Singled Out : How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War

Almost three-quarters of a million British soldiers lost their lives during the First World War, and many more were incapacitated by their wounds, leaving behind a generation of women who, raised to see marriage as "the crown and joy of woman's life," suddenly discovered that they were left without an escort to life's great feast. Drawing upon a wealth of moving memoirs, Singled Out tells the inspiring stories of these women: the student weeping for a lost world as the Armistice bells pealed, the socialite who dedicated her life to resurrecting the ancient past after her soldier love was killed, the Bradford mill girl whose campaign to better the lot of the "War spinsters" was to make her a public figure—and many others who, deprived of their traditional roles, reinvented themselves into something better. Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them—physical intimacy, the closeness of a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage. From the mill-girl turned activist to the debutante turned archeologist, from the first woman stockbroker to the "business girls" and the Miss Jean Brodies, this book memorializes a generation of young women who were forced, by four of the bloodiest years in human history, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity, and their future happiness. Indeed, Singled Out pays homage to this remarkable generation of women who, changed by war, in turn would change society. Frontmatter List of Illustrations (page vii) Introduction (page xi) 1 Where Have All the Young Men Gone? Two women (page 1) The crown and joy (page 10) Deeply loved and sadly missed (page 13) A world without men (page 19) Surplus Two Million (page 22) 2 'A world that doesn't want me' The twilight state (page 28) Odd women and Ann Veronicas (page 33) The spinster problem (page 42) Destiny and the devil (page 46) The more of us the merrier (page 53) 3 On the Shelf Husbands (page 60) Mr Wrong (page 66) Heart-to-heart chats (page 73) A buyers' market (page 77) 'But who will give me my children?' (page 92) 4 Business Girls War, work and wives (page 103) Palaces of commerce (page 109) A rotten hard life (page 121) Miss All-Alone in the classroom (page 125) Miss All-Alone on the wards (page 138) 5 Caring, Sharing... Lonely days (page 146) Companions, consolations (page 151) Other people's babies (page 166) Lonely nights (page 173) The blessed fact of loving (page 180) 6 A Grand Feeling A cause, a purpose and a passion (page 188) The Well (page 201) The urge (page 209) Finding happiness as a 'bach' (page 216) Surviving the night (page 226) 7 The Magnificent Regiment of Women The challenge of loss (page 233) We are not downhearted (page 238) A good strong character (page 245) Doing things that matter (page 250) 'You loved him' (page 268) Notes on Sources (page 273) Select Bibliography (page 285) Acknowledgements (page 293) Index (page 299) Almost three-quarters of a million British soldiers lost their lives during World War I, and many more were incapacitated by their wounds, leaving behind a generation of women who, raised to see marriage as "the crown and joy of woman's life," suddenly discovered that they were left without an escort. Drawing upon a wealth of memoirs, this book tells the inspiring stories of these women: the student weeping for a lost world as the Armistice bells pealed, the socialite who dedicated her life to resurrecting the ancient past after her soldier love was killed, and many others who, deprived of their traditional roles, reinvented themselves into something better. Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them--physical intimacy, a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage.--From publisher description In 1919 a generation of young women discovered that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round, and the statistics confirmed it. After the 1921 Census, the press ran alarming stories of the 'Problem of the Surplus Women - Two Million who can never become Wives...'. This book is about those women, and about how they were forced, by a tragedy of historic proportions, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity and their future happiness.