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Histories of Everyday Life The Making of Popular Social History in
Britain, 1918-1979
Laura Carter
The Past and Present Book Series Oxford: University Press, 2021 Hardcover. xii +274 p. ISBN 978-0198868330. £75
Reviewed by Pat Thane Birkbeck
College London
Laura Carter explores
the emergence and development of ‘histories of everyday life’ in British
culture in the context of the democratisation of education as it became
compulsory and free to the age of 14, and the partial democratisation of
politics as all men over 21 and most women over 30 gained the vote in 1918. Votes
were equalised between men and women at 21 in 1928. The two developments were
linked because governments, through the Board of Education, saw education,
particularly History education, as the key to developing ‘responsible citizenship’.
This began in the 1880s and became stronger in the years preceding World War 1,
but was directed at encouraging teaching mainly of British and Imperial
political history to ‘more able’ schoolchildren. History was relatively little
taught in state schools at this time, but after the war the Board pressed for
History teaching to poorer, ‘less able’ pupils who would now grow up to be
voters, instilling in them a sense of commitment to the nation and their local
community, not least ( as Carter does not discuss) to discourage them from socialism
following the Russian revolution of 1917 and the growth of the Labour Party
since 1900. The ‘history of
everyday life’ was adopted in the 1920s for teaching these ‘ordinary’ pupils in
the lower forms of state elementary schools who were not thought capable of
mastering the more academic history taught to pupils deemed more able. This
popular history first emerged outside the educational system and was very
different from the academic history developing in universities. It was produced
both for children and for the many adults who had received limited education
and had limited knowledge of history, and it built upon technological advances
enabling the presentation of history in a variety of new, relatively cheap,
accessible forms. Publishers were keen to publish popular histories, sometimes
written by academics, often by ‘amateurs’, as cheap, illustrated, increasingly often
paper-backed books. Batsford from 1918-34 published the four volume History
of Everyday Things in England, 1066-1934 by Charles and Marjorie Quennell,
who were not academics. It was very popular including in schools. They also
published histories of buildings, travels, archaeology. The distinguished
economic historian Eileen Power published with her sister Rhoda Power, who
played a major role in developing educational broadcasting for the BBC, Boys
and Girls of History (1926) with chapters on the lives of children in
different historical contexts. The Historical Association, founded in 1906 by
teachers and academics to ensure that everyone learned History ‘to develop,
intelligence, patriotism and citizenship’, worked with publishers to produce
accessible material for schools. Diaries and memoirs of ordinary lives of
working-class men and women were published, including Flora Thompson’s Lark
Rise to Candleford (1939) about growing up in a poor rural community in
Oxfordshire. They were used in schools though they were often too expensive for
under-funded state schools. Teachers took children to view notable local sites
of historical significance. Finer maps and illustrations could now be produced
for classroom walls. Documentary films developed, some with historical themes. So teachers gained more
resources for teaching ‘histories of everyday life’. At the same time History
became increasingly prominent in national and international politics. In
Britain there were vigorous debates about the relative importance of teaching
national or imperial history, of the need to develop ‘imperial citizenship’ and
a sense of unity in what became the Commonwealth. Meanwhile the League of
Nations sought to encourage the teaching of international history to promote
world unity and greater understanding of other countries to prevent future
wars. But many teachers were suspicious of such politically motivated history
and preferred to focus upon describing past lives and experiences of ’ordinary
men and women like ourselves’, though this was not wholly without political
motivation. As Carter describes, it was ‘history from below’ often and
increasingly focussing on the pupils’ own locality, things familiar in their
everyday lives and features of the local economy, including describing the
machinery of industrialisation or agriculture, designed to increase their
knowledge of and commitment to their community, to encourage feelings of
self-worth by emphasising the achievements of ‘ordinary people’. It encouraged
imagination about the past without implying criticism, including of the
domestic role routinely ascribed to women. It was education supporting the political
and social status quo, training
pupils in their place within it. The book is mainly about England but with
references to the different, rather more democratic, educational system in
Scotland and the role of history education in the development through the 20th
century of strong national identities in Scotland and Wales. Teaching popular, localised history to
less privileged pupils in elementary schools was assisted by the devolution of
education to local authorities who encouraged local history, and the
independence of teachers who were not bound by prescribed textbooks or
syllabuses as examination-level classes were. History was not compulsory in
state schools until curricula became nationally regulated in the 1980s, but it
appears to have been increasingly taught between the wars and after, though
teachers were rarely trained in history and the hours of history teaching were
often few – perhaps two hours each week – though Carter does not discuss this. She
was unable to discover just how much popular history of what kind was taught,
how it was received by the students and whether it had the intended effects. The BBC provided
further resources and played an important role in developing mass education
from its foundation in 1922. As Carter describes, it sought to make academic
subjects relevant and interesting to the mass audience via radio, including schoolchildren
and women at home, popularising history by bringing it to life with voices and
sounds. John Reith, the first Director, saw the role of the BBC as ‘to inform,
educate and entertain…the educationally underserved citizens of the mass
democracy’, as a 1928 report put it. It produced accessible talks by eminent
historians, including Eileen Power. In 1927 it ran a series ‘Europe through the
Ages’ to emphasise historic unity in Europe. It promoted listening groups in
Women’s Institutes, YMCAs and other organisations, and published ‘Aids to
Study’ booklets to maximise the impact of the many talks about aspects of
‘everyday life’, some of which were printed in its weekly magazine, the Listener.
Some local museums held exhibitions illustrating BBC talks. Its influence was
wide and it did much to extend popular interest in history. It aimed to democratise
history, presenting it as domestic and personal rather than academic,
representing ‘social realities and everyday life’, seeking to make educational
broadcasts ‘dynamic and entertaining’, ‘palatable to our consuming public’. It
is not clear that it shared the aspiration to develop collective, ‘responsible’
citizenship. Indeed the historian Arthur Bryant complained that the BBC did not
promote a patriotic, national unity, but was too left-wing, which would have
surprised Reith. In 1934 it introduced historical dramatisation, including a
Famous Trials series, beginning with that of Charles I. It was a big success,
using professional actors and the actual words of the trials. This was followed
by a ‘Historic Occasions’ series reconstructing recent events, followed by a
’BBC Scrapbooks’ series, each on a chosen year of history. Aired at peak time
it won an audience of 32 million and continued to 1970. The BBC always sought
to make history ‘relevant’, not to contentious political issues but to local
places and feelings. Eileen Power fell out of favour when she used broadcasts
to promote her favoured internationalist causes, such as the League of Nations.
BBC Schools
broadcasting began in 1924, opening with the series ‘Men who have made
history’. Poorly funded elementary schools rarely had the equipment to receive broadcasts
and teachers were initially sceptical of their value, but by 1926 between 1500
and 2000 London schools were listening, 70% of them elementary schools. The
numbers rose nationally through the 1930s. Carter could not discover how
teachers integrated programmes into their teaching, but children were asked
their opinions: ‘daily life’ was most popular; they least enjoyed programmes
outside their experience. Programmes focussed upon World History for 9-11 year olds,
British history from 11-14. Rhoda Power who led the World History series, was
committed to ‘humanising’ history: ’it must give one an intimate knowledge of
human beings, not an outline of facts’. She believed this was important for
understanding economic, political and all forms of history for ‘events are
really always the outcome or accompaniment of human passion’. She used sound
effects and music, increasingly as technology improved. Each 20-minute
programme included three ‘dramatic interludes’ placed in the context of
‘everyday life’ and one and a half minutes of sound effects. ‘Ordinary’ voices
described the effects of social change on the masses. During the Second
World War popular history became even more pervasive. The Ministry of Education
produced historical films for less able pupils. BBC broadcasting recognised a
broader, more diverse, ’casual’ audience’. In 1945 it institutionalised this
diversity into separate ‘Light’, ‘Home’ and ‘Third’ programmes. The ‘history of
everyday life’, including talks on ’The Victorian Family’ and ‘Victorian Ideas
of Sex’, plus lectures on current world affairs by A.J.P. Taylor and others, on
new books by academic historians and historiographical debates, were presented
in formal programmes to small audiences on the intellectual Third programme. In
an attempt to be more popular the Third ran ‘1851 week’ trying to recreate the
atmosphere of 1851 at the time of the 1951 Festival of Britain, including ‘news
bulletins from the past’. More popular approaches were more commonplace on the ‘middlebrow’
Home Service and continued pre-war practices at a time when paperback histories
of everyday life were best sellers. Some of these were serialised, including Lark
Rise to Candleford, presented as history for leisure not education. The
BBC, especially the Home Service, became more political, aiming to help build a
democracy of informed citizens, engaged with their communities and the nation,
about which they learned from history broadcast in multiple forms through
drama, dialogue, ‘time travel’ and sound effects. The changes in BBC programming
reflected contemporary changes in education following the reform of state secondary
education under the 1944 Education Act. ‘Academic’ pupils in grammar schools
were encouraged to listen to the Third Programme, the ‘less able’ in Secondary
Modern schools to popular histories of ‘everyday life’ on the Home Service Another source of
popular education through histories of everyday life between the wars and after
was local museums, which grew in number throughout the UK. They reinvented
themselves to justify increased local funding, seeking to appeal to a wider
audience as the educated public grew by popularising accessible local, social
and economic history. They tapped into local knowledge, including displaying
the evolution of trades in the context of everyday life. In Wales and Scotland
they presented the national distinctiveness of objects and beliefs. As Carter
describes them, museums sought to strengthen the cohesion of local communities
and the place of individuals within them as the basis for stable national
politics, which became especially important during the Second World War.
Museums connected with local schools, holding classes where pupils could handle
objects, including farming and industrial tools and domestic cooking equipment,
clothes including workers’ outfits, and learn about local history. Curators
collected items from the lofts of local people and gathered information from
which they constructed local histories. During and after the
war the British State pursued a centralised, national cultural policy,
nurturing the arts in wartime by establishing the Committee for the
Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), after the war through the Arts
Council. Local authorities were still funded to develop local cultural
activities, including theatre and music as well as museums, but were
increasingly influenced by this national, ‘high cultural’ remit. As their
numbers continued to grow they professionalised, focussing more upon linking
the local with national history, until they were hard hit in the 1980s with
cuts to local funding and the introduction of fees to enter museums. Carter illustrates
the role of local museums in promoting popular knowledge of local social
history with the interesting, well-documented example of the establishment and
development of the Geffrye Museum in East London by the progressive London
County Council (LCC) as part of its policy of advancing local citizenship
though cultural activities, including preservation of ancient buildings. When
the Geffrye almshouses were declared unfit for habitation in the poor district of
Shoreditch before World War I, the LCC reopened them as a craft museum of local
trades central to the local economy. Between the wars it displayed also classic
items rescued from the demolition of local ‘slum’ dwellings, including fireplaces,
mouldings, staircases. The museum became increasingly focussed upon a local
social history accessible to children, themed around the London home,
encouraging visits and providing lectures. Children helped salvage items from
demolished buildings which furnished ten rooms showing the development over
time of ‘the ordinary London house’. The museum became popular with schools and
other visitors. This continued
through the war, providing ‘a little island of culture’ in a deprived,
much-bombed area. Exhibitions and activities illustrated everyday life across
the centuries, presented clearly and visually and linked to local interests,
aimed at a wide audience by age, class, ethnicity, including children and ‘the
quite untrained man in the street’. This community engagement continued after
the war with Sunday discussion groups, evening lectures and recitals of ‘old
music with old instruments’, lectures on domestic history including ‘The
English Child at Home’, aiming to expand knowledge, culture and taste among the
masses. But by the 1950s the local masses were changing. Immigration created a
local population that was not well served by the history of white everyday life,
and the Geffrye became less central to local life. By the 1960s the
history of everyday life was established as a mainstream form of popular
history, but society was changing, ethnically and in other ways. The BBC had to
adapt to the development of TV, commercial competition and a more educated,
self-aware audience. There were new challenges of making history appear
relevant to a generation of ‘pop-oriented’ teenagers. The 1960s and 70s saw the
emergence of comprehensive schools. More ’ordinary’ boys and girls now mostly studied
history in ability, gender and increasingly racially mixed classes. It was
taught to all children in the first three years, then became optional as they prepared
for examinations. Teachers still had considerable freedom to decide the content
of courses below the level of exam preparation, for which there were fixed syllabuses
in conventional academic topics. Histories of ‘everyday life’, of family, work,
the physical environment, were still taught in junior classes. Locally based histories
of everyday life were judged suitable for mixed-ability teaching to lower forms
to help them understand social change, including the impact of immigration. There
were now more surveys of students’ responses and Carter also carried out ten
interviews with teachers in 1970s comprehensives. Students appear to have
enjoyed history at all levels. There were few relevant textbooks and teachers
used techniques developed from experience, encouraging students’ imaginative
reconstruction of the past. This approach was adopted for the Certificate of
Secondary Education (CSE) introduced in 1965 as a school-leaving exam for ‘low
ability’ students, but not for the established ‘high ability’ General
Certificate of Education (GCE). Increasingly students
also studied related topics in social studies which by the 1980s became
dominant as a means of understanding contemporary life, and histories of
everyday life faded from schools. More conventional, global academic history
took over. One influence upon the change, Carter concludes, was mass
immigration and the failure to find a means to include race in the history curriculum
in areas of mass immigration in the context of the national policy of
‘assimilation’ and rising racial tensions, especially after 1968. It was hard
to integrate race into histories of everyday life since immigrants came from
such diverse backgrounds. At their best, LEAs and schools developed local
responses according to the needs and ethnic backgrounds of their pupils. At
their worst they marginalised ethnic minority students. Insofar as schools
tried to develop courses in Black and Asian history they were aimed at lower
ability children and not included in exam courses. In 1977 the BBC broadcast
the first TV history series produced from a Black perspective: ’The Black Man
in Britain, 1550- 1950’. It was explicitly anti-racist. Only 1% of the
potential viewing audience watched it. Carter concludes that
‘histories of everyday life’ were ill-equipped to cope with all the deep
inequalities of life in Britain at this time and they faded away. Traditional
approaches to history and other subjects became more dominant as more students
went to university and demanded courses they believed would assist their
careers. New forms of social history emerged which were explicitly political as
histories of everyday life sought not to be and they challenged courses
reinforcing the status quo. Feminist
history particularly challenged deep-rooted patriarchy as histories of everyday
domestic life had not, and feminists campaigned for the inclusion of women’s
history in school courses. Laura Carter opens up a
previously hidden phase in the history of History in Britain which is revealing
and fascinating about many facets of twentieth century British culture.
Unfortunately it is not well-written and the arguments are sometimes hard to
follow, but it is worth the effort.
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