Singled Out

In the British census of 1921, census takers found that there were nearly 2 million more women that men, largely because of the number of single young men that had died in World War 1. The single women of the time were known as the "Surplus Women," and in a time when marriage and children was the expected lot of all women, the disparate numbers were a bit of a shock. Virginia Nicholson writes about several of these women who made their own ways in all walks of life from all classes. Drawing heavily on written and unwritten memoirs as well as some interviews with those women still living in the early part of the 21st century, she focuses on the personal stories of the "bachelor girls" who created social change between the World Wars.

In show more reading, I was most struck by the social stigma of being an unmarried woman. Many of these women truly had no choice, while others would have chosen the single life regardless, but the expectations were such that the unmarried were looked upon as failures. Some women were sorry they never married, particularly if their sweetheart had died during the war, but others gloried in their singlehood and wouldn't have had it any other way. Nicholson sometimes seemed too ready to assume that these women were unhappy (once surmising this even after quoting someone who said she was content). The individual stories of some well-known and other unsung women of a generation that hugely affected society's perception of the "spinster" were fascinating. show less

What a fascinating book. In all of the WWI reading I've done, it never occurred to me to consider the women who would never marry because so many men had died. But this book does it. I think that her writing is a little haphazard--I couldn't find a lot of rhyme or reason to the sequence of it--but it really didn't matter a lot. There are stories of fairly famous women (Vera Brittain, Winifred Holtby, Elizabeth Goudge) and some who I had never heard of before, but all with the same theme: "This is what we've got. Let's see what we can do with it." Here are the original seeds of feminism. I had commented on the MO Readers group that this attitude could account for a lot of the women we have read about who were so independent and show more adventurous in the early 20th century. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who thinks the women's movement started in the 60s. There may have been a lull after WWII, and they thought they were the instigators, but they were wrong. Great book! show less

An informative and well researched - though occasionally repetitive - account of the 'Surplus Women' of the 1920s, left behind after a generation of young men were killed during the First World War. The personal histories of larger than life personalities like author Winifred Holtby, archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson and Bradford battleaxe Florence White, who campaigned for 'spinsters' pensions', are remarkable and inspiring. Whether they remained unmarried through situation or choice, these women chose to challenge the traditional role of wife and mother, much to the horror of complacent males everywhere. The industrious workforce of clever and capable young women who took over during the war years were suddenly and literally out show more of a job when the surviving soldiers returned home - but there weren't enough men to make honest women of them either. All praise to the pioneers mentioned by Nicholson who decided that the men couldn't have everything their way.

Virginia Nicholson's history of 'how two million women survived without men after the First World War' is part ode, part lecture - if she recounts once how spinsters were viewed as sexually frustrated, sour-faced frumps, then she must do so in every chapter - but definitely required reading for every woman in the UK who takes for granted her 'right' to earn a living, have a family, or more often than not, do both. show less

Lots of interesting stories of women's lives and work in the years and decades after the first world war in this book, but I did have some issues with how it almost feels that your story cannot be included in this book if there is no sob story about a boyfriend/potential husband/friends and brothers lost in the war which then gets romanticised and used as an explanation for everything that you did afterwards; and how at times the narrative seems to be holding up a binary of married-a-man and never-married-a-man as if the latter category doesn't actually include lots of different possibilities (lost boyfriend and didn't want anyone else, happily single, in a relationship with a man but not married, happily single lesbian, in a show more relationship with a woman, etc.) despite some examples of women pursuing these other possibilities being discussed here and there. show less

A very readable book about the "surplus women" left when so many young men were killed during World War I, something I'd never thought of before.

I found the first chapter most moving. One woman wrote in her memoirs about getting the letter about her fiance from the War Office. "I knew then that I should die an old maid.... I was only 20 years old."

The book describes how these women lived, how they were treated, how many pushed boundaries and paved the way for future generations.

The book is anecdote-heavy, with lots of descriptions from memoirs and fiction of the lives of unmarried women. I was left wondering about other aspects, for example, with far fewer marriages from 1914 onwards, how did this affect the UK population for the next show more few generations? show less

This is a really interesting read. It details the situations faced and dealt with by the generation of women born in the UK between 1885 and 1905, those that came of age during the first world war an found themselves single due the the lack of available men. In a sense it is very sad, as a number of them clearly long to have married and had children, but at the same time, without this generation of ground breakers women today would have a much harder life. it seems to me that the advances that took place at the instigation of this generation of women far exceeds that if the feminist movement or the women's lib of the 60s & 70s.

I knew very few of these women, although both the Great Grannies that I knew fell into this generation. In show more both cases, the war intervened and they both had their children significantly later than would have been the case. Great Granny Bloy (according to family legend) lost her boyfriend during the war, only to marry in her late 20s and have her children (including my Grandma) in her early 30s - late compared to the standards of the prewar age.

Not all of them chose to be single, not all of them enjoyed the life they led with no regrets, but all of them managed and carried on and made themselves useful to their families and to society as a whole. It is largely because of this generation that my generation leads a life they would not recognise. show less

An interesting subject, told with care. I wish it had been better organized, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.