Rebecca Preston

‘Hope you will be able to recognise us’: the representation of women and gardens in early twentieth‐century British domestic ‘real photo’ postcards

Women were widely represented through the medium of the real photographic postcard at the height of its popularity between 1902 and 1918. Through their images, writing and material culture, domestic photographic postcards taken by, for, and of women at home provide an underused resource for the study of women’s lives. This article focuses on postcard portraits of British middle‐class women in their gardens, and argues that the garden was at once a practical space for domestic photography and a symbolic place formative to the construction of new social and political identities for women. Postcards are examined in relation to other representations of women, gardens and amateur photography between 1870 and 1918, in order to show how the arrival of the ‘real photo’ postcard also promoted women’s culture, communication and visibility in the early twentieth century.

Behind the Scenes: Participants and Processes in the Development of London’s Interwar Suburban Shopping Parades

Abstract England between 1919 and 1939 experienced enormous suburban expansion. In Greater London the population grew by about seventeen percent, while the built-up area doubled in size. Thousands of shopping parades were built on suburban high roads and in estates, providing the residents of these new communities not just with a local place to shop for their daily (or more major needs) but also offering a center for local activities and interactions, both informal and formal. These parades are still a familiar feature of the suburban landscape but, until recently, both the buildings and the complex process of their development have been overlooked. Drawing upon existing histories and geographies of shopping, of the commercial property market, and of suburban development and culture, this paper examines four cases in order to bring into the foreground the network of participants and processes in the financing, designing and building of London’s interwar shopping parades.