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Life Writing, Class & Identity

Lilian Westall (born 1893): Life-Writing, Class and Identity

The early 1900’s and throughout the First World War created much stress on families and class divide. The level of poverty …

Mary Denison (1906 – 1997): Life writing, class and identity.

‘But your nursey years were running to a close, your private school years, your childhood years. All running to a close, coming …

Doris Hunt (1900): Life Writing and Class Identity

In ‘Social Atoms: Working Class Autobiography, Subjectivity and Gender’, Regenia Gagnier distinguishes working class autobiographies into six different categories. I believe that …

Stephen Forsdick (b. 1835): Life Writing, Class and Identity

I offer no words of advise to the youth of today, knowing full well that it would be useless. My experience will …

John Robinson (b. circa 1850): A Class Below the Rest

Classism in the nineteenth century was just as much a polarising issue as it is in our modern age, and employers knew …

Emanuel Lovekin (1820-1905): Life Writing, Class and Identity

Regenia Gagnier argues that 19th Century working-class autobiographies did not fit the classic model for autobiographical writing. I think that two of …

Olga Pyne Clarke (1915-1996): Class and Identity

Although part of the landed gentry of Ireland, Olga’s family was actually ‘very poor’ (p.40) for their cultural standards. As a child, …

Annie Ford (1920 Onwards): Life Writing and Class Identity

After engaging thoroughly in Annie Ford’s insightful memoir of her life as a child growing up in the 1920’s and 1930’s in …

Alexander Howison (b.1795): Class & Identity

Regeina Gagnier’s ‘Working-Class Autobiography, Subjectivity, and Gender.’ she comments that working class writers start autobiographies ‘with an apology for their authors’ ordinariness’. Alexander does …

A.W Todd: Work Pays. Leisure and Recreation

In keeping with the work orientated themes, we come to the most revered day in the worker’s monthly calendar: pay day. And …