Modernist Heroines article in Gender, Place & Culture by Morag Rose

Congratulations to Dr Morag Rose on the publication of her journal article in Gender, Place & Culture, ‘From an aviatrix to a eugenicist: walking with Manchester’s Modernist Heroines’, which documents Manchester’s Modernist Heroines, a joint local history project between the joint Loiterers Resistance Movement, Manchester Modernist Society and the Shrieking Violet in 2011. The article focuses on the alternative walking tour Morag developed, inspired by the ten twentieth-century women we highlighted through the project, and explores walking as feminist pedagogy; it's been great to see the project revisited, contextualised and reevaluated from a new perspective.

Read Morag's article online here.

Read the Manchester’s Modernist Heroines publication here, and find out more about the project and the heroines, here.

Guest lecture, Bradford School of Art, Wednesday 31 October - Woman's Outlook: A Surprisingly Modern Magazine?

I'll be returning to Bradford School of Art on Wednesday 31 October to do another lecture in its Random Lecture series. The lectures take place at 12 noon in the Dye House Gallery; all welcome.

I'll be talking about my research into the twentieth-century co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook, published by the Co-operative Press from Manchester between 1919 and 1967, which combined political campaigning and information with domestic tips and knowledge.

'Woman's Outlook' book chapter in 'Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The Interwar Period'

I'm really delighted to have a chapter about the twentieth century co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook in the new collection Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The Interwar Period, published by Edinburgh University Press (I'm also really pleased that the book features an image of Woman's Outlook on its cover!).

This blog is one of the places where I have explored my interest in Woman's Outlook, a magazine for the campaigning women of the co-operative movement, which was published by the Co-operative Press in Manchester between 1919 and 1967 and combined information about political and social issues with domestic tips and advice. The chapter is based on research into the magazine in the National Co-operative Archive in Manchester, which holds a complete set of the publication.

To find out more about the book and other contributors, visit https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-women-039-s-periodicals-and-print-culture-in-britain-1918-1939.html.

Review: What If Women Ruled the World?, Manchester International Festival

Premiering in the week that North Korea claimed a successful intercontinental missile test, and the columnist Owen Jones sparked a social media row by suggesting the British people should present large-scale public resistance if the President of the United States visited the UK, What If Women Ruled the World? feels scarily prescient and necessary for an art performance.

Rather than a hackneyed invitation to smash the patriarchy – although the need to replace established hierarchies is, unsurprisingly, a recurrent theme – What If Women Ruled the World? uses a creative platform to imagine a situation in which humanity is forced to start anew, and to learn the lessons of the past (and the present).

Israeli artist Yael Bartana’s commission for Manchester International Festival takes the ambiguous end point of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Dr Strangelove as its starting point, positing a female-led world in which women outnumber men ten to one and asking what would happen next if the slate was wiped clean and we could start again – with women in charge.

To start with, the piece has an air of amateur dramatics about it – think stick-on-moustaches, exaggerated accents, women in drag and ‘survival kits’ containing lipstick and nylons alongside sustenance and weapons – but the piece convincingly navigates between fact and storytelling, entertainment and debate, information and polemic. It’s both historically grounded and contemporary, incorporating possibly the first literary reference to ‘covfefe’, to knowing audience laughter.

What If Women Ruled the World? comes into its own when the five actors in the war room are brought together with five women who are real-life international experts in their fields, ranging from economics and development to archaeology and feminism. The women discuss major and recognisable challenges facing the world outside – from climate change, the threat of nuclear war, pandemics and the depletion of natural resources to ongoing conflict and systemised violence against women. Behind them the Doomsday Clock ticks away, offering archival glimpses into natural and manmade disasters, with both personal and global impacts, as a rapidly deteriorating post-bomb landscape is alluded to, building a very real sense of urgency.

What If Women Ruled the World? is an invitation to imagine things done differently, and to ask questions of our actions and priorities as individuals, as city dwellers, and as British, European and global citizens. It starts with a lighthearted premise, exploring serious issues with personality and humour, but it’s a simplistic title for a piece that suggests not just overthrowing the patriarchy, but our entire economic, social and political systems and fundamentally rethinking the way we relate to each other and to the planet. At a time when socialist ideas such as equitable taxation and economic redistribution are apparently back in vogue, much of the discussion captures the zeitgeist, but ultimately, it serves as a warning about bigger dangers such as the power of individuals and the cult of personality. It poses not just the titular question, but asks who should be allowed a seat at the table of power, whose knowledge and expertise we take on board, and what measures we need to take to ensure those voices are heard.

What If Women Ruled the World? is at Mayfield, Manchester, until Saturday 8 July as part of Manchester International Festival. To book visit http://mif.co.uk/mif17-events/what-if-women-ruled-the-world.

Modernist Heroines tour, People’s History Museum, Thursday 18 August

Five years on from the joint LRM, Manchester Modernist Society and Shrieking Violet project, Manchester’s Modernist Heroines will be revisited in a free walking tour for the People’s History Museum at 2pm on Thursday 18 August.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day in 2011, Manchester’s Modernist Heroines celebrated ten overlooked women from the twenty and twenty first-centuries with connections to Manchester, from the architect Rachel Haugh to the geographer Doreen Massey to the Egyptologist Rosalie David and the sculptor and designer Mitzi Cunliffe. It culminated in a psychogeographic walk around Manchester, responding to sites significant to Manchester’s Modernist Heroines, and a publication bringing together creative and critical responses to the women by contemporary Mancunians, from interviews and essays to poetry and drawing. Read online:

The Modernist Heroines tour will be led by artist, researcher and activist Morag Rose as part of a series of events running alongside the People’s History Museum exhibition Loitering With Intent, which celebrates ten years of the LRM and brings together new contributions from writers, artists and activists as well as items from the LRM archive. For more information and to book visit www.phm.org.uk/whatson/manchester-modernist-heroines-walk.

Loitering With Intent continues until Friday 14 October.

Woman's Outlook talk, Cafe Kino, Bristol, Tuesday June 17, free

I've been invited by the lovely Roxy Brennan (Shrieking Violet issue 21 contributor and Two White Cranes singer), who programmes events at Cafe Kino in Bristol, to do my talk about the co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook at Cafe Kino on Tuesday June 17, 7pm, free.

Facebook event.



Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine? 

For nearly five decades, Woman’s Outlook was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and its onetime editor Mary Stott later became a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s pages. From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles addressing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – in many ways, not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!

‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world. Topics covered by Outlook such as female representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by considering whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.

Research for the talk was undertaken in the National Co-operative Archive in Manchester, and I also conducted interviews with some inspiring women who were members of the co-operative women's movement at the time.

Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.

Manchester Histories Festival talk: Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine?

I've been invited to repeat my talk about the co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook, which was published from Manchester between 1919 and 1967, at the People's History Museum on Saturday March 29 at 1pm. The talk takes place during this year's Manchester Histories Festival and Wonder Women series of events about Manchester's radical history and accompanies the free exhibition The People's Business - 150 Years of the Co-operative.

The talk is free but should be booked here. Facebook event.

Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine? 

For nearly five decades, Woman’s Outlook was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and its onetime editor Mary Stott later became a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s pages. From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles addressing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – in many ways, not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!

‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world. Topics covered by Outlook such as female representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by considering whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.

Research for the talk was undertaken in the National Co-operative Archive in Manchester, and I also conducted interviews with some inspiring women who were members of the co-operative women's movement at the time.

Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.

Woman's Outlook talk during Manchester Histories Festival, March 29 2014

I've been invited to revisit my talk about co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook to go alongside the People's Business exhibition currently on show at the People's History Museum, which celebrates 150 years of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), forerunner of today's Co-operative Group. My talk will take place at the People's History Museum on Saturday March 29 at 1pm, to coincide with the bi-annual Manchester Histories Festival, which is always jam-packed with talks, tours, events and other history-related excitement spread out across Manchester. It is free to attend.

Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine? 

Between 1919 and 1967 the women of the co-operative movement had their own magazine, Woman's Outlook. Providing an enticing mix of the personal and the political, Woman's Outlook was surprisingly similar to women’s magazines today, and its concerns such as women's representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain ever-relevant.

For more information about this, and other events taking place alongside the exhibition, visit www.phm.org.uk/news/the-peoples-business-events.

The exhibition runs until 11 May 2014, and among the artefacts on display is a Co-operative Women's Guild banner.

Repeat talk: 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' Working Class Movement Library, Wednesday 26 June, 2pm

I have been invited to repeat my talk 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' (read a mini-review of the talk in Rochdale to find out what to expect ... ) at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford on Wednesday 26 June at 2pm, as the Library also contains volumes of Woman's Outlook.

The talk is part of the Library's Invisible Histories series, and follows an inspiring talk by the F-Word music editor Cazz Blase on women's motivations for publishing magazines and fanzines, from punk and post-punk era zines such as City Fun to the Riot Grrrl scene. Cazz's talk included an intriguing reference to Moss Side Community Press Women's Co-op, which was active in the 1970s  (find out more about the history of radical and community printing collectives and co-operatives on this fascinating website).

More information about my talk:

Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine? 

For nearly five decades, Woman’s Outlook was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and its onetime editor Mary Stott later became a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s pages.

From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles addressing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – in many ways, not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!

‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world. Topics covered by Outlook such as women's representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by considering whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.

Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine? publication

The publication I made to present my talk about co-operative women's journal Woman's Outlook at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum can be read online below (I made some mistakes in the original version of this booklet, like mixing up a Labour and Conservative Prime Minister, but am trying to change any mistakes I spot!). Download and print your own copy as a PDF here (NB, all pictures are for illustrative purposes only – please don't reproduce them!). It was good to meet some local Co-operative members, and people from the Rochdale branch of the Workers' Educational Association, and there were some interesting questions at the end. My talk can be listened to online as a podcast:



After presenting a history of Woman's Outlook, I finished my talk by showing some pages I had compiled from current-day women's magazine Stylist, on the basis that it is the only women's magazine I have ever really read (I read it because it is given out free on the streets each Wednesday, and I also read the male version of the magazine, Shortlist, also because it is free!). Whilst there are clear differences between the two magazines – Outlook was a political, campaigning magazine with a very defined audience, whereas Stylist is basically an advertising channel and sees itself as reflecting the 'age of coffee cup politics', where issues are something to be chatted about over a cup of coffee – I wanted to show the types of topics which are considered to be of interest and relevant to women today, from reader surveys aimed at building up a picture of what it's like to be a modern women, to quizzing readers about their sex lives, to highlighting issues like abortion, equal pay, women's continued underrepresentation in Parliament, childcare and flexible working. I find it interesting that Stylist continues to profile women with interesting careers, from an oceanologist to a reverend, and how it features articles about women's status in other countries – for example, Italy – and how the lives of women elsewhere in Europe have been affected by the financial downturn. There is also a weekly international page summarising news stories concerning women across the world, and ahead of elections Stylist profiles political parties and the ways in which their policies would affect women. Woman's Outlook ran a number of profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, and she is still being held up in Stylist today as an exemplary first lady and woman in public life. On top of that, Stylist features the type of content you would expect to see in a woman's magazine, from recipes to beauty and fashion.

I went to see the new Ken Loach film, Spirt of 45, the evening before my talk, to get some inspiration and context about the period, and would highly recommend seeing it.

I have been invited to repeat the talk 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, which also contains volumes of Woman's Outlook, on Wednesday 26 June at 2pm as part of its Invisible Histories series.

Also related, Cazz Blase will also be revisiting the talk she did at the 2012 Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention as part of the series, on Wednesday 29 May at 2pm. 'Worlds within worlds: punk ladies, riot grrrls and fanzine culture' will discuss the role women played in the UK punk scene and the UK incarnation of the female focused, female dominated riot grrrl scene.

Olive Shapley poster for Shape & Situate zine

I have contributed a badly linocut poster about radio producer and presenter Olive Shapley to the new edition of Melanie Maddison's Shape & Situate: Posters of inspirational European women zine (as seen at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention in May!), which will be launched at Leeds Zine Fair at Wharf Chambers on Sunday November 4.

Now in its fourth edition, Melanie's project celebrates underlooked women in all fields of society. I felt compelled to create a poster about Olive because I became intrigued by her during my involvement in the Manchester's Modernist Heroines project. Of all the women we focused on, Olive is the one I keep returning to and trying to find out more about, and my poster is inspired by the presence she still has in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury today – as well as being honoured by a nursery school bearing her name, there is a street named after her. Olive's former home, Rose Hill, where she housed Vietnamese boat people and single mothers, became Didsbury's first £1 million house in 2002. I have an unfulfilled ambition to procure some of Olive's radio programmes – particularly her 1930s Engels-inspired documentary the Classic Soil, and children's shows – with the aim of organising an Olive Shapley listening party, but they are proving hard to come by (the Classic Soil is available at the British Library, but apparently 'the ending is missing' from the recording, and I imagine it would be very expensive to hire copies from the BBC).

Melanie Maddison and Lindsay Starbuck will also be running a social history workshop at Leeds Zine Fair, entitled 'Remembering who we are', which will feature examples of inspiring social history zines and provide an opportunity to contribute to a collective zine being compiled on the day. The zine fair is being hosted by Leeds' Footprint Workers' Co-op, and will be well worth attending!

The Co-operative Women’s Guild: an alternative education

In March I am going to be doing a talk at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum about the co-operative women's magazine Woman's Outlook (published by the Manchester-based Co-operative Press between 1919 and 1967). The magazine intrigues me because it blended news about the campaigning and educational activities of the Co-operative Women's Guild with tips for cooking, nutrition, child rearing and homemaking. I am trying to find former readers, or at least women who were members of the Guild at the time, to speak to. Lynette at the Working Class Movement Library got me the name and phone number of one woman, Pat Williams, who was willing to talk about her memories of being part of a Branch in Sale, Cheshire in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when she was in her late twenties and early thirties. She was also a member of a standing conference for women. Pat's mother was a co-operator and in the Guild before her, and Pat herself became a member of the Co-operative at the age of twenty when she got married and her new mother-in-law took her to sign up. Pat looked after her four children, and later ran a nursing home “on the basis of socialism and co-operation”. Now in her seventies, Pat is still politically engaged. She is a long-term member of the Labour party – she received a certificate from then-leader Gordon Brown when she reached fifty years of membership – and was still attending the Labour Party Conference until last year. She continues to be part of a Co-operative members' group in Manchester.

Whilst Pat didn't read Woman's Outlook – in fact, she hadn't heard of it (although she has been reading the Co-operative News, also published by the Co-operative Press, for years) – I chatted to her on the phone for over an hour and it was a brilliant way of getting a sense of what it was like to be part of the Women's Guild, and what it meant to members, even in the 1950s and '60s when the Guild was an ageing organisation and membership was declining. Pat recalls that the Guild was “mostly elderly people” when she joined, and that “some of the elderly women were so active”, but that a new group came in of about six women in their twenties and thirties. Pat attributes the Sale branch's success to an “exceptional leader”, and remembers that branch meetings attracted around 30 members. There was also a branch in nearby Altrincham. Membership was made up of “all sorts” and “all ages” of women, from teachers and proofreaders to MPs' wives, although Pat recalls that many of the women were poor and bought secondhand clothes. 

Co-operative identity 

What really struck me was how strongly Pat identified as a co-operator. She explained that “the Co-op was always part of what you were”, adding that “the divi meant a lot” to members and that the visiting Co-operative insurance man “became quite a friend” . This meant, she said, “we were very loyal to the co-operative movement” – members wouldn't have dreamed of going to a non-co-operative competitor. She also said: “It meant something to be in the Women's Guild. We were very proud of it.”

An alternative education 

Pat emphasised just how important the Guild was as an alternative education for its members, saying: “It was our learning group and our university. This was the great thing about the co-operative movement. It widened women's access to society.” Many of the older members would have left school at 12 and 13, although Pat describes these women as “far-reaching” despite their lack of formal education: “They had very little education but knew what was right and what was wrong.” The Guild, says Pat, was “an opener for so many women”, and a “forerunner in everything”. She said the Guild was a way of “learning what was going on in the world”. Pat remembers that her branch talked about subjects that were taboo at the time such as domestic violence and homosexuality: “It got rid of all those taboos.” Branch educational activities included talks on jobs and other issues and guest speakers were invited to speak at meetings, from university lecturers to a Lord. Pat highlighted that they were also there “to listen to us too”. As Pat said: “Not only was it social, the meetings were interesting. We were active politically as well as socially.”

Campaigning and issues 

Members of the Guild felt empowered by their activities. As Pat says, “we felt we had a say” and “we were recognised as not being frivolous”. This was important because at the time, says Pat, “the co-operative movement was very much a man's thing”. She explained “You can get votes for women but it doesn't mean you are going to be taken seriously or that businesses are going to put you on their boards.” The Guild enabled members to tell directors of co-operatives how they felt about the way co-operatives were being run at that time, and the Guild encouraged its members to become members of boards of co-operatives. She explains: “We were interested in the running of the shops and the way the co-operative movement was going. We went to all the meetings of Co-op food stores and we all asked questions. Our questions had them quaking!”

Another important aspect of the Guild's work was to tell MPs how members felt about certain issues. Pat remembers that “it was a very interesting time”, saying: “There was always something going on. I can't remember everything we did but we were always very busy!” Campaigns undertaken by Pat's branch encompassed working hours, equal pay for women, the colour bar, anti-Apartheid, and banning additives in children's food. The branch also boycotted South African food. Pat remembers that one protest, calling for equal pay for women, involved going on an open lorry from a co-operative shop in Sale to one in Manchester, and that the women were shouted at by men in the street to get back to changing nappies! It seems that the members' opinions were sometimes taken into account by those in authority, though; Pat remembers that the Branch was consulted by the town clerk on the building of a new council estate, and asked what facilities were needed.

Each Guild branch was connected to the wider co-operative women's movement, and Guildswomen had a chance to meet up every year at Congress. Pat remembers voting on what was coming up at Congress, and attending one congress in Blackpool. She remembers it fondly as a social as well as a political event: “We all believed in the same thing. It was almost as good as going to the Labour Party conference!”

A social organisation 

The Guild also ran social activities such as autumn, Christmas and Easter dinners and theatre trips. Pat gave the impression of a supportive and close-knit group of women; she still sees members she was friends with in the 1950s. Pat also remembers that many of the branch members were very good at baking – in those days, “you didn't go and buy a scone or a cake, you made one”. Guild members had their own speciality, such as pastry, and “people passed on things”. She says: “There is nothing wrong with learning to be a good cook and a good manager – it's all a part of a woman's life.”

The end of the Sale branch 

The Sale branch, which met in an old co-operative hall, had to find a new home due to redevelopment of the area. There were attempts at starting a branch on a council estate, but Pat said these failed when women stopped going out at night because of concerns over safety. She also admits that, for many women, who were increasingly going out to work, the Guild had outlived its purpose anyway. She said: “It was great, and it did what it needed to do at the time. Things have changed for women and co-operative women have had a lot to do with the change. Today, more women are educated. Women don't have time for things like the Women's Guild now.” However, Pat would like to see more women's groups today: “Women on their own are better. They've got their ideas”

Talk: ‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’

I will be doing a talk on the former Co-operative Women’s Guild periodical Woman’s Outlook at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum next year (Thursday March 21), as part of a series of lectures on aspects of co-operative history, and would love to hear from anyone who has memories of reading the magazine between 1919 and 1967.

Working in close proximity to the National Co-operative Archive, I have developed a fascination with Outlook. For nearly five decades it was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and onetime editor Mary Stott later rose to prominence as a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s page. From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles encompassing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!

‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, from suffrage and peace to maternity benefits, pensions and nursery education, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world – at the same time as helping prepare them to take on more prominent roles in co-operative societies.

Topics covered by Outlook such as female representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by evaluating whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.

I would love to hear from any women who were members of the Women’s Guild in this period, especially those who remember reading Outlook or any other co-operative periodicals, as well as anyone who has any interest in the magazine. If you can help, or can put me in touch with anyone who might be able to help, please email Natalie.rose.bradbury@googlemail.com.

Q and A: Cazz Blase

Cazz Blase, a veteran of the zine scene who started her first zine, Aggamengmong Moggie, in 1993, is doing a talk entitled 'Making a noise: An express ride through the world of punk and riot grrrl fanzines and the UK feminist underground, 1977-2012' at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention on May 19. After Aggamengmong Moggie, which ran until 1999, Cazz wrote the zines Real Girls (2001) and Harlot's Progress (2002-2006). Cazz is now one of two music review editors at The F-Word website, for which she has written extensively about both women and the UK punk scene and the UK riot grrrl scene, and was a contributing author to the book Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! (Black Dog Publishing, 2007). At the Fanzine Convention, Cazz will be launching her most recent zine, Too Late for Cake, a collaboration with David Wilkinson (who is also speaking at the Fanzine Convention), which is themed around Stockport, Cazz and David's home town.

SV: You started your first zine, Aggamengmong Moggie, when you were just 14. What type of thing did you write about and was anyone else involved? How did you go about creating, reproducing and distributing your zine? 

CB: I wrote about music in the main I would say, particularly Riot Grrrl and indie bands, but I also used to do a lot of lists as well. I don't know how popular it was but one of the longer running lists was 'School Late Book Excuses', because at my high school you had to sign a book called the School Late Book whenever you were late for school, and you had to put name, class, reason for lateness. This led to all sorts of fanciful nom de plumes and whimsical excuses, some of which I published. I did some ranty pieces as well, and some sort of earnest investigative reporting, such as a three way investigation into the disappearance of vinyl as a musical format. That involved sending letters to record companies, surveying school friends, and going into record shops after school to get the shop perspective.

It was mainly me. A couple of years in my sister did some writing for me, particularly when she went away to university, and writers from some fanzines that I wrote for wrote for me.

I initially produced the covers by hand with a stencil, and the rest of the fanzine was typed and printed off on my mum's word processor. Later the covers were photocopied, and later still, the whole thing was photocopied. I had my own photocopier for a bit as well, which helped. Well, it was my mum and dad's, but I basically commandeered it.

I was very lucky so far as distributers were concerned because there were a lot of them, and they all seemed pretty broad minded in terms of what they would take and sell. I used Piao! for the first few years, but their catalogues couldn't keep up with the speed at which I was producing zines, and then they started to become more of a promoter and label than a distro, so I switched to Little Green Man in Manchester, who sold tapes but wanted to sell the fanzine, and they were really good – they had a subscription deal set up with it, and they were in a band (Godsister Helen) so they sold the zine at their gigs. That probably influenced content a bit as well, it meant I focused a lot more on Manchester and the Manchester scene at the time.

SV: Why did you start making fanzines and what was it about the medium that attracted you? Did it give you an outlet you might not otherwise have been able to find at that age? 

CB: I started making fanzines because of the John Peel show, I think, and the Voodoo Queens. I wanted to write about them, and there was other music I wanted to write about as well. I hadn't actually read many fanzines at this point, I'd only really read the Shakespears Sister fanzine, Harmonally Yours, which was good for band news but incredibly sycophantic in tone, and it only came out every four months, which I felt wasn't enough. As a result of that, I decided I didn't want to focus on one band only, that two months was about right, and that I wasn't going to be sycophantic.

My early style was probably NME meets the Wizzkids Handbook, with more swearing. Another influence was a magazine called Zine which was sort of somewhere between a fanzine and a magazine, and it was written entirely by its readers. They did zine reviews, so I found out a lot about zines through them. I think I'd seen at least one of the riot grrrl zines that Slampt put out by then as well.

I found the medium rather intimidating, I was a technological luddite so I sort of had to drag myself through it and teach myself how to type and use a word processor, then later photocopiers.

It did give me an outlet I might not have otherwise have had, definitely. It was fanzines or writing stroppy letters to the local paper, local MP and NME basically otherwise. There wasn't much scope for teenagers to make themselves heard in the nineties.

SV: Were you inspired by any other fanzines and were you aware of other women making zines at the time? 

CB: I was very fortunate to start making fanzines in mid-1993, when there were tons of Riot Grrrl zines around. That definitely helped. It was normal to be a girl doing a fanzine then, but a lot of them were more personal than I felt mine were. A.M has been written of since as being very personal, but I didn't feel it was at the time – possibly later on, but it was basically started as a music fanzine. I admired the bravery of Erica, who wrote Scars and Bruises, which was about depression and angst I think. One fanzine I would have loved to have read, but never got hold of, was Rampaging Teenage Pervert by a girl called Kate in London. I read an interview with her in a zine about zines once, and she sounded cool. That was a very funny queercore zine by the sound of it.

The Slampt zines, which were put together by Rachel Holborow and Pete Dale, were always good – they tended to include all sorts of people from the north east scene and beyond, and Ablaze! 10 had a massive impact on me for a long time, that was the one with all the riot grrrl stuff in, including the girl power manifesto, and Bobbins! and Grrls World did as well. Ablaze! was Karren Ablaze!'s zine, and Bobbins! and Grrls World were written by six formers in Stockport and Manchester. Grrl's World was their 'We've just been to see Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear on tour!' fastzine, and Bobbins! was a very droll indie zine, which never took itself even remotely seriously but which did have interviews with bands and stuff as well. The band Golden Starlet (later International Strike Force) also did a comic zine, which was cool. There were some cool girls in Cambridge who did a fanzine called Smitten (I think) as well, and that was really good.

What was a big influence was a teenage novel by Roger Burt called The Melanie Pluckrose Effect, which is about a group of schoolgirls stirring up a minor planning revolution in a midlands market town. I would have liked to have achieved something as major as that with A.M, but it wasn't to be.

SV: Aggamengmong Moggie ran for six years, which is a long time to sustain such a self-initiated project. Why was it successful, and what part did it play in your life? 

CB: I think it was successful because it was produced between 1993 and 1999, which was a great time for fanzine making. Also, it was mainly done during the years I was at high school when I didn't have much of an outlet elsewhere for what I was saying in the fanzine. Once I got to six form college, it was actually harder to be as productive because the work was more personally interesting at college than it was at school so I was more engaged with it. I basically failed most of my GCSEs, so I was able to use the energy I should have spent on passing them on the fanzine. Not that I would have passed them though, because I didn't feel engaged with most of the subjects on the national curriculum, I just used the time differently basically.

It actually played a bigger part in my life than I realised at the time, I didn't really think in the long term at the time but it is still remembered, and it did start me on the path towards wanting to be a writer and a journalist. I didn't really analyse it at the time though, I just did it.

SV: What did you get out of making a zine? Did you feel you were part of a wider network of people making zines at that time? 

CB: Not really, not until I hooked up with Little Green Man in about 1995 or so. Before then most of my friends who did zines or were involved with the underground scene in other ways were in London, Newcastle or Leeds. I did meet more Manchester/Greater Manchester zine writers, but not until 1996.

There were a few of us around then: Emmeline who did Soul Junk, Daniel who did I'm 5, Carl who did Fancy Biscuits, Nicola who did Meow!... I found during this period though that having friends locally was actually detrimental to producing fanzines, as far as I'm concerned, in that I basically just work better in solitude. Also, having feedback more constantly made me self conscious, and probably a bit arrogant and arsey I'm ashamed to say as well! I was quite pleased when that period was over.

SV: At the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, you're going to be giving an overview of zines in the punk and Riot Grrrl movements. What was their significance to the feminist underground? 

CB: These zines ran parallel to Spare Rib, Women's Report, and more mainstream feminism throughout the eighties and nineties in the Guardian's Women's pages. A magazine like Shocking Pink was set up in reaction to Jackie initially, which was the leading mainstream girls mag of the day, and it later found itself reacting to Spare Rib because it was felt by the second collective that Spare Rib didn't represent younger feminists. In terms of punk, Spare Rib had a terrible time adjusting to punk, and you can see the debates around it played out if you read back issues of Spare Rib from the late seventies, so a fanzine like Jolt, that was a punk feminist zine, helped bridge the gap between the two camps.

From a Riot Grrrl zine point of view, my take on it is that those fanzines helped to introduce a new generation to feminism, and that they were perhaps more accessible and more welcoming than the idea that you had to read a long list of really very academic books about feminism before you were allowed to call yourself a feminist. Also, the riot grrrl zines were discussing issues that were relevant to young women – such as being sexually harassed in school – that feminism wasn't discussing at the time.


SV: Do you have any favourite zines, either for their content or style? 

CB: Anything Slampt put out was basically excellent, and there was a Manchester zine by a guy called Dean Talent, called When I Grow Up I Want To Be Bobbee Gillespie that was really good as well, in that sort of beat generation romantic wanderings kind of way. Slampt were very new-style punk, very nineties punk. Messy but sincere. I also used to really love reading the Chemikal Underground newsletter in the late nineties, because they came out very sporadically but were always really funny and tended to be more entertaining in a musical sense than a years worth of NME would have been at the time.

SV: If you were a fourteen-year-old girl now, do you think you would still start a zine, or would you start a blog/online journal instead? 

CB: I would be doing a blog or a live journal, because it's cheaper basically. Having said that, I think I'm relieved in a way that the technology wasn't around at the time because there are things I wrote in my zines that I wouldn't want to go up online. You can make mistakes with far less risk in a paper fanzine, simply because less people read them and also you could destroy the evidence much more easily at the time if you really fucked up.

SV: Why do you think people are still interested in making – and reading – zines? 

CB: I think there is a romanticism attached to paper zines that is similar to attitudes to vinyl. To an extent, they have been fetishised, it has become about the format at least as much as the content. Fortunately there are some really good print zines out there, so it hasn't become completely about the format. I like Things Happen, and Shrieking Violet, because they are about their surroundings, and I find that really interesting. I did a bit of that in Aggamengmong Moggie, but aside from in When I Grow Up I Want To Be Bobbee Gillespie, I didn't see much of that when I was doing A.M. I think the reason that's more common now is because cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield have been gentrified and people are really quite discomforted by their surroundings and want to eulogise the nice bits of their cities that are left. That makes for some really good semi political writing. It could be that print lends itself more to that kind of writing because it too is in danger of becoming obsolete.

Also, with fanzines, you can say things you can't say online. Things that might invite legal action for instance, or that are too personal to go up online but you still want to put out, anonymously or not.

SV: Finally, you've made a new zine for the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention in collaboration with David Wilkinson, who's also speaking at the Fanzine Convention, which is all about Stockport where you both grew up. It's a very traditional cut and paste kind of zine. How did you decide on that subject and style for your zine? 

CB: It was my idea to do a print zine for the fanzine convention, partly because I hadn't done one for a long time but thought it would be fun to do. Partly because fanzine conventions are the best places to sell fanzines, but also because I do a blog called Too Late For Cake, which is about socio-political and cultural goings on in Manchester and Greater Manchester, including Stockport. Some of the content for the zine has been published on the blog, but a lot of it hasn't, and it was written in a different way because it was being written for print.

The Stockport subject matter seemed obvious because it was a crucial thing we had in common, and we both knew we had a lot to say, much of which hasn't really been said before, or not in that format. I think David has been more scathing than I have. I decided to write about nice bits of Stockport in the main, because they tend to be the more ignored bits, but also because I knew David wanted to write about gentrification and redevelopment in Hopes Carr. He grew up around there so it's a subject very personal to his heart. I never really got to grips with writing about Hazel Grove, which is where I grew up, so that'll need to be left for another day. Most of my bits and pieces are about central Stockport.

Stockport is rumoured to be the biggest town in Britain, and Hazel Grove is rumoured to be the biggest village in Europe, so there's a lot to write about. The politics and political history are interesting as well, and some of it's in there – for example Stockport Workhouse – or alluded to, for example that the council was a hung council for many years.

As to the format, we could have made it look more professional just by doing a layout using Word 2007, but David hasn't been involved with zines that much and wanted to go for the traditional cut'n'paste approach because it's what he knows. This suited me because it's a style I settled on for quite a while when doing the later editions of Aggamengmong Moggie and Real Girls.

http://toolateforcake.wordpress.com

Cazz Blase will be speaking in the Committee Room (upstairs in the former superintendent's flat at Victoria Baths) at 3.30pm during the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention on Saturday May 19.

Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women at Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention

Leeds-based zine maker Melanie Maddison will be bringing her poster series of inspirational European women to the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention in May, and what more appropriate place to display them than around the balcony space overlooking the former female pool?

The series, drawn from Melanie's collaborative zine Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women, comprises the 75 plus A3 posters that have featured in the zine so far. The posters have been created by women all over Europe, using collage and mixed media, illustration, photography, commix, digital work, hand-sketched drawings, text and everything in between. The Shrieking Violet spoke to Melanie to find out more.

SV: What is Shape & Situate, and how long have you been making it? 

MM: Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational Women zine has been going for three years, and three issues. Each issue has contained around 25 A5 original posters made by artists and DIY creative people from within Europe. The posters feature artwork and information on an inspirational or radical European women of the poster maker’s choosing. The aim has been to highlight the (often hidden) history and lives of radical inspirational women and collectives from Europe, as a way of connecting us with the past and the present through a cultural (re-)articulation of these women’s lives.

There’s no life that does not contribute to our collective history, yet conventional history books show us that it’s rare for women’s lives to be documented as readily as men’s, especially women in more underground, domestic, or radical spheres. I hate to think that in years to come it’ll only be the ‘elite’ people on the top of the pile who’re remembered, creating a void and mass forgetting of the great work and lives of so many people within our social, cultural and political makeup, communities, and lives. Women such as those who are collected in the zine (and many, many more besides) are important to our collective history, women who have helped shape and situate our lives whether we know it or not. I wanted to try and make a zine to honour and celebrate and inform others on some of these women.
 The zine aims to activate feminist cultural memory, to inspire in the present, and to visually bring women’s social and political history to life and into view.


SV: Have you made other zines? 

MM: Shape & Situate is the only zine I’ve got the time to make at the moment, but I’ve made many zines before these ones. My favourite zine to work on, and the one that I was probably most proud of, was Colouring Outside The Lines. Colouring Outside The Lines collected together interviews I did with a huge selection of seriously amazing contemporary female artists from all over the world. It ran for five issues between 2005 to 2009, and is a project that I plan on going back to at some point. I miss making that one but it sure was time consuming to fit in the 70 plus interviews!

I also edited the zine Reassess Your Weapons, and have made other zines, such as: Taking Cultural Production Into Our Own Hands, With Arms Outstretched, UK Ladyfest Artwork Zine, and I'm Not Waiting: Doing It Yrself Now. Plus I’ve had a hand in many other collective zines.

SV: Why did you start Shape & Situate, and what made you decide to do a participatory project? 

MM: I started the zine as I have a huge amount of love and respect for poster projects hailing from the US such as Celebrate People's History, Inspired Agitators and Firebrands: Portraits of the Americas. I love what these poster makers were creating and sharing, and how they were educating with their work. I got to thinking though that I’d love to see a more European perspective, and a wider selection of female subjects, and from there Shape & Situate was born. I’ve since shared the zines with those involved with some of the projects I mention that had inspired the zine, which was a great way to start to complete the circle. My respect for the enormous amount of creative social history projects that are being made across the world is why I include such a big list of further reading in the intro to the zine, in a hope of directing readers towards projects beyond Shape & Situate alone.

I don’t think this zine could have been anything other than collaborative (plus sometimes I think it’s the only way I like to approach making zines – who wants to only hear their own voice and ideas? I know I don’t!). It had to be collaborative as I wanted to bring together ideas of who contributors from across Europe found inspirational. To collaborate is to situate yourself within the community that you’re working with and sharing with. I wanted to learn myself about inspirational women myself, not just dictate a huge bunch of posters on who I already knew that I found inspirational myself. I learned a great deal from putting this zine together; many of the women in this zine were unknown to me before I was approached by contributors with their ideas. And, this is all part of the point really, to share knowledge and experience of women who have been hidden from mainstream history. I couldn’t have made the zine without the knowledge and desire from the contributors to tell the lives and tell the story of these women’s lives, women who had individually and uniquely shaped and situated them.

SV: How do you find contributors for Shape & Situate? 

MM: The zine has been open to anybody from Europe who wanted to make a poster. To start with the first issue was made up of friends and friends-of-friends who I approached with my initial idea and people ran with that idea. I’m lucky to know a huge amount of crazily talented and creative people (not only conventional ‘artists’, but also cultural producers who approach and make ‘art’ in a more DIY way and would never refer to themselves as ‘artists’ even when in their own ways they are), and I’m thrilled to be able to work with as many of them as I have on this project. After the first issue came out word spread a little, and I was lucky enough to have people approach me to be involved too, which worked out great.

Finding people I’d love to contribute is the easy bit (I am a huge admirer of people’s creative talents and am always on the look out for folks I’d love to work with on one thing or the other); twisting their arm into making a poster when I know that these people have 101 more pressing things to do, and ample projects of their own to be working on, is the tough bit! Which is why I’m so grateful every time a zine actually comes together and is filled with so much great work. I’m in awe of my contributors and have a lot to thank them for!

SV: What type of women are featured? Are a lot of them lesser-known? 

MM: It’s the poster makers that decided to feature them, not me. There’s a mixture of lesser-known, and more well-known women. The original brief was to focus on lesser-known women, but it’s hard to draw that distinction when it would have been unfair to omit some of the more well-known women in a project that looks at inspirational women. I didn’t want to enter into some distorted ‘popularity contest’ and refuse contributions on women who are already well-documented just because of that fact, because clearly all of these women are inspirational, and thus worth being part of this project.

The women featured come from all sorts of social, cultural and political backgrounds, and include authors and writers, scientists, teachers, sports women, political and social activists, visual artists, musicians, zinesters, performance artists, globetrotters, cartoonists, architects, aviators, actresses, film makers, strike leaders, comedians, and organisers and reformers. Amongst others!

SV: Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women has previously been exhibited at the Women's Library in London. How did that come about and how did it go?

MM: My dear friend Red Chidgey organised the 2011 Zinefest! at The Women’s Library in London and asked me if I’d like to be involved again. I proposed to get posters made up from Shape & Situate (there were only two issues at the time) and put them on the walls. It was as simple as that! Ever since I first started getting submissions for issue 1 of the zine I knew that I’d love to see the posters in a larger format than the A5 zine alone, so when Red asked me if there was any way I’d like to contribute to the Zinefest I knew exactly what I’d like to see happen. The fine folk at Footprint, Leeds, did a great job at laser printing A3 posters of each page of the zines for me.

I’d been involved in the 2009 and 2008 Zinefests at The Women’s Library, again, due to Red’s organisational skills and vision. In 2009 I curated an exhibition of Comix Zines made by UK female creators. It was such a great project to work on. There was a huge amount of work on the walls (and hung from the ceiling!) in that exhibition and it was really well received, hence, in part why I think Red asked me to be involved again in 2011. I’m so grateful for what Red, and the staff at the Women’s Library have allowed me to get away with doing in that building!

Incidentally, please sign the petition to save The Women’s Library from closure. 

SV: Are you going to keep adding to the poster series and making more Shape & Situate zines? Do you plan to exhibit the posters in more places? 

MM: I’ve genuinely no idea. I’m one of those people who can’t really think into the future (I’m perpetually petrified of the future), and am usually just driven by ideas that come to me at 3am instead of planning anything out properly. Maybe there’ll be a fourth issue of the zine, and even more posters to add to the exhibition, I’ll wait and see how well received issue 3 is first, and wait to see if I get any offers of contributions to another issue – I hate badgering people into contributing. At the moment though I’m trying to focus on hopefully getting the exhibition shown in as many places as I can this year; I’d love for more people to be able to see all the great work that’s been made for this project, and also to spread the word about all the subjects that this project has managed to give voice to.

http://remember-who-u-are.blogspot.co.uk

Manchester's Modernist Heroines — publication and events

Manchester Modernist Society, The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) and The Shrieking Violet have teamed up for a collaborative project exploring the stories of ten fabulous North West women spanning the fields of invention, aviation, media, science,geography, design and architecture throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty first. Manchester’s feminist history did not stop with the Suffragettes!

Anyone (please note: these are not women only events!) is welcome to join us on Sunday March 6 at the Town Hall in the Women of Achievement room from 1-4pm for your free copy of 'Manchester's Modernist Heroines’. Manchester's Modernist Heroines is a special edition of the Shrieking Violet fanzine (with a cover beautifully stitched and collaged by Rosa Martyn, who studies Hand embroidery at the Royal College of Needlework) which aims to commemorate their achievements, uncover many more via your own favourites, and who knows – inspire some heroines of tomorrow. An exciting range of contemporary Manchester women – ranging from artists and writers to tour guides and even a dance troupe! – has responded to the ten women, and the results include essays, interviews, poetry, planned events and artworks.

The publication can also be read online here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More the lrm

Or downloaded and printed here.

At 3pm on Sunday March 6 The LRM will be curating a walk inspired by the work of Modernist Heroine Professor Doreen Massey focusing on flow, energy, gender and exploring space. The wander will uncover some of the hidden histories and power relationships which have shaped the city; Manchester is made up of myriad stories and some about our marvellous modernist heroines are absent from the official narrative.

This is the start of an ongoing project; please tell us about your heroines on the day or add them directly to a special Modernist Heroines page on the Modernist Society website.

Woman's Outlook magazine (visiting the National Co-operative Archive)

Working a few metres away from the National Co-operative Archive, occasional glimpses into what lays within has made me fascinated by Woman's Outlook, a bi-weekly (and later weekly) magazine produced for the Women’s Co-operative Guild between 1919 and 1967. I recently visited the Archive on my day off work to have a closer look.

Woman's Outlook was an enticing and, in some ways, surprisingly modern, mix of the political and the domestic that combined tips for housewives and working women with fashion, fiction and features. Its editors included Mary Stott in the 1930s ‘40s and ‘50s, who went on to edit the women’s pages in the Guardian.

The Women’s Co-operative Guild (which still exists today as the Co-operative Women's Guild) was formed in 1883 and worked for the improvement of the status of women, championing women’s rights, campaigning for women’s suffrage and demanding other important changes to society such as maternity benefits. Issue one of Woman’s Outlook describes the guild as: “Over 50,000 woman co-operators who have banded themselves into a guild to work through co-operation for the welfare of the people, seeking freedom for their own progress and the equal fellowship of men and women in the home, the store, the workshop, and the state.” Co-operation is described in a later issue as 'not only an ideal form of trade for the community' but also 'the fairest system under which the consumer can purchase his needs'.

The first issue of Woman's Outlook has on its cover the WCG logo, which depicts a woman gazing out over an industrial scene. As encapsulated by the logo of the WCG, Woman's Outlook was aimed at broadening its readers’ viewpoints, offering information and comment on the issues and laws affecting women in the UK, as well as global economics and politics, and preparing women for an increasingly prominent role in industry and society. In its own words: “We hope to assist her in her outlook upon industrial and social questions, and to give her thoughts, through our pages, something of the freedom of a flock of birds…we dream of it as a friend of all, seeking always to help forward to better things — a fuller life, more social opportunities and a wider choice of spheres of civic usefulness for women.” Later covers featured glamorous, stylised women either at rest or engaged in various pursuits such as golf, with my favourite being the decorative covers of illustrators such as G Beuzeville Foyster (who also illustrated children's books) in the 1930s.

Though Woman’s Outlook was published from Long Millgate in Manchester, it had an international perspective, with regular features on women and their place in societies all over the world, considering issues such as Scandinavian countries’ attitude towards prostitution and what it was like for Muslim women living behind the veil. As well as sending journalists to the House of Commons and to see a police court at work, it went out and about visiting women and celebrating their achievements, featuring profiles of women ranging from prominent trade unionists to Canada’s first women senator and 'the world's champion female aviator'. As it noted: “No paper would live that confined its news to events of its own town and nation. Readers, even the most rabid and nationalistic, want to know all about the world…the world is alive and we can no more escape being members of it than we can jump out of our own skin.”











































When Woman’s Outlook started in 1919, women over the age of thirty had only recently gained the vote in England, and throughout its almost fifty year lifespan the magazine urged its readers to be politicised, join trade unions and get involved in campaigns such as: increasing the number of women MPs; providing nursery education; raising the school leaving age; abolishing the marriage bar; bringing women’s wages into line with men's; providing pensions; giving women equal compensation to men after industrial accidents and disarmament, to name but a few. Discussing a 1930s inter-country naval conference one writer pondered “I have been wondering if there is no dramatic action we women could take up so as to impress the world with our serious attitude on the question”, and elsewhere the magazine wondered 'is it any wonder we women get fed up and become radicalised' doing 'the same jobs day after day'. The magazine also offered self-help tips, from how to make a portfolio and advice on chairing and managing meetings — women were encouraged to become board and committee members in co-operative societies — to suggesting setting up study circles to share experiences with other women.

Whilst Woman’s Outlook urged women to take up causes and from its start gave women advice on how to find jobs, it acknowledged that many women were based in the domestic sphere — indeed, many women, such as teachers, had to give up their jobs upon marriage well into the twentieth century — and offered practical advice on hygiene, nutrition, child rearing and maternity as well as hints on furnishing the home and ‘smart and practical’ patterns for knitting and sewing. Love stories — often didactic tales with messages warning against moral ills such as taking credit and investing money unethically — sat alongside entertainment features on art and literature and more serious, educational articles on housing solutions and women’s working conditions.

Published during times of high unemployment, the magazine encouraged thrift and making the best out of limited means, and recipes were introduced with titles such as ‘You can’t eat your cake and have it but you can eat your orange and have the rind for use in countless ways’ and ‘When shelves are empty. Emergency jams from dried fruit.’. Women were encouraged to write in with recipes and advice, with the magazine running competitions ranging from making your own wine, including how much it cost (a potato and raisin wine, its submitter adding the detail that it was ‘in colour like best whisky’, triumphed), to the best ways to make the others around you happy at Christmas. A regular children’s page, ‘For the Bairns’ offered riddles, stories and advice such as how to look after pets.

From its inception Woman’s Outlook argued for world peace. It continued production through the second world war, printing a woman’s war time diary, a rousing series on pioneers of social reform throughout history, growing advice for allotments and recipes for making rations last as long as possible — whilst also running pieces scrutinising the distribution of food and questioning policies such as conscription. Women entered into debate through its pages, writing in to discuss topics ranging from the benefits of vegetarianism to political hot potatoes. Light relief was provided by a regular film column. All the while Woman’s Outlook urged for a Britain to be rebuilt as a fairer, more equal society after the war with better housing and access to healthcare and education.

By 1967, though modernised and resembling more of a newspaper, the magazine was no longer viable and closed for economic reasons. As the final issue noted, however: “Outlook has outlasted many of the women’s magazines that were concerned only with the more trivial aspects of a woman’s life.”

Woman’s Outlook was one of a number of publications produced by the Co-operative Movement. The magazine, and others including the Our Circle children’s magazine and the Co-operative News, can be found in the National Co-operative Archive in Holyoake House, Hanover Street, Manchester.

Cover images are used by permission of the Co-operative Press.