Fatherhood and the British Working Class, 1865-1914

"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 this 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"--

List of contents

Introduction: O father, where art thou?; 1. Love and toil: fatherhood, providing and attachment; 2. Love and want: unemployment, failure and the fragile father; 3. Man and home: the interpersonal dynamics of fathers at home; 4. Front stage values, back stage lives: family togetherness, respectability and 'real' fathers; 5. Funny talk: laughter, family and fathering; 6. The fond father: protection, authority, reconciliation; Conclusion: discovering fatherhood; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Julie-Marie Strange is Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. She is author of Death, Grief and Poverty, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, 2005). Strange has appeared on Radio 4's Woman's Hour on the subject of fathers, and Thinking Allowed on the working-class Christmas. She also appeared in BBC4's 'A Century of Fatherhood' (Testimony Films).

Product details

• Authors: Julie Marie Strange, Julie-Marie Strange
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 19.01.2015
• EAN: 9781107084872
• ISBN: 978-1-107-08487-2
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 235 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, European History, Social & cultural history, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, c 1500 onwards to present day, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Social and cultural history, Sociology: family and relationships, c 1900 to c 1909