Markers of modernity

: Mapping the causes of change in British women’s lives and their roles in partnered social dance 1905 –1925 as developmental indicators of societal change.

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to better understand the mechanisms of change which enabled British women to end an accepted societal norm of repression and restraint and gain collective and individual self-realisation. The transition from the culturally and economically restrained and physically corseted stereotypical mid-tolate Edwardian woman, to the flamboyant, scantly dressed woman of the emerging jazz age was dramatic. Across the relatively short timeframe examined, the changes in partnered social dance would be extreme, but so too were the changes in societal attitudes and society’s relationship with British women relative to changes in their lives, culture, and personal finances. If the embryonic seeds of emancipation had been sown in the early 1800s emergence of British suffrage, they grew at an accelerated rate in the late Edwardian era through a chain of events, and unplanned and unenvisaged circumstances. Through an amalgam of explanatory and interpretivist theoretical frameworks and an engagement with hermeneutics and phenomenology, this thesis uses first-hand accounts as a lens examining lives lived, the lives of those who experienced the events as they happened. From the perspective of a historian of 20th century British society, this thesis explores various elements of change as they affected British women, going from the known to the unknown. More importantly, it extracts and offers new interpretation and new meaning informing such change. A central argument throughout this thesis is that significant events underlying the sequential development in partnered social dance and developments in women’s lives can each be defined as a ‘marker’ – a notable point in the progression to modernity. At the core of the research period, Britain became embroiled in the Great War of 1914 –1918. This global conflict provides a backdrop to the investigation, impacting British society across all levels. This thesis argues that although the Great War did not initiate the changes in partnered social dance, it accelerated change. Examining a novel and hitherto previously unexplored and unexploited resource i.e. data extracted from original archived dance card collections, and covering the entire period of examination, enables the thesis to bridge a gap in the understanding relating to how social dance reflected developments and societal changes affecting British women from 1905, and into the 1920s. A remarkable number of dance cards analysed included the title of the music played for each dance. This information further enabled the location, acquisition and analysis of the sheet music played by the dance orchestra or dance band for each dance so listed – all music for dancing being played live at that time as there was no electronic amplification. From this information, elements of new knowledge and further threads connecting to dance, women’s development, and the onward post-war challenges facing women were revealed.

This thesis argues that the first marker, the first point of change in the progression of partnered social dance, was the introduction of black African American music to Britain, an event which occurred over a decade prior to the Great War. This thesis further argues that women’s financial independence, which occurred as a consequence of their well-paid employment during the Great War, was the catalyst, mechanism, and agent of change which enabled all other positive developments in British women’s lives; all key markers which progressively contributed to the emerging emancipation of British women. Above all, this thesis shows that the Great War enabled British women to prove their capabilities as absolute equals to men, both in the workplace and on the dance floor, because it enabled women to achieve complete financial independence, which, arguably, initiated their genuine expressions of self-confidence and self-reliance; then in 1918, the most significant marker and point of progression of all, when some British women finally gained the vote – they were all freedoms which once experienced would never be fully reversed.

Date of Award	Jul 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Coventry University
Supervisor	Sarah Whatley (Supervisor), Victoria Thoms (Supervisor) & Neil Forbes (Supervisor)