Curio Cabinet | June 02, 2021
The Great British Teddy Girls: Ken Russell’s Forgotten Photographs
The Great British Teddy Girls: Ken Russell’s Forgotten Photographs
When the Second World War ended in 1945 after six years of conflict, it quickly became evident that Britain had paid a high price for victory. The nation’s wealth was severely depleted. The German blitz had destroyed large swaths of English countryside and many cities were reduced to ash and rubble, resulting in a dire housing shortage and a reduction in the number of functioning factories and stores. Postwar London resembled the city of Charles Dickens’s novels, with overcrowding, rubbish-filled alleys, poor sanitation, and only intermittent running water and electricity. Social services struggled to serve the physically and mentally scarred people who grappled with loneliness, illness, and bereavement. It was also clear that the responsibilities of a large empire were handicapping the home economy. During the Age of Austerity, as it came to be known, meat and petrol were in short supply and sold at high prices, while basic household necessities such as milk, butter, and sugar, as well as clothing and shoes, were rationed. After almost ten years of impoverishment, austerity finally began to recede. Unemployment and the working and middle classes were able to participate in consumer culture for the first time in decades
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Curio Cabinet
Jan 04 2024
Eva Tanguay and the Art of Self-Promotion
Eva Tanguay and the Art of Self-promotion “It has all been done before, but not the way I do it.” –Eva Tanguay In February 1909, just before her Sunday… read more
Curio Cabinet
Dec 18 2023
Maud Allan and the Price of Fame
Maud Allan and the Price of Fame Kristine Somerville When Alfred Butt booked Maud Allan for a two-week engagement at the Palace Theatre in London in 1908, he added women-only… read more
Curio Cabinet
Jul 27 2023
Curio Cabinet: Selling Amelia Earhart
Selling Amelia Earhart In 1928, a year after Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, New York publisher George Putnam hoped to sponsor the first woman to make a similar… read more