Studies in Imperialism Gender, Empire and Citizenship

A groundbreaking study of British women’s responses to the South African War of 1899-1902 throwing new light on empire and British society, gender and imperialism, and Victorian women’s politics and citizenship. Focusing on the South African War of 1899–1902, this groundbreaking study bridges the gap between traditional imperial history and gender history to explore how British women experienced the empire in the age of the ‘new imperialism’. Gender, empire and citizenship reveals how British middle-class women, already well-integrated into party politics and associational culture, responded to the war in South Africa. It explores women’s participation in the early anti-war movement, analysing the gendering of peace activism and women’s arguments against war. It highlights how military philanthropy allowed patriotic women to make real contributions to the empire’s war effort and investigates women’s activism in imperial propaganda campaigns ‘selling the war’ at home and overseas. Casting new light on the concentration camps, it situates Emily Hobhouse within the wider women’s ‘pro-Boer’ movement, provides the first in-depth analysis of the government Ladies’ Committee headed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett and examines how hundreds of British women acted as agents of the imperial state in the camps as teachers, doctors and nurses. Analysing how gender and race shaped British women’s wartime activism and expressions of female citizenship, it traces the consequences for women’s public action through the Edwardian era to the First World War. In foregrounding women’s agency and activism, the book opens innovative new perspectives on British reactions to the South African War. It also offers a snapshot of a vibrant, diverse female political culture as a controversial imperial war forced politically engaged women to articulate their relationship to empire and the state. When the South African War broke out in 1899 British middle-class women, already well-integrated into party politics and public life, were quick to respond. Women across a wide political spectrum actively engaged in public debates over the war through meetings, speeches, petitions, electioneering, and the press. From the start pacifist women made important contributions to the anti-war movement, later providing vital backing for Emily Hobhouse’s campaign to reform the concentration camps. Women imperialists supported the war effort through military philanthropy and imperial propaganda. Under Millicent Garrett Fawcett the government-appointed Ladies’ Committee transformed the camps, while hundreds of British women were recruited as camps teachers and nurses. Fundamentally shaped by ideologies of gender and race, women’s responses to this imperial war continued to influence women’s public action and discourses of citizenship into the First World War.