Abstract
In 1919, Oscar, a 33-year-old steel worker from Sheffield, was interviewed about his life, work and political views. He lived with his father and brothers and did ‘not a little to make [the house] artistic’; in fact his bedroom was ‘an indication that Oscar has a sense of beauty’.1 In his free time Oscar went to the opera a few times a week, rambled on the moors with his sketchbook, visited friends, museums and galleries and went to see bands play in the local parks. He was keen to point out that Edward Carpenter, the famous socialist, sex reformer and prolific lover of northern, working-class men, was a ‘local writer and socialist with advanced views’.2 Oscar made no secret of his lack of romantic interest in women. This may not seem like a description of a man who would have had high standing in his working-class community but the opposite was true. He was physically weak and often very ill but did well at a demanding, industrial job — indeed the interviewer was keen to note that despite his incapacity and distaste for his work, he was an ‘exceptionally good workman’ who was liked by his fellows.3 Despite his potentially effeminate hobbies and his lack of interest in finding a girlfriend, his prowess and level of effort at work ensured his place in the upper echelons of local, working-class society.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Select Bibliography
Baker, P. and J. Stanley (2003) Hello Sailor! The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea (London: Longman).
Bingham, A. (2004) Gender, Modernity, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Bourke, J. (1994) Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890–1960 (London: Routledge).
Bourke, J. (1996) Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London: Reaktion).
Davies, A. (1992) Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900–1939 (Buckingham: Open University Press).
Houlbrook, M. (2005) Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Humphries, S. (1981) Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working-Class Childhood and Youth 1889–1939 (Oxford: Wiley).
Jackson, L. A. (2000) Child Abuse in Victorian England (London: Routledge).
Jones, M. (2003) The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
McClelland, K. (1991) ‘Masculinity and the Representative Artisan’, in J. Tosh and M. Roper (eds), Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (London: Routledge).
Oram, A. (2007) Her Husband Was a Woman: Women’s Gender-Crossingin Modern British Popular Culture (Abingdon: Routledge).
Rose, J. (2001) The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Rowbotham, S. (2008) Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love (London and New York: Verso).
Schwarzkopf, J. (2003) Unpicking Gender: The Social Construction of Gender in the Lancashire Cotton Weaving Industry, 1880–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing).
Tosh, J. (2005) Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Essays on Gender, Family and Empire (Harlow: Pearson Education).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Helen Smith
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smith, H. (2015). Love, Sex, Work and Friendship: Northern, Working-Class Men and Sexuality in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. In: Harris, A., Jones, T.W. (eds) Love and Romance in Britain, 1918–1970. Genders and Sexualities in History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137328632_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137328632_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46043-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32863-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)