Diary of a Wartime Unmarried Mother

Diary of a Wartime Unmarried Mother
Author: Doreen Bates
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2024-07-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1035840871

This diary gives a remarkably vivid description of the life of Doreen Bates, a professional young woman, who went against the social norms of her time to intentionally have twins fathered by an older married, but childless, colleague in the Inland Revenue, where they both worked as Income Tax Inspectors. At the time the twins were born Doreen did not know if their father could, or would, form part of the family. In the event, he was able to make frequent visits and helped practically, emotionally and financially with the childrens’ upbringing. The diary commences a few months after the twins were born. Doreen lived with them and a live-in nanny in South London where they experienced relentless days and nights of enemy bombing. In 1944 the twins and their nanny were evacuated to the incomparably safer and beautiful rural setting of a Wiltshire village where Doreen joined them for every weekend. In contrast to the chaos and fear that accompanied the wartime conditions, Doreen’s emotional life is much less turbulent than in the previous volume of her diary. This reflects the profound satisfaction she felt as a result of achieving her dream of having children. She was a remarkably enlightened parent. Her recording of their lives in this diary is detailed, intimate, and often humorous. Historical happenings are mentioned, but form only the incidental backdrop to her domestic and professional life. “Brimming with soul, passion, candour and wit, the diaries of Doreen Bates are an extraordinary read, giving a vivid insight into the life of a woman unvanquished by her time, a woman who leaps from the page so strikingly that you feel your pulse beating in time with hers. Edited in an act of great love and generosity by her children, they should take their place as one of the essential diaries of the twentieth century for the window they offer into another world, another heart.” – Lucy Caldwell

Diary of a Wartime Affair

Diary of a Wartime Affair
Author: Doreen Bates
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0241250072

'Unflinchingly honest... this diary is exceptional' Elizabeth Buchan 'Tuesday 23 October, 1934 Another glorious sunny day. Lunch in Kens Gdns. E had not slept well "as I longed and longed for you". It made me happy that he wanted me. I suppose that is mean. He said, "I could pick you out in the dark from fifty women . . ." ' The diary of Doreen Bates is a candid, spellbinding portrait of a gutsy young woman working in London in the years before and during the Second World War, as well as an extraordinary account of her long affair with an older, married colleague - one that brazenly challenged the strict conventions of the day. 'Startlingly frank and readable' David Kynaston 'Absolutely engrossing' Virginia Nicholson 'Astute, passionate, remarkably intimate, showing us the day-to-day picture of a long relationship' Guardian

Anne Frank

Anne Frank
Author: Anne Frank
Publisher:
Total Pages: 285
Release: 1978
Genre: Netherlands
ISBN:

The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai

The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai
Author: Dianne Ashton
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2024-10-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1479831948

A vivid look at the wartime experiences of a Jewish woman in the Confederate South Emma Mordecai lived an unusual life. She was Jewish when Jews comprised less than 1 percent of the population of the Old South, and unmarried in a culture that offered women few options other than marriage. She was American born when most American Jews were immigrants. She affirmed and maintained her dedication to Jewish religious practice and Jewish faith while many family members embraced Christianity. Yet she also lived well within the social parameters established for Southern white women, espoused Southern values, and owned enslaved African Americans. The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai is one of the few surviving Civil War diaries by a Jewish woman in the antebellum South. It charts her daily life and her evolving perspective on Confederate nationalism and Southern identity, Jewishness, women’s roles in wartime, gendered domestic roles in slave-owning households, and the centrality of family relationships. While never losing sight of the racist social and political structures that shaped Emma Mordecai’s world, the book chronicles her experiences with dislocation and the loss of her home. Bringing to life the hospital visits, food shortages, local sociability, Jewish observances, sounds and sights of nearby battles, and the very personal ramifications of emancipation and its aftermath for her household and family, The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai offers a valuable and distinct look at a unique historical figure from the waning years of the Civil War South.

Sinners? Scroungers? Saints?

Sinners? Scroungers? Saints?
Author: Pat Thane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2012-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191612200

This is the first book to describe the real lives of unmarried mothers, and attitudes towards them, in England from the First World War to the present day. The focus is on England because the legal positions, and other circumstances, of unmarried mothers were often very different elsewhere in Britain. The authors use biographies and memoirs, as well as archives and official sources, to challenge stereotypes of the mothers as desolate women, rejected by society and by their families, until social attitudes were transformed in the 'permissive' 1960s. They demonstrate the diversity of their lives, their social backgrounds, and how often they were supported by their families, neighbours, and the fathers of their children before the 1960s, and the continuing hostility by some sections of society since then. They challenge stereotypes, too, about the impact of war on sexual behaviour, and about the stability of family life before the 1960s. Much of the evidence comes from the records of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, set up by prominent people in 1918 to help a social group they believed were neglected, and which is still very active today, as Gingerbread, supporting lone parents in need of help. Their work tells us not only about the lives of those mothers and children who had no other support, but also another important story about the vibrancy of voluntary action throughout the past century and its continuing vital role, working alongside and in co-operation with the Welfare State to help mothers into work among other things. Their history is an inspiring example of how, throughout the past century, voluntary organizations in the 'Big Society' worked with, not against, the 'Big State'.

Mastering Wartime

Mastering Wartime
Author: J. Matthew Gallman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2000-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780812217445

Mastering Wartime is the first comprehensive study of a Northern city during the Civil War. J. Matthew Gallman argues that, although the war posed numerous challenges to Philadelphia's citizens, the city's institutions and traditions proved to be sufficiently resilient to adjust to the crisis without significant alteration. Following the wartime actions of individuals and groups-workers, women, entrepreneurs-he shows that while the war placed pressure on private and public organizations to centralize, Philadelphia's institutions remained largely decentralized and tradition bound. Gallman explores the war's impact on a wide range of aspects of life in Philadelphia. Among the issues addressed are recruitment and conscription of soldiers, individual responses to wartime separation and death, individual and institutional benevolence, civic rituals, crime and disorder, government contracting, and long-term economic development. The book compares the wartime years to the antebellum period and discusses the war's legacies in the postwar decade.

Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China

Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China
Author: Louise Edwards
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316594807

In this compelling new study, Louise Edwards explores the lives of some of China's most famous women warriors and wartime spies through history. Focusing on key figures including Hua Mulan, Zheng Pingru and Liu Hulan, this book examines the ways in which these extraordinary women have been commemorated through a range of cultural mediums including film, theatre, museums and textbooks. Whether perceived as heroes or anti-heroes, Edwards shows that both the popular and official presentation of these women and their accomplishments has evolved in line with China's shifting political values and circumstances over the past one hundred years. Written in a lively and accessible style with illustrations throughout, this book sheds new light on the relationship between gender and militarisation and the ways that women have been exploited to glamorise war both historically in the past and in China today.

A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky

A Union Woman in Civil War Kentucky
Author: Frances Dallam Peter
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-07-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813148111

Frances Peter was one of the eleven children of Dr. Robert Peter, a surgeon for the Union army. The Peter family lived on Gratz Park near downtown Lexington, where nineteen-year-old Frances began recording her impressions of the Civil War. Because of illness, she did not often venture outside her home but was able to gather a remarkable amount of information from friends, neighbors, and newspapers. Peter's candid diary chronicles Kentucky's invasion by Confederates under Gen. Braxton Bragg in 1862, Lexington's month-long occupation by Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, and changes in attitude among the slave population following the Emancipation Proclamation. As troops from both North and South took turns holding the city, she repeatedly emphasized the rightness of the Union cause and minced no words in expressing her disdain for the hated "secesh." Her writings articulate many concerns common to Kentucky Unionists. Though she was an ardent supporter of the war against the Confederacy, Peter also worried that Lincoln's use of authority exceeded his constitutional rights. Her own attitudes towards blacks were ambiguous, as was the case with many people in that time. Peter's descriptions of daily events in an occupied city provide valuable insights and a unique feminine perspective on an underappreciated aspect of the war. Until her death by epileptic seizure in August 1864, Peter conscientiously recorded the position and deportment of both Union and Confederate soldiers, incidents at the military hospitals, and stories from the countryside. Her account of a torn and divided region is a window to the war through the gaze of a young woman of intelligence and substance.

Women's Identities at War

Women's Identities at War
Author: Susan R. Grayzel
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2014-03-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1469620812

There are few moments in history when the division between the sexes seems as "natural" as during wartime: men go off to the "war front," while women stay behind on the "home front." But the very notion of the home front was an invention of the First World War, when, for the first time, "home" and "domestic" became adjectives that modified the military term "front." Such an innovation acknowledged the significant and presumably new contributions of civilians, especially women, to the war effort. Yet, as Susan Grayzel argues, throughout the war, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity survived, primarily through the maintenance of--and indeed reemphasis on--soldiering and mothering as the core of gender and national identities. Drawing on sources that range from popular fiction and war memorials to newspapers and legislative debates, Grayzel analyzes the effects of World War I on ideas about civic participation, national service, morality, sexuality, and identity in wartime Britain and France. Despite the appearance of enormous challenges to gender roles due to the upheavals of war, the forces of stability prevailed, she says, demonstrating the Western European gender system's remarkable resilience.

These Wonderful Rumours!

These Wonderful Rumours!
Author: May Smith
Publisher: Virago
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2012-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0748132716

May Smith is twenty-four at the outbreak of World War Two; at night, the sirens wail, and the young men of the village leave to fight. But still, ordinary life goes on: May goes shopping, plays tennis, takes holidays and even falls in love - while recording it faithfully in her diary. 'May is simply a joy, a bright spark in dark times' The Times