Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World : Between Self and Other

Female philanthropy was at the heart of transformative thinking about society and the role of individuals in the interwar period. In Britain, in the aftermath of the First World War, professionalization; the authority of the social sciences; mass democracy; internationalism; and new media sounded the future and, for many, the death knell of elite practices of benevolence. Eve Colpus tells a new story about a world in which female philanthropists reshaped personal models of charity for modern projects of social connectedness, and new forms of cultural and political encounter.

Centering the stories of four remarkable British-born women - Evangeline Booth; Lettice Fisher; Emily Kinnaird; and Muriel Paget - Colpus recaptures the breadth of the social, cultural and political influence of women's philanthropy upon practices of social activism. Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World is not only a new history of women's civic agency in the interwar period, but also a study of how female philanthropists explored approaches to identification and cultural difference that emphasized friendship in relation to interwar modernity. Richly detailed, the book's perspective on women's social interventionism offers a new reading of the centrality of personal relationships to philanthropy that can inform alternative models of giving today.

“Colpus makes use of personal archives, newspapers, journals, and a wide array of secondary sources, all of which help support her compelling study of these women, their work, and what it meant in its time. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” —CHOICE

“Thought-provoking ... a welcome addition to a growing literature on the subject of female philanthropy, across time periods and national settings.” —Women's History Review

“A fascinating, path-breaking study of twentieth-century philanthropy as witnessed through the intellectual, physical and moral journeys of four distinguished but diverse British women. Colpus moves beyond conventional structural understandings of the charitable relationship and illustrates the importance of individual agency within interwar female philanthropic ideas and practices.” —Sue Morgan, Emeritus Professor of Gender and Women's History, University of Chichester, UK

“This portrait of four remarkable women philanthropists delivers an exciting reinterpretation of British voluntarism in the 1920s and 1930s-a subject that has long called for more scholarly attention. Colpus shows that far from being a narrow and fading Victorian remnant, interwar philanthropy was often modern, dynamic, and ambitious in scope.” —Ellen Ross, Professor Emerita of History and Women's Studies, Ramapo College, New Jersey, USA.