Housewives and Citizens

This book explores the contribution that five conservative, voluntary and popular womens organisations made to womens lives and to the campaign for womens rights throughout the period 192864. The book challenges existing histories of the womens movement that suggest the movement went into decline during the inter-war period, only to be revived by the emergence of the Womens Liberation Movement in the late 1960s. It is argued that the term 'womens movement' must be revised to allow a broader understanding of female agency encompassing feminist, political, religious and conservative womens groups who campaigned to improve the status of women throughout the twentieth century. The book provides a radical re-assessment of this period of womens history and in doing so makes a significant contribution to ongoing debates about the shape and impact of the womens movement in twentieth-century Britain. -- .