Study Room resource: The role and status of women 1900-39

'Crawford's 4 o'Clock Afternoon Tea Biscuits', 1928. Museum no. E.1701-1983

'Crawford's 4 o'Clock Afternoon Tea Biscuits'
1928
Biscuit tin label
Museum no. E.1701-1983
Given by M.J. Franklin

Advertising imagery and packaging can reveal a great deal about lifestyles. Taking afternoon tea was a long-established custom for the middle-class woman. It was a social occasion and an opportunity to entertain friends or to go out, perhaps to a tea-shop or an hotel.

A proper afternoon tea would include sandwiches, as well as scones, cakes or biscuits. Home-baking was an important part of a woman's domestic duties but an increasing number of shop-bought convenience foods were available.

There were no supermarkets at this date. Most food shopping was done at specialist retailers, which were to be found in every High Street - butchers, bakers, greengrocers, fishmongers and grocers. Grocers sold dry goods such as flour, sugar, tea and so on, as well as eggs, cheese, cold meats, and packaged goods such as biscuits.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Ettore Tito, 'Aide toi. Le ciel t'aidera' ('Heaven helps those who help themselves')

Ettore Tito
'Aide toi. Le ciel t'aidera' ('Heaven helps those who help themselves')
About 1925-30
Print
Museum no. E.901-1975
Given by Mr and Mrs Urry

Tito's illustration shows a modern emancipated girl of the period: she wears short skirts, drives her own open-topped car, and is even capable of fixing it herself when it breaks down. She is presented as independent and rather 'racy'; the image is clearly meant to be amusing but also suggestive.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 5.

John Souter, Old lady Making Lace

John Souter (1890-1972)
Old lady Making Lace
1928
Etching
Museum no. E.538-1931
Given by the artist

Although this image dates from 1928, the woman's dress and hairstyle, and the furnishing of the room are all typical of the late 19th century. Lace-making was one of the home-making skills that were a major part of a Victorian girl's education. Most would have been taught sewing, embroidery and dressmaking.
 
 Women were expected to devote such time as they had to spare from other domestic duties on dressmaking for themselves and their children, altering and mending clothes, crocheting antimacassars, doilies and table-runners, embroidering table-cloths, napkins and tray-cloths, knitting, and making lace for trimming the collars and cuffs of blouses and night-dresses, or for babies' christening gowns.

This etching can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Ernst Dryden, Jane Regny Sportswear Advertisement

Ernst Dryden (1887-1938)
Proof for an advertisement for sportswear designed by Jane Regny
1928
Colour half tone line block
Published in Vogue, French edition, June 1928
Museum no. E.3652-1983

The exaggerated angular drawing in this illustration emphasises the narrow boyish flat-chested figure that was considered most fashionable and desirable for women in this period. Both women also have fashionably short 'bobbed' hairstyles and wear close-fitting cloche hats.

The bold 'jazz' print worn by the woman on the left is typical of the 1920s and is evidence of the influence on fashion of Art Deco styles. The orange, brown and yellow colours were especially popular at this time, and can be found in wallpapers and furnishing fabrics of the 1920s too.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Werner Jackson, Young Woman Smoking

Werner Jackson
Young Woman Smoking
1930s
Photograph
Museum no. PH.155-1985
Given by Mrs Greta Jackson, wife of the photographer

At the beginning of the 20th century most people disapproved of women smoking, and it was seen as a very masculine habit and a sign of loose morals. But attitudes changed significantly over the next twenty years.

Women were targeted by tobacco manufacturers in the 1920s and 1930s with advertisements that suggested that smoking was glamorous. Film stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Bette Davis were used to promote the idea that smoking was associated with style and sex appeal.

By the 1930s smoking was a widespread habit amongst men and women. The dangers of smoking were then barely recognised. In fact cigarettes were often advertised as being beneficial to health in some ways - for example smoking was thought to calm the nerves, and was also promoted as a means of staying slim.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Eric Fraser, Weldon's Women's Journals Advertisement

Eric Fraser (1902-83)
Weldon's Women's Journals Advertisement
Probably 1926
Museum no. E.538-1987

Eric Fraser was a painter, and a prolific designer and illustrator. Much of his work was for magazines, but he also worked for industrial clients such as British Gas. Weldon's published a range of illustrated magazines for women, including journals devoted to children's fashions, and titles aimed at the home dressmaker.

These publications were designed for middle-class women managing on a limited budget, but the clothes and hairstyles depicted were drawn from the world of the rich and famous, such as film stars.

Here two elegant women are shown dining against the backdrop of an exotic location - the sun and palm trees suggest perhaps the French Riviera, then a glamorous holiday destination favoured by the wealthy and by celebrities from the worlds of film and fashion.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Archibald Hartrick, Bus Conductor

Archibald Hartrick
Bus Conductor
1917
Lithograph
Museum no. E.2339-1918

From the series 'War Work' commissioned by the London Underground Railways.

This lithograph can be found in Print Room Box 5.

Christopher Nevinson, Acetylene Welder

Christopher Nevinson (1889-1946)
Acetylene Welder, Plate 39 in a set of six entitled Building Aircraft,
part of the set 'Building Aircraft' in the series of 66 lithographs entitled 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals'
1917
Lithograph with scratched highlights
Issued by the Ministry of Information
Museum no. Circ.258-1919

Nevinson was a painter of landscapes and urban and industrial subjects. He was also an accomplished print-maker who worked with etching and lithography.

He studied for a time in Paris, around 1912-13, and his subsequent style showed evidence of the influences of the new developments in European art, especially Cubism and Futurism.

In 1915, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was appointed as an Official War Artist in 1917. Fulfilling the commission for this series of prints was one of the conditions of his appointment. He also made paintings of several of the subjects he depicted in this series.

The civilian workforce was severely depleted in the period 1914 to 1918, because so many men had been called up for military service. This meant that women had to take on many occupations that had previously been reserved for men.

Many women worked in the munitions factories, building aircraft, and making weapons. Nevinson shows the women intent on their work, looking like identical robots, with their hair tied up to keep it out of the machinery, and goggles to protect their eyes from the sparks.

One munitions factory manager was delighted to employ women because he believed that 'Men will not stand the monotony of a fast repetition job like women, they will not stand by a machine pressing buttons all their lives, but a woman will.'

And a leaflet issued by the Ministry of Labour for the ship-building industry said 'The average woman takes to welding as readily as she takes to knitting once she has overcome any initial nervousness due to sparks.'

This lithograph can be found in Print Room Box 6.

Archibald Hartrick, On the Railways - Engine and Carriage Cleaners

Archibald Hartrick (1864-1950)
On the Railways - Engine and Carriage Cleaners
From Set IX, Women's Work, from the series 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals
1917'
Issued by the Ministry of Information
Museum no. E.781-1918

Hartrick was a painter, but also a printmaker and illustrator who worked on The Daily Graphic and the Pall Mall Magazine. He trained at the Slade School of Art in London under the French Realist painter Alphonse Legros, in 1884-5, and then continued his art studies in Paris. His style was strongly influenced by French artists.

During the First World War he accepted a number of commissions to produce prints for propaganda purposes, showing Britain's war effort on the home front.

The civilian workforce was severely depleted in the period 1914 to 1918, because so many men had been called up for military service. This meant that women had to take on many occupations that had previously been reserved for men.

Women who worked on the railways made a vital contribution, because the country's economy depended heavily on the efficient functioning of the public transport systems. Many women enjoyed the freedoms and independence that came with these new jobs, but, by agreement with the trades unions, women were to be employed in 'men's work' only until the end of the war.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 6.

Claude Shepperson, Casualty Clearing Station in France

Claude Shepperson (1867-1921)
Casualty Clearing Station in France
Part of the set 'Tending the Wounded' in the series 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals'
1917
Lithograph
Issued by the Ministry of Information
Museum no. Circ.296-1919

Shepperson was a landscape and figure painter, illustrator and print-maker. Here he shows a casualty clearing station which was a temporary medical facility - effectively a small mobile hospital - near the scene of the fighting.

The wounded were taken here for treatment including surgery if needed, and then sent home to proper hospital facilities in Britain. Many young women volunteered to work as nurses. The writer Vera Brittain wrote a moving account of her time in France as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse.

Many VAD nurses were from the middle and upper classes and were sent out to France after only a short period of basic training. The conditions in which they worked were quite shocking: they were expected to deal with severely traumatised soldiers, many suffering from shell-shock, and there was a severe shortage of effective pain-killing drugs, even for men undergoing major surgery such as amputation.

This lithograph can be found in Print Room Box 6.

Henry Haley, Head and Shoulders of Woman Driving Car

Henry Haley (born 1874)
Head and Shoulders of Woman Driving Car, for cover of Pearsons Magazine
About 1928
Museum no. E.343-1985

Pearson's was a popular magazine of the period. It was clearly intended to appeal to a largely female readership, and here the image of a woman driver is used to represent a modern outlook and an independent lifestyle.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 6.

Celia Bedford, French Fisherwomen

Celia Bedford (1904-59)
French fisherwomen
1930
Print
Museum no. E.1240-1930
Subscription plate issued to Lay Members of the Senefelder Club

In the 19th century women had struggled to win acceptance as professional artists, and they had only limited access to a full art-school training. By the 1920s however women were admitted to most art schools on equal terms with men, and many subsequently worked as painters, designers and illustrators.

Celia Bedford was the daughter of the painter Francis Bedford, and she studied at Chelsea School of Art. She was an artist member of the Senefelder Club, a group formed in 1909 to celebrate and promote the art of lithography.

Lithography is a method of planographic printing discovered by Aloys Senefelder in 1798. Artist members took turns to produce a lithograph and the lay members would each receive a signed proof in return for their annual subscription to the club.

For her subscription print, Celia Bedford chose to illustrate the camaraderie amongst a group of women engaged in hard physical work.

This print can be found in Print Room Box 6a.

H. Lartigue, Ladies Walking in the Avenue des Acacias

H. Lartique (1894-1986)
Ladies walking in the Avenue des Acacias
Paris
Negative 1911, print 1971
Museum no. Circ.536-1971

A scene such as this showing fashionably dressed women out walking with their dogs, or with friends, was a favourite subject for Lartigue.

Many of his photographs from this period document high fashion - the women he chose to photograph were the wealthy and well-to-do, women dressed in the latest fashions, wearing furs and extravagant hats.

A stroll in a public park was a favourite pastime for the leisured classes, and women especially took it as an opportunity to display their wealth and taste.

This photograph can be found in Print Room Box 6a.