The Matriarchs of England's Cooperative Movement A Study in Gender Politics and Female Leadership, 1883-1921

Subjects:

• History » European History -- Modern/20th Century
• Political Science » Comparative Politics
• Women's Studies » Women's Issues in Politics & Law

Reviews:

• [E]ven readers with a limited interest in the WCG should find this study worth examining.
  —Choice
• Blasak's book is a heavyweight co-operative history. It deserves to be ranked with the best....it is eminently readable and is based on remarkably in depth research.
  —Journal of Co-operative Studies August 2001
• Blaszak recounts the story of the Women's Cooperative Guild, she does so more broadly in the context of the gendered politics of the cooperative movement as a whole. She argues convincingly that men established the boundaries in which women operated, that they feared the feminization of cooperation, and that, consequently, much of the previous work on the Guild has tended to overestimate the achievements of female cooperation....Blaszak has made an important contribution to our understanding of the gendered politics of cooperation in modern British society.
  —Albion
• Interestingly and convincingly, she argues that male co-operators were particularly wary of female intervention in the movement.
  —Labor History

• Endorsement From Ellen Ross
  Professor of History and Women's Studies
  Ramapo College of New Jersey: The policies and publications of the Women's Cooperative Guild have been central to women's history since its revival in the early 1970s, but very few scholars have looked in such detail at how both were actually constructed. Barbara Blaszak's new book is a fascinating and sobering study of the limits placed on this women's organization by its male-controlled `parent' body, the Cooperative Union. In its analysis of the politics and leadership of Margaret Lleyellyn Davies, it also offers a cool reappraisal of a dedicated social reformer's efforts on behalf of working-class women. An extremely important contribution.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Women in the English Cooperative Movement
• Women's Space/Women's Place
• The "Woman's Corner" of the Co-operative News
• The Gendered Geography of the Cooperative Movement
• Angels in the Store
• The Early Leaders of the Women's Cooperative Guild
• Margaret Llewelyn Davies: A Woman with a Mission
• The Dysfunctional Commonwealth
• Rent at the Seams: Sisterhood in the Women's Cooperative Guild
• The Battle between the Sexes in the Cooperative Movement
• Conclusion
• Contradictions and Conflicts
• Bibliography
• Index