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From Wigan Pier to Piccadilly: Britain between the Wars

Module description

This module introduces you to debates around British culture during the 1920s and 1930s. These years are often associated in the public mind with economic depression and inequality, but they were also times of growing experimentation in gender roles, sexuality, and youth culture. We will consider the cultural and political history of these years exploring issues of class, nation and memory. You will also have a chance to explore the collections of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum on campus – although this will be dependent upon access to these resources amidst the wider Covid-19 crisis.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aim of this module is to:

• Introduce the important themes in inter-war British history, and consider why the memory of this period remains controversial and contested up to the present day.
• Learn to interpret and analyse a range of sources including films, social surveys, novels, plays, political broadcasts and oral histories.
• Give you the opportunity to conduct your own research into the source material, using the collections held by the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum students, to consider its utility and limitations.
• Help you develop skills in source analysis and research that will provide a foundation for future historical work, and introduce some of  the rich archival sources which are available at Exeter’s cinema museum.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the culture and politics of Britain during the 1920s and 1930s
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources relating to political perspectives of the problems of inter-war Britain

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc, and compare the validity of different types of sources.
• 4. Present historical arguments and answer questions orally

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning.
• 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
• 7. Write to a tight word-limit

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Introduction
• The anxieties of post-war Britain: Married Love (1918)
• The status of women: A Room of One’s Own (1929)
• Race and urban life: Piccadilly (1929)
• Putting the unemployed struggle on stage: Love on the Dole play (1934)
• One nation or many: English Journey (1934)
• Representing the nation: Stanley Baldwin political broadcast (1935)
• Social Investigation in the Great Depression: The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
• Imagining the ‘Modern’ Twenties: Peaky Blinders (2013-)
• Remembering the Great Depression: The Worst of Times (1984)
• Concluding discussion

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• S. Constantine, Unemployment in Britain between the Wars (Longman, 1980)
• J. Hinton, The Mass Observers, A History 1937-1949 (Oxford, 2013)
• R. McKibbin, Classes and Culture: England 1918-1951 (Oxford, 1998)
• M. Pugh, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars (Vintage, 2008)
• J. Stevenson and C. Cook, Britain in the Depression (Longman, 1994)
• Thorpe, Britain in the 1930s (Blackwell, 1992)
• S. Todd, The People: The rise and fall of the working class 1910-2010 (John Murray, 2015)
• Web based and electronic resources:
• British Pathe (political broadcasts)
• http://boltonworktown.co.uk/ Photographs from Mass Observation
• Mass Observation Online (available via Exeter Electronic Library)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11927
• British Pathe (political broadcasts)
• http://boltonworktown.co.uk/ Photographs from Mass Observation
• Mass Observation Online (available via Exeter Electronic Library)

Key words search

Unemployment, Class, Nationhood, Britain, Memory, Politics