Beyond suffrage: feminism, education and the politics of class in the inter‐war years

Abstract

The understanding of feminist pasts has been largely ignored in the history of education. This paper suggests that the historical sociology of Olive Banks provides fresh starting points for future research exploring the relationship between the history of social and political movements and a reassessment of contemporary and historical forms of ‘radical education’. The article proceeds to use group biography to explore a municipal socialism that has been over‐ridden in historical memory by the classic political histories that take the view from Westminster and Whitehall. In so doing it seeks to show the contribution of six educator activists who were participants in the making of a metropolitan political elite emerging from the association between feminism, socialism and the labour and trade union movement.

Keywords:

• class
• education
• feminism
• gender
• London
• politics

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Editors and the two anonymous readers for the British Journal of the Sociology of Education for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am particularly indebted to Dr Peter Warner and Dr Peter Cunningham for their hospitality and help with the Homerton College Archives, Sarah Aitchison and Natalie Zara of the Institute of Education Newsam Library and Archives and Teresa Doherty of the London Metropolitan University Women’s Library; besides the staff of the Manchester Central Library and its Local Studies Unit and Southwark Local Studies Library.