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Navigating Lone Motherhood: A Cultural History Perspective

Explore the experience of lone motherhood in England from 1945 to 1990 through a cultural lens, challenging the social vs. cultural dichotomy. Delve into women's narratives and fiction to understand the complexities of this overlooked aspect of history.

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Navigating Lone Motherhood: A Cultural History Perspective

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  1. ‘A Story with No Conclusion’ (Christine Collins): Lone motherhood in England, 1945 - 1990 The Observer, May 5, 1963 (Modern Records Centre)

  2. Literature review • Little historical literature on lone motherhood in the twentieth century • Existing research mainly focused on demographics; social policy/state institutions • Passivity of lone mothers as subjects of research

  3. Questions of theory A social or cultural history? ‘[…] new studies specifically refuse the polarized division between the “social” and the “cultural,” vesting recognizably social and political topics with a cultural analytic, responding to the incitements of cultural theory, and grounding these in as dense and imaginative a range of sources and interpretative contexts as possible. On this very practical evidence, the division between “social” and “cultural” was always a false categorical separation […], there’s no need to choose.’ (Geoff Eley, 2005)

  4. Research questions • How did women experience lone motherhood? • How did ‘expert’ narratives about lone motherhood intersect with women at the ground level? • How did public and private narratives of lone motherhood relate to broader developments in society across the period?

  5. Sources • Sociological/psychological literature since 1945 ‘Throughout recorded history the phenomenon of the single-parent family has reappeared at the forefront of every investigation of poverty, too often to the surprise of investigators expecting to find something darker or more sinister at its unromantic core.’ (Gareth Stedman Jones, 2004)

  6. Sources • Women’s oral and written testimonies ‘Most human beings operate like historians: they only recognize the nature of their experience in retrospect.’ (Eric Hobsbawm, 1994) ‘But the unique and precious element which oral sources force upon the historian and which no other sources possess in equal measure is the speaker’s subjectivity.’ (Alessandro Portelli, 1979)

  7. Sources • Women’s fiction ‘History also calls on the resources of fiction when the events concerned have such ethical intensity that mere historical explanation is insufficient. Fiction here is “placed in the service of the unforgettable,” enabling “historiography to live up to the task of memory.”’ (Simon Gunn, 2006)

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