Publisher's Synopsis
New light is thrown on the history of England and the British Empire in this account of the experiences of woman, immigrant and English-born, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book brings together the disparate experiences of Irish, Caribbean and Jewish immigrants and relates them also to the philanthropic activities of middle class women in Britain. There are descriptions of: Irish women who laboured in England on farms, in factories and in other women's homes; many young Jewish immigrants who opted for prostitution when their husbands did not provide for them; middle-class Jewish women from the longer-established Jewish community who provided charity and education for the new Jewish refugees from the pogroms of Eastern Europe; black women who sought to escape from slavery once they were in Britain; women in the anti-slavery campaign and their concern particularly for women slaves and the British women in India and in Britain who worked, sometimes alongside Indian women, for independence. This account traces the awareness among women of the relationship between the struggles for freedom from enslavement or occupation and the struggles for universal suffrage and liberation from sexual oppression.
