Dress and the home: aspects of women’s changing gender roles, 1910-1937 by Carmel Winter Thesis submitted for the award of MA by research. Mater Dei Institute of Education Dublin City University Dr. Leeann Lane Irish Studies Date of Submission: August 2013 I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of MA by research is entirely my own work, and that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: ¿ ^ ^ ^ ^ ¿ ^ ¿ O K fCandidate) ID No. Date: C f r / / d // £ Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One Becoming Citizens: Women’s roles in early twentieth century Ireland....................................5 Chapter Two Early Twentieth Century Irish Women’s Dress........................................................................35 Chapter Three The Department Store: shopping in early twentieth century Ireland.........................................75 Chapter Four Changing female roles: the response of the Establishment.....................................................106 Conclusion....................................... 129 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................132 Appendix.......................................................................................................................................i Dress and the home: aspects of women’s changing gender roles, 1910-1937. Carmel Winter This research examines women’s changing gender roles and related changes in female dress in the period 1910-1937. Women’s increasing role in the public sphere, for example, necessitated a move towards practical dress. Both women’s shifting gender roles and changes in choice of clothing were regularly debated in newspapers and prescriptive literature throughout the period in question. Despite changes in women’s roles, the dominant discourse in Ireland in this period was still that of separate spheres, particularly after 1922, with women viewed as belonging to the private or domestic sphere. Therefore, women’s gender roles in the period cannot be discussed without an examination of representations of the home. Fashions and trends relating to home interior also changed as women’s roles slowly changed and evolved. Changes in dress and home furnishings in Ireland saw influences from Paris, London and New York despite the anti-modernist discourse of the early Free State. With due reference to class it can be said that Irish women participated in contemporary international trends and displayed such engagement in their dress and home furnishings and design. Prescriptive literature provides the images, descriptions and public discourse for this research. Introduction Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. -Coco Chanel This research examines women’s changing gender roles and related changes in female dress in the period 1910-1937, demonstrating that fashion both reflected and shaped change in gender roles. Fashion, as contextualised in this research, is understood to be the latest style of clothing, hair or accessories. Fashion was not a new phenomenon for early twentieth century Ireland but advances of the early twentieth century allowed fashion to be explored and experimented with making fashion a popular interest among the middle and upper classes by the early 1900s. It is these middle-class women that are the primary subject of enquiry as this research explores an era in which advances in communication allowed ideas of fashion permeate and spread more quickly. The turn of the twentieth century in Ireland was a key time in Irish women’s history. Women had organised themselves politically for the suffrage campaign: the Northern Ireland Society for Women’s Suffrage was founded in 1871 and the Dublin Women’s Suffrage Association was founded in 1876. Women had gained educational rights1 and property rights.2 From 1896 women could be elected as poor law guardians and from 1898 they could be elected to some local councils and in 1900 Inghinidhe na hEireann, an Irish women’s nationalist organisation, was founded. So by the time the twentieth century had come round women were getting louder and more visible in a society of separate spheres where patriarchal values were dominant. This activity would have only affected a small number of women in Ireland, the middle and upper classes and mostly Protestant or Quaker, but gender roles had been changing slowly and more progressively for nearly thirty years. Women’s role in society became a topic of concern for society in the early twentieth century and it remained so into the Free State period. The traditional idea of femininity was being challenged by women’s shifting gender role. This was translated through her appearance, her clothes and therefore her fashion. Irish women’s history, for the past thirty years, has been a rich area of study. Previous to this, Irish women’s history was overlooked. The Women’s History Association of Ireland was founded in 1989 with the aim to promote research into this overlooked history. Since its foundation historians such as Cliona Rattigan,3 Leeann Lane,4 Maria Luddy5 and Mary 1 The Intermediate Education (Ireland) Act 1878 and the Royal University of Ireland Act 1879 gave girls and women the right to sit for public competitive examinations and to take university degrees. 2 The Married Women’s Property Act 1870 & 1882 allowed women to own and control their own property. 3 Cliona Ratigan, What Else Could I Do?: Single Mothers and Infanticide, Ireland 1900-1950 (Dublin, 2011). 4 Leeann Lane, Rosamond Jacob: Third Person Singular, (Dublin, 2010). Cullen6 have enriched the topic of Irish women’s history. The history of fashion has also been a topic of rich research for the past thirty years. Christopher Breward7, Valerie Steele8 and Jennifer Craik9 among many others have been significant contributors to research into the history of fashion. This research, however, has excluded Ireland. There has been some discussion of Irish women’s fashion and dress by Caitriona Clear10 and Diarmaid Ferriter11 but nothing significant and never taken as a subject in itself. Fashion is a rich topic of research and reveals a multitude about people. It has historical, psychological, economic and communicative connotations. From a history of fashion one can see dramatic changes have occurred over time. For example, King Henry VIII in the 16th century wore knee-length embellished dresses, elaborate coats, tights or stockings and a lot of jewellery. The purpose of this fashion was to portray his wealth and status. This adornment of the body was to help differentiate this man as superior to everyone else. A modem king such as King Albert II of Belgium would contrast significantly. To show his status he may wear a sash or a badge but with an unadorned tailored suit. His wealth is not showcased on his person. Another example, a woman of any class in the late Victorian era would have opted for a floor length gown with a high collar and a cinched in waste. Activity was restricted for these women by this style of fashion. Activity for middle-upper class women was also restricted by a society of separate spheres. Fashion author, Anne Hollander suggested, ‘Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie, and apply subtle pressure while their wearer is speaking frankly and straightforwardly of other matters.’12 Fashion is a diverse commodity and changes its appearance for a range of reasons be it by designers or the individual consumer-wearer. Fashion is instant visual language. One can communicate a story through fashion. This is the aim of this research, to tell the story of women through an examination of fashion in the early twentieth century. Prescriptive literature such as The Lady o f the House and Our Girls will comprise a central primary source for this study. Prescriptive Literature includes conduct-of-life books, domestic arts manuals, etiquette guides and women’s magazines. The Lady of the House and Our Girls contained sections on how to behave correctly, how to improve personal appearance and the home, cooking and cleaning tips and many more instructive literature type sections. Prescriptive literature can challenge both change and tradition in gender roles. 5 Maria Ludddy, Women in Ireland, 1800-1918: A Documentary History, (Cork, 1995), Prostitution & Irish Society, 1800-1940, (Cambridge, 2007), Women & Philanthropy in Nineteenth Century Ireland, (Cambridge, 1995). 6 Mary Cullen (ed), Girls D on’t Do Honours: Irish Women in Education in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Dublin, 1987). 7 Christopher Breward has published numerous history of fashion books including Fashion and Modernity, Fashion (Oxford, 2005), Fashion (Oxford, 2003) and The Hidden Consumer (Manchester, 1999). 8 Valerie Steele has also published numerous history of fashion books including The Corset: A Cultural History (Yale, 2003), Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now (Yale, 1997), Paris Fashion: A Cultural History (Oxford, 1988) and Fetish: Fashion,