This book examines the British government's response to the 'superfluous women problem', and concerns about post-war unemployment more generally, by creating a migration society that was tasked with reducing the number of single women at home through overseas migration. The Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women (SOSBW) was created in 1919 to facilitate the transportation of female migrants to the former white settler colonies. To do so, the SOSBW worked with various domestic and dominion groups to find the most suitable women for migration, while also meeting the dominions' demands for specific types of workers, particularly women for work in domestic service. While the Society initially aimed to meet its original mandate, it gradually developed its own vision of empire settlement and refocused its efforts on aiding the migration of educated and trained women who were looking for new, modern, and professional work opportunities abroad.

Analyses the social, economic, and political structure of the Society for the Oversea Settlement of British Women Argues that the Society pursued its own agenda to train and place educated women looking for non-domestic service work in the dominions Challenges earlier studies' focus on the Society's failure to migrate a significant number of women from Britain to white settler colonies after 1924

Autorentext

Bonnie White is Assistant Professor at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. She is also the author of The Women's Land Army in First World War Britain (Palgrave, 2014).

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. From Volunteerism to Government Control: The Formation of the SOSBW.- Chapter 3. Superfluous Women: Gender and Migration, 1919-1924.- Chapter 4. The Great Depression: New Fears, New Strategies, 1925-1935.- Chapter 5. The Second World War: New War, New Roles, 1936-1945.- Chapter 6. Temporary Migrants: Home, Abroad, and Home Again, 1945-1962.- Chapter 7. Conclusion.