Women, Sport and Modernity in Interwar Britain

This book offers a unique examination of women’s increasing involvement in sport during the period 1919-1939. Focusing primarily on sites of participation, it analyses where and how women accessed sport across class, age and marital groups. It also demonstrates the diverse ways in which sport was incorporated into their everyday lives.

Fiona Skillen completed her PhD in the department of Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow. She is currently a lecturer in Sport Management, Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University.

«Skillen has here produced a study which provides an important contribution to the debate surrounding women and modernity; as well as one which both adds to the literature on women’s sports and history and takes it in interesting new directions.» (Rafaelle Nicholson, Twentieth Century British History, 2014)

Contents: ‘A sound system of physical training’: The development of girls’ sports education in interwar Britain – ‘We all wanted to win, but we were nice to each other’: The growth of organized sport – ‘To make them men or women of character and worthy citizens of our great Empire’: Public provision of sports facilities – ‘Brightening the lives and making less monotonous the daily toil of the workers’: Work and sport – ‘Women and sport: a change in taste’: Sportswomen and modernity.