms change the management or practices of farms beyond the technological changes of the time period?
• Did the technical training of women for farm work create, assist, or alter women’s entry into the supply chain?
• Did women’s roles during/after WW1&2 alter the food choices of the nation?

Methodology and Planning:

This research hopes to answer the knowledge gap of how women have influenced the agricultural sphere within the context of rural community. It dovetails with the concepts of rural identity and femininity and is intended to employ archaeological and landscape techniques and utilize the insights derived from quantitative history, and modern literary and gender studies within the lens of the agricultural landscape.

Initial investigation will include a thorough literature review of the data available to date. Following such an investigation, interviews will be used in conjunction with material from autobiographies, contemporary social surveys, farm record books, commentaries by social investigators, census data, and diaries (Strange, 1999) as both primary and secondary source materials. Additional research will be carried out at the History of Food and Drink in the Institute of Historical Research Library at the University of London and the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading.

Planning will follow the University of Readings’ (UoR) anticipated format of initial inquiry during year one, research and review in year two, and final paper creation in year three. The final output will include a course curriculum design along with the paper. The design will be structured upon the Universities’ eleven week semester and will follow a four-four-three pattern focusing on Women and Rural English Identity in section one, Women and Rural Development in section two, and a localized assessment project in section three. The goal of creating a curriculum is two-fold, firstly, it acts as an outline to the paper and secondly it becomes a usable product for the University at the end of the research.

Sample Course Design (initial thoughts):

·         Section 1: Women and Rural English Identity

a.       What does Rural Identity mean?

b.      Historical context of rural women’s roles:

                                                              i.      Peasant

1.      Farm Laborer

2.      Servant

                                                            ii.      Crofter

1.      Supplier

2.      Tenant

                                                          iii.      Middle class

1.      Landlord

                                                          iv.      Upper Class

1.      Aristocracy

c.       The interwar period:

                                                              i.      Identification of women’s roles in rural communities.

1.      Agriculture

2.      Service and good will

3.      Home and family

4.      Incorporated Land Girls

a.       Public relationships and perspectives

d.      World War Two:

                                                              i.      Identification of women’s roles in rural communities.

1.      Agriculture

2.      Service and good will

3.      Home and family

4.      Incorporated Land Girls

a.       Public relationships and perspectives

e.       Post-War period:

                                                              i.      Identification of women’s roles in rural communities.

1.      Agriculture

2.      Service and good will

3.      Home and family

4.      Incorporated Land Girls

a.       Public relationships and perspectives

·         Section 2: Women and Rural Development

a.       Influences on modern agriculture

                                                              i.      Gender Identity: what it means to be a Female Farmer

                                                            ii.      Agricultural Research

                                                          iii.      Supply-chain management

1.      Food selection, nutrition, and cookery

2.      Suppliers, owner/operators, and transportation

                                                          iv.      Policy development

b.      Family structure

                                                              i.      Marriage, Divorce, and Family Units

                                                            ii.      Migratory Patterns

·         Section 3: Localized Assessment Project

a.       Selection of region:

                                                              i.      Explanation of region’s rural identity

                                                            ii.      Historical context of women’s roles in region

                                                          iii.      Women’s roles in agriculture in region

                                                          iv.      Changing values or perceptions

Results/Discussion:

Census and population data from the Office of National Statistics and farm record books from the MERL will be the core of the migration research, while interviews and diary entries will show how women viewed themselves and how men viewed the women working in the sector. From here I anticipate seeing overlap within the two genders’ opinions followed by acceptance in parts of the industry (those aspects relating to home making such as cooking) and fervent dismissal/denial of other aspects (ownership, trade agreements, and policy development are my initial thoughts). Additional research will take the view of changes in agricultural practices, women’s entry and ownership aspects within the supply chain, and alterations to the family unit and rural identity.

Conclusions:

The primary goal of this research is to establish what, if any, role women had in changing the course of agriculture and how they affected the rural communities they were associated with. From here, further research could look at comparisons with modern roles women play or look at trends for women’s roles in developing nations.

Initial Bibliography:

Ambrose, L.M., Jensen, J.M., 2017. Women in Agriculture. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.

Anderson, H.M.K., 2014. The British Women ’s Land Army: Gender, Identity, and Landscapes. Western Michigan University.

Ball, J., 1989. Little Girls don’t grow up to be farmers. Peter I. Drinkwater, Warwickshire.

Brook, L.E., 2011. From farming to farm holidays : the evolution of agricultural education and the specialist colleges in the UK Lesley Elisabeth Brook Institute of Education.

Engelhardt, H., Kogel, T., Prskawetz, A., 2004. Fertility and female employment reconsidered: a macro-level time series analysis. Popul. Stud. (NY). 58, 109–120.

Fairbanks, C., Haakenson, B., 2017. Writings of Farm Women, 1840-1940. Routledge Library Editions: Rural History, London.

Geere, M., 1987. Reminiscences of a Land Girl in Witham. Albert Poulter, Essex.

Goodman, G., Mathieson, C. (Eds.), 2014. Gender and Space in Rural Britain, 1840-1920. Pickering & Chatto, London.

Higgs, E., Wilkinson, A., 2016. Women, Occupations and Work in the Victorian Censuses Revisited. Hist. Work. J. 81, 17–38. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbw001

Joshi, H., Hinde, P.R.A., 1991. Employment after child bearing in post-war Britain: Cohort study evidence on contrasts within and across generations (No. 35). London.

Kramer, A., 2008. Land Girls and Their Impact. Remember When, Norfolk.

Lewis, J., 1985. Women and Society: Continuity and Change since 1870. Refresh 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6435.1986.tb00768.x

Neilan, C., 2014. Four charts that show the impact the First and Second World Wars had on the UK’s population [WWW Document]. CITYA.M. URL http://www.cityam.com/1415708792/four-charts-show-impact-first-and-second-world-wars-had-uks-population (accessed 5.21.19).

Office of National Statistics, 2015. Victory in Europe Day: How World War II changed the UK [WWW Document]. URL https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/articles/victoryineuropedayhowworldwariichangedtheuk/2015-05-08 (accessed 5.21.19).

Perry, P.J., 1968. Working-Class Isolation and Mobility in Rural Dorset, 1837-1936: a Study of Marriage Distances.

Powell, B., Westacott, N., 1997. The Women’s Land Army. Sutton Publishing Limited, Gloucestershire.

Riddell, F., 2018. Suffragettes, violence and militancy [WWW Document]. Votes for Women. URL https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/suffragettes-violence-and-militancy (accessed 5.28.19).

Sachs, C.E., 1983. The Invisible Farmers: Women in Agricultural Production, 1st ed. Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc, Totowa.

Storey, N.R., Housego, M., 2018. Women in the Second World War. Shire Publications, Oxford.

Strange, D., 1999. A Land Girl’s Diary: Burnham 1948.

The Women’s Institute, n.d. The Women’s Institute [WWW Document]. FAQs. URL https://www.thewi.org.uk/faqs (accessed 5.28.19).

Whatmore, S.J., 1991. Farming Women: Gender, Work and Family Enterprise. Springer, Hampshire.