Maternal Modernism: Narrating New Mothers

337 Pages·2022·7.005 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Podnieks

Maternal
Modernism
Narrating New Mothers
Elizabeth Podnieks
Maternal Modernism
Elizabeth Podnieks
Maternal Modernism
Narrating New Mothers
Elizabeth Podnieks
Department of English
Toronto Metropolitan University
Toronto, ON, Canada
ISBN 978-3-031-08910-7 ISBN 978-3-031-08911-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08911-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: CSA-Printstock / Getty Image
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For my mother, Elizabeth Podnieks
A
cknowledgments
Virginia Woolf now-famously proclaimed in A Room of One’s Own that
“we think back through our mothers if we are women.” Maternal
Modernism is predicated on such an historical perspective, while also think-
ing about our mothers of today and tomorrow. This book is the product
of much reflection about mothers, mothering, and motherhood over
many years. I am grateful to the diverse figures examined herein—novel-
ists, journalists, film stars, and auto/biographers—whose archives and
oeuvres provided me with such a substantive trove of compelling and cou-
rageous narratives that inspired me to rethink motherhood. I am equally
indebted to the numerous scholars whose innovative respective studies on
modernism, the New Woman, and motherhood have stimulated my own.
A special thank you to Andrea O’Reilly, whose scholarship launched my
entry into the field of motherhood studies, and whose personal and pro-
fessional support continues to drive me; and to all the members of the
International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS)
(formerly the Motherhood Initiative for Community Involvement
[MIRCI]), for building, nourishing, and promoting a global community
of peers.
Deepest thanks to Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature publishing for
its ongoing support of this project. I extend my especial gratitude to Molly
Beck, Executive Editor for Literature, for her interest in the book from its
early stages and for her dedication to realizing its publication. I greatly
value her most engaged, generous, and sustained efforts on my behalf.
Likewise, I thank Ruby Panigrahi and Petra Treiber, Project Coordinators,
and V. Vinodh Kumar Venkitesan, Project Manager, along with their
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
team, for their meticulous attention to detail and design as they worked to
prepare the book in its final form. I am further most grateful to the Reader
for the press, for the time involved in reviewing the manuscript, and for
providing me with thoughtful and insightful feedback so helpful to
strengthening the book.
For over two decades at what is now called Toronto Metropolitan
University, I have had the privilege of working alongside a group of
accomplished friends and colleagues, to whom I offer my profound thanks.
As a member of the Department of English, I have benefitted immensely
from being immersed in an environment where faculty and staff so uncon-
ditionally respect and enrich each other’s research, teaching, and adminis-
trative roles. Additionally, I owe much to the Office of the Faculty of Arts,
including Pamela Sugiman, Dean; Patrizia Albanese, Associate Dean of
Arts, Research and Graduate Studies; and Jean-Paul Boudreau, former
Dean, for their sustained commitment to my career, including the funding
of my participation at academic conferences (where parts of Maternal
Modernism were first disseminated) and research assistant hires. On that
note, I acknowledge the many multitalented students from our Literatures
of Modernity graduate program who have contributed to this project
along the way: Selena Jodha, Charlene Chow, Anne Dion, Emily
Hunsberger, Brianna Cooze, Jamie Hayes, Rebecca Anderson, Lauren
Matera, Natalja Chestopalova, Mubina Virsram, Jon Whitzman, and
Melissa Silva.
A few, small portions of material herein have appeared elsewhere:
“‘Disposed to Daring Innovation’: New Woman Fiction, New Modernism,
and New Motherhood,” Re-reading the Age of Innovation: Victorians,
Moderns, and Literary Newness, 1830–1950, edited by Louise Kane, Taylor
& Francis/Routledge, 2022; “Maternal Stars of the Silent Screen: Gender,
Genre, and Photoplay Magazine,” Life Writing Outside the Lines: Gender
and Genre in the Americas, edited by Eva C.  Karpinksi and Ricia
A. Chansky, Routledge, 2020, 80–88 (originally published in a/b: Auto/
Biography Studies, “Lives Outside the Lines: Gender and Genre,” Vol. 33:
3, Autumn 2018, pp. 578–587); and “‘The Other Problem—That of the
Woman with Children’: Vera Brittain, Maternal Work, and the Politics of
Leaning In,” Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and
Community Involvement, 5.1 (Spring/Summer 2014): 242–262. I note
that all quotations from published and unpublished work by Vera Brittain
are included here by permission of Mark Bostridge and T. J. Brittain-
Catlin, Literary Executors for the Estate of Vera Brittain 1970. I also want
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
to acknowledge with much thanks Bev Bayzat, McMaster Library Assistant,
for providing me with access to the unpublished materials of Brittain,
housed in the Vera Brittain Archive, William Ready Division of Archives
and Research Collections, McMaster University Library. Relatedly, I
greatly appreciate the editors of the books and journals listed above, as
well as their peer reviewers, for supporting and advancing my research.
Finally, there would be no “thinking back through our mothers” with-
out my own mother, Elizabeth Podnieks—your role modeling, guidance,
and love have made everything possible. Thank you to the rest of my
team, too, including Andrew Podnieks and Jane Podnieks—your adven-
turous spirit motivates; Zachary Smith and Emily Smith—you reward me
with motherhood each day; and Ian Smith—you encompass it all.
c
ontents
1 The “Persistent Rebels” of Maternal Modernism 1
2 The New Woman, New Modernisms, and New Motherhoods 15
3 Mothers in New Woman Fiction: Mapping “the Terra
Incognita of Herself” 49
4 “The ‘Momentousness’ of Motherhood”: Maternal
Discourses and Debates in The Freewoman: A Weekly
Feminist Review and The Freewoman: A Weekly Humanist
Review 87
5 “The Title Role of ‘Mother’”: Silent-Film Stardom and
Celebrity Maternity in Photoplay Magazine 129
6 “Freedom and Childbearing”: Prams, Politics, and Literary
Life in New Woman Autobiographies of the Interwar Era 169
7 “A Mother, a Wife, a Worker and a Wonder- Woman”:
Matroethnography, Black Feminism, and Postcolonial New
Womanhood in Buchi Emecheta’s London Narratives 223
xi
xii CONTENTS
8 Coda: New Womanism in the Twenty-First Century 267
Bibliography 291
Index 315