Women’s Post-War Print Culture

Print culture studies is a vast, complex, and a still expanding field, and this edited volume, the fifth in ‘The Edinburgh History of Women’s Periodical Culture in Britain’ series, is a significant contribution. The first aim is ‘to indicate the range and diversity of print media produced for women in Britain in the period from the Second World War to the early twenty-first century’ (1). This is definitely achieved. The volume of 456 pages focusses, not just on some of the well-known, iconic titles of this period, but also short-lived ones that have been perhaps forgotten, as well as digital magazines. The essays capture the dramatic change in women’s print media through developments in printing technologies and publication processes, and through the study of various titles, the story of how women’s lives have changed socially, politically, culturally and personally over those years. While this volume does not seek to cover all these changes, it does aim ‘to open up a number of different contexts for understanding women’s print media... and to showcase different critical approaches, as well as to illustrate the huge variety of subject matter in the field of British women’s print media’ (22). I think this aim is achieved too. The volume begins with an introduction by co-editor Laurel Forster who sets the tone providing different ways to contextualize the many changes faced by women and print media. She does this under seven sub-headings: becoming a woman in the postwar period; age, race, ethnicity, sexuality; feminism; home, craft, food; celebrity, advertising, fashion; women’s postwar print culture industries; studying women’s print media. For those new to this field, the latter section details the various ways researchers have utilized this mass media resource. This volume serves as a reference book of sorts, something to dip into, and as a collection of original scholarship. It does this over twenty-two essays divided into five topic areas, which can’t have been an easy task. Laurel Forster and Joanne Hollows, eds, Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1940s to 2000s: The Postwar and Contemporary Period, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2020, 456 pp., 28 illustrations, 15 plates, ISBN 9781474469982