Female philanthropy was at the heart of transformative thinking about society and the role of individuals in the interwar period. In Britain, in the aftermath of the First World War, professionalization; the authority of the social sciences; mass democracy; internationalism; and new media sounded the future and, for many, the death knell of elite practices of benevolence. Eve Colpus tells a new story about a world in which female philanthropists reshaped personal models of charity for modern projects of social connectedness, and new forms of cultural and political encounter.
Centering the stories of four remarkable British-born women - Evangeline Booth; Lettice Fisher; Emily Kinnaird; and Muriel Paget - Colpus recaptures the breadth of the social, cultural and political influence of women's philanthropy upon practices of social activism. Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World is not only a new history of women's civic agency in the interwar period, but also a study of how female philanthropists explored approaches to identification and cultural difference that emphasized friendship in relation to interwar modernity. Richly detailed, the book's perspective on women's social interventionism offers a new reading of the centrality of personal relationships to philanthropy that can inform alternative models of giving today.
**
Review
A fascinating, path-breaking study of twentieth-century philanthropy as witnessed through the intellectual, physical and moral journeys of four distinguished but diverse British women. Colpus moves beyond conventional structural understandings of the charitable relationship and illustrates the importance of individual agency within interwar female philanthropic ideas and practices. * Sue Morgan, Emeritus Professor of Gender and Women's History, University of Chichester, UK * This portrait of four remarkable women philanthropists delivers an exciting reinterpretation of British voluntarism in the 1920s and 1930s-a subject that has long called for more scholarly attention. Colpus shows that far from being a narrow and fading Victorian remnant, interwar philanthropy was often modern, dynamic, and ambitious in scope. * Ellen Ross, Professor Emerita of History and Women's Studies, Ramapo College, New Jersey, USA. *
About the Author
Eve Colpus is Lecturer in British and European History post-1850 at the University of Southampton, UK.

motw/Female Philanthropy in the Inte - Eve Colpus.epub

motw/Female Philanthropy in the Inte - Eve Colpus.pdf

34110.indb

Colpus, Eve

new

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

UK : Bloomsbury Academic

Taylor & Francis Ltd

Methuen Drama

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

London, UK, 2018

1, 2018

producers:
Acrobat Distiller 10.0.0 (Macintosh)

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

Cover page 1
Halftitle page 2
Title page 4
Copyright page 5
Dedication 6
Contents 8
List of Illustrations 9
Acknowledgements 10
List of Abbreviations 13
Introduction 16
1 Relationships 46
The organization of personal service 49
Saving souls and the emotional proximity of service 60
Personal religion: between the individual and the mass 69
Conclusion 77
2 Knowledge 80
The power of the heart and embedded experience 83
Economics for life: combining theory and practice 91
Philanthropy as scientific vocabulary 101
Conclusion 109
3 Identity 112
Self-development in a Christian democracy 116
A democracy for women 123
Global kinship and the universalism of mankind 133
Conclusion 141
4 Culture 144
Aesthetics and politics in Anglo-Russian relations 147
European imaginations and reformist practice 156
Between ‘East’ and ‘West’: narratives of inter-cultural discovery 164
Conclusion 174
5 Communication 178
Opinion-forming and the politics of unmarried mothers 182
Cultural diplomacy: communicating international expertise 190
The visceral logic of public communication 198
Conclusion 206
Conclusion 208
Notes 216
Bibliography 266
Index 290

2025-10-27