The Worst Street in North London

White, Jerry

doi:10.1177/030981688703100113

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…For some young people, this porosity around property and the proximity of less wholesome pursuits offered a first step towards the slippery territory of what Jerry White has described as the 'slide' into criminality. 87 Ralph Finn spent time in the inter-war period as a young boy watching market traders 'scamming' customers. 88 As a teen, Eric Jakob had enjoyed the café culture of the 1950s East End, and knew of illegal dealings being planned and conducted from these cafés.…”

Section: The National Press and Juvenile Delinquencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourse in England,c. 1940–69

Bradley

2012

Social History

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Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourse in England, c. 1940-69 Reports on crime statistics and what these might say about British society have long been a standard article in the British media. Although such figures cover crime by all groups, the figures for crime committed by the young are particularly potent. Stanley Cohen's seminal study of the battles between the Mods and the Rockers in the 1960s demonstrated how reportage of anti-social and criminal behaviour by the young could be transformed into a 'moral panic' by the press. 1 Likewise, in Hooligan, Geoffrey Pearson worked back from the New Right 'law and order' discourse of the early 1980s to the early modern period to demonstrate that anxieties about the behaviour of the poorest young have an abiding and powerful presence in the British public sphere. As Pearson notes, there is a remarkable consistency in commentary on the shortcomings of parents and the education system, the slackness of the justice system, the sentimentality of reformers and the hypnotic power of popular entertainments to corrupt the young: what is interesting for the historian is not that there are these similarities, but that they derive from very different historical moments. 2 The studies by Pearson and Cohen are a touchstone for anyone interested in the question of how the behaviour of young working-class men (and, to a lesser extent, women) has been portrayed, and its discursive consequences. To a casual observer, it would appear that there is a correlation between the Second World War, the advent of the welfare state and a rise in crime as demonstrated by the statistics: the three elements coincide chronologically. A quick explanation would be that the traumas of the war, followed by the creature comforts afforded by the welfare state, resulted in a more nihilistic youth with careless parents who had less respect for society than previous generations. As will be seen, this was not an uncommon view in post-war England, but it was one that owed more to the discursive than to any qualitative change in the nature of children and young people and their behaviour. This article will argue that the evidence points in a very different direction, and that fears of 'juvenile delinquency' should be treated as historical phenomena in their own right, rather than necessarily symptomatic of changes in social behaviour. It will consider this issue in regard to the situation 1 S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (London, 2002). 2

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Section: The National Press and Juvenile Delinquencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourse in England,c. 1940–69

Bradley

2012

Social History

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“…81 Regional employment patterns were influential here, however. 85 Yet despite the constraints placed upon young women's leisure access, their late teens and early twenties were considered by many to be 'the best time of their lives ', a maxim constantly repeated by their elders. 82 In Southampton, for example, the practice was facilitated by male casual workers' irregular wages.…”

Section: Vmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Young cinema-goers from poorer neighbourhoods were confined to the local 'flea-pits ', 107 and to the rougher and smaller local dance halls. 111 This was particularly true for the minority of young women who experienced unemployment during the interwar years. 108 This was the case for Frances Fuller, who left school in 1919, aged fourteen, and became a shop assistant in her home town of Lewes, Sussex : ' I used to roam the hills … because I had no money.…”

Section: Vmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young Women, Work, and Leisure in Interwar England

Todd¹

2005

Hist. J.

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Interwar England witnessed the emergence of a new generation of socially and financially independent young working-class women who worked in offices, shops, and factories, ‘dressed like actresses’, and were prominent leisure consumers, indulging in cosmetics and confectionery and frequenting the cinema and dance hall. This article analyses that development. A synthesis of qualitative and quantitative material indicates that age- and gender-specific roles were shaped by material factors rather than by ‘custom’ as existing social histories imply. It is argued that individuals' financial contribution to their household shaped the allocation of leisure and spending money, and that young women's increasing earning opportunities, and rising economic importance to the household, thus enabled them to become prominent leisure consumers. However, close attention to life histories also demonstrates that mother–daughter relationships were not simply economically determined, being characterized by mutual emotional as well as financial support. Maternal aspirations for their daughters, and expanding employment opportunities, shaped the emergence of youth as a life stage marked by a degree of personal independence and commercial consumption.

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“…The approach also influenced Andrew Davies's and Claire Langhamer's work on young people's leisure and family life. 3 Thirdly, a number of studies emerged which discussed the regulation of young people's lives, such as Carol Dyhouse's Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. 4 This was one of the first studies to examine the middle-class experience of youth -still a greatly neglected subject.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…20 White and Davies have highlighted the continued significance in interwar England of non-commercial leisure pursuits such as 'the monkey parade' -a form of youthful courting which involved promenading up and down a main street. 21 Many of Roberts's sample continued to spend much of their leisure time at home, or at closely supervised church socials. 22 Langhamer demonstrated that many young women used 'leisure' time providing domestic assistance in the home, or engaging in non-commercial pursuits like 'Amami night', or 'bucket night' -an evening for washing hair with mothers and sisters, in preparation for the weekend.…”

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confidence: 99%

Flappers and Factory Lads: Youth and Youth Culture in Interwar Britain

Todd

2006

History Compass

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The interwar years witnessed a transition in the experience, representation, and treatment of youth. While David Fowler identifies an interwar explosion of a commercialised youth culture, other historians suggest that young people’s lifestyles were fractured by class. More affluent young people were in full‐time education, but the majority of children entered the labour market at the age of fourteen. Young wage‐earners shouldered economic responsibility but increasingly experienced personal affluence as employment opportunities expanded. This influenced the proliferation of dance halls and cinemas and shaped political interest in young people. Gender as well as class affected lifestyles: parents allowed sons more freedom, but young women’s employment opportunities expanded significantly, enabling them to become important leisure consumers. Poverty prevented the emergence of a uniform, commercialised youth culture before the Second World War, but socially, and sometimes politically, young people expressed collective interests and concerns, albeit shaped by social class.

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The Worst Street in North London

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourse in England,c. 1940–69

Juvenile delinquency and the public sphere: exploring local and national discourse in England,c. 1940–69

Young Women, Work, and Leisure in Interwar England

Flappers and Factory Lads: Youth and Youth Culture in Interwar Britain

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