Book chapter
Conclusion
Memoirs of Victorian Working-Class Women, pp.291-310
Palgrave Studies in Life Writing, Springer International Publishing
12/03/2017
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-64215-4_10
Abstract
In the concluding chapter, I assess some of the contrasts and common patterns which have emerged in working-class women’s memoirs over the course of the mid and late nineteenth century, and consider the extent to which these reflected changes in the British class structure as the century progressed. I also examine some early twentieth-century autobiographies by women of working-class origins to note the considerable shifts in tone furthered by widened opportunities and women’s greater participation in political life. Though clearly the tale of Victorian working-class women’s experience remained one of “uneven development,” some at least of the later memoirs manifest an increased awareness of broader communities, instinctive sympathy with the aims of feminism, and capacity for generic innovation. With exceptions, their authors no longer perceived themselves as entirely limited by their modest class origins, but believed that although, in Hannah Mitchell’s phrase, it had been a “hard way up,” they had nonetheless joined with other women of their class in mounting a gentle incline. The next generation of Edwardian and early twentieth-century autobiographers would continue this trajectory, perceiving themselves as endowed with distinctive identities shaped through resistance, and framing self-analytical and psychological interpretations of their experience.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Conclusion
- Creators
- Florence S. Boos - Department of English, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Memoirs of Victorian Working-Class Women, pp.291-310
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing; Cham
- Series
- Palgrave Studies in Life Writing
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-64215-4_10
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/03/2017
- Academic Unit
- English; International Programs
- Record Identifier
- 9984397932802771
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