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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Crying Need of South Africa: The Emigration of Single British Women to the Transvaal, 1901-1910 |
Authors: | Van Helten, Jean J. Williams, Keith |
Year: | 1983 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 10 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | October |
Pages: | 17-38 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | colonists British women migrants History and Exploration Women's Issues |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2636814 |
Abstract: | Between 1901 and 1910, over four thousand single women left Britain for South Africa by assisted and 'protected' emigration through the medium of the major women's emigration societies. Over half of these women were settled in the Transvaal. Most were destined for domestic service on the Witwatersrand. In the 1900s the status of women in Britain and the demands placed upon them by patriarchy were determined to some extent by the exigencies of empire - in particular by the necessity of breeding an imperial 'race' fit to compete with other imperial 'races' in an era when population was increasingly being equated with power. Moreoever, the ideology of 'imperial motherhood' was parallelled by and shared common ground with one which prompted the emigration of British women to the white settler colonies, including South Africa. The assisted emigration of women from Britain was organized by women but with the connivance of metropolitan and colonial states and in realisation of an imperialist and patriarchal ideology, which may have contributed to the self-image of women in colonial societies. Notes, tab. |