Edwardian women were finding fresh fields to conquer, not just in work, but in sports as well. To scandalized reports of women rowing clubs, bicycling and gymnastic clubs, women's football clubs and even British women playing and winning at Wimbledon, women were pushing the boundaries of society.
But life was going to change beyond all recognition at the end of the Edwardian Era and the lives of women with it. Women's suffrage and the First World War would mean that women took new roles in society, undreamed of in Queen Victoria's Britain.
An increasing awareness among women that there was a different way of doing things really arose among women of the lower middle classes who needed to work. Thousands of women were employed as teachers and this number continued to grow. The invention of the sewing machine gave women the opportunity to work from home, the invention of the bicycle gave then freedom.
Women could move about unchaperoned and get to work. The inventions of the telephone and typewriter opened up completely new work opportunities in offices and shops.
By 1901, 25% of all office workers were women. With money in their pockets and a new freedom on their bicycles, women changed the way they thought and dressed. The cumbersome skirts and crinolines that restricted movement were cast aside in favour of more unrestricted garments and even cycling trousers.
Women faced an uphill battle for any sort of recognition in the workplace. Their role was a subservient one, to serve the needs of the men who employed them. Few had managerial roles outside of their own businesses. Those that ran their own businesses were often very successful and had to be robust to operate in a "male driven workplace."
Legislation was created to keep certain jobs closed to women. There was no equal pay, women were often segregated from men at work and there was little chance for women to advance in the workplace.
Some women wanted to work on causes they felt very close to, involving the rights and issues of women. In the mid 19th Century, new acts of Parliament concerning divorce and women's property laws, gave women the opportunity to create lives separate from their husbands. But it was the individual women, who, in the mid 19th Century, started the ball rolling.
Emily Davis worked on women's education and she founded Girton College Cambridge in 1869.
Francis Cobbe demanded that women could study for a university degree in 1862.
Josephine Butler and the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act, so humiliating in its treatment of women.
The campaigning that led to Elizabeth Anderson becoming the first British licensed female doctor and the setting up of the London School of Medicine for women.
(Information from Intriguing History)
Couples were now having fewer children, for the middle classes it became increasingly expensive to buy things that made them 'middle class' and so having fewer children meant money could be stretched further.
The need to buy things was fueled during the later Industrial Revolution. The Great Exhibition of 1851 brought goods to the attention of over 6 million visitors. Goods that most people never thought they needed, now became must have items for the growing middle classes. By 1900, suburbia had grown.
Husbands commuted and wives stayed at home separated from their husbands lives. It became obvious that some sort of occupation was needed to fill the long days and volunteering served that purpose.
VOLUNTEERING
Churches supplied the social services in the early 20th Century society. The churches and related charities were, by and large, headed by men who oversaw an immense army of female volunteers. With the responsibility of volunteering, women found a new confidence. They began to mix with a wider spectrum of people and they began to take an interest in political work. Women's political work was kept separate from the politics of men, largely involving organizing money raising events and campaigning but for some women this was never going to be enough.
