Gender, professions and discourse

This carefully researched book has unearthed some ninety autobiographies by professional early twentieth-century women writers in order to 'hear' the women themselves. The first half, organized by profession, offers a comprehensive and innovative analysis of the endeavours of occupational groups such as headmistresses, doctors, nurses/VADs, artists and writers to comment on their own lives and historical period. It establishes that there is stylistic consonance within the writing of each professional group, and suggests why this is the case. The second half debates across all the professions the function of frontispiece images, prefatory marginalia, silences, subjectivity and memory. This original work provides compelling insights into these women in the middle-class arena who have hitherto been marginalized by other academic or political accounts. A challenging, interdisciplinary approach employing feminist theory, historical retrieval, psychology, theory of memory and visual culture constitutes a significant contribution to our understanding and appreciation of early twentieth-century professional women.