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Department Member, History
Sheffield Hallam University, History
Thesis Title: Modernity and Popular Cultures of Holidaymaking in c.1930s Blackpool
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Professor Frank Mort
Professor Laura Doan |
About
I have recently completed my PhD at the University of Manchester and teach on undergraduate courses in modern British history at Manchester and Sheffield Hallam University. I am currently preparing my thesis for publication.
My research uses the seaside resort of Blackpool as a case study to think about gender, modernity, youth and leisure in the 1930s. The holiday is something that is largely absent from the current historiography of this period because the 1930s have quite rightly been portrayed as a decade dominated by extreme poverty and high levels of unemployment. However, throughout this 'devil's decade' the Blackpool holiday remained an important part of life for many Lancashire cotton workers.
In addition to highlighting the significance of this holiday practice, I am interested in Blackpool as a particular site of the modern. The innovation of municipal and private enterprise in bringing new technologies and forms of amusement to the town ensured that visitors were able to engage with emerging trends in consumer products, entertainment and recreation. Particularly visible were the young female mill workers who, in the words of J.B. Priestley, looked 'like actresses'. To leading journalists and cultural commentators such as Hannen Swaffer, Blackpool emblematized the social and cultural changes perceived to be taking place in the period.
