The London Ymca

A Haven of Masculine Self-Improvement and Socialization for the Late-Victorian and Edwardian Clerk

Bibliographic Data

ID4740851
AuthorsGeoffrey D Spurr (High Point University, North Carolina, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume37
Issue2
Pages275-302
Publication date2002-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-4107 • E-ISSN: 2292-8502
PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/cjh.37.2.275
PMID17342867
OpenAlexW222825841
LanguageEN
Citations received2

During the late-Victorian and Edwardian era British clerks were under considerable strain to construct a positive masculine identity and experience. Their middle-class contemporaries overwhelmingly portrayed them as marginal figures and, to some degree, clerks' work and home experiences corresponded to this portrayal. Clerks were, however, by no means passive victims and sought to improve their occupational, social, and masculine experience within fin-de-siècle society and counter the widespread satirical depiction of them as emasculated "little men." The London YMCA offered not only a number of services of a self-improving, fraternal, and associational nature to young clerks to better their material, social, and masculine conditions but clerks themselves impelled the YMCA to offer services that addressed their own distinct lower-middle-class needs

Aesthetics · Art · Construct (python library · Depiction · Identity (music · Masculinity · Middle class · Political science · Social class · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Visual arts · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law

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