Professor Selina Todd

Professor of Modern History

St Hilda's College

selina.todd@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

I am a social historian of modern Britain. My research focuses on the history of working-class life and women's lives. My book Young women, work, and family in England, 1918-1950 (Oxford, 2005) won the Women's History Network annual book prize. My next book is The People: the rise and fall of the working class, 1910-2010 (London, 2014).

I am a Lecturer in Modern British History and Vice Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford. As a social historian, I am interested in ordinary people's experience and memory of the past. My research examines class and gender relations, social mobility, work and education - often by using oral histories and unpublished autobiographies.

My book The People: the rise and fall of the working class, 1910-2010 (London, 2014), argues that the century after 1910 was the working-class century. The working class became 'the people', as a result of ordinary people's efforts to have their voices heard. The book explores this, and what led to the demonisation of the working class at the end of the 20th century.

I work closely with communities and organisations beyond the University. These include MaD Theatre Group in Manchester. My collaboration with them informed my article 'Class conflict and the myth of cultural "inclusion" in modern Manchester' in J. Wolff and M. Savage (eds), Culture in Manchester. Institutions and urban change since 1850 (Manchester, 2013).

I serve on the editorial boards of Past and Present and the Royal Historical Society's Studies in History monograph series, and am a member of the Advisory Panel of History and Policy.

See page on her personal website

Research
Publications

You can find some of the oral histories included in my book The People showcased at this dedicated website.

My most recent research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and you can read about it here.

I am involved in several collaborative projects and networks. These include:

The Oxford Gender, Identity and Subjectivity Centre
'Rags to Riches: experiences of social mobility since 1800'
Women, Work and Value, a transnational network co-ordinated by Dr Josie McLellan at Bristol University.
I am one of the convenors of Oxford's women's history seminar

Tastes of Honey The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution

2019
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Book

Real life.’ Though little known today, this is the inspiring story of how one woman shook up the establishment of the 1950s and 60s, and helped trigger a cultural revolution.

Biography & Autobiography
'The myths of social mobility'

2018
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Chapter
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Move On Up social mobility, opportunity and equality in the 21st century
An introduction to A Taste of Honey

2017
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Internet publication

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Phoenix Rising: Working-Class Life and Urban Reconstruction, c. 1945–1967

2015
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Journal article
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Journal of British Studies

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Between 1945 and 1967, England's town and city centers were reconstructed. This article argues that this process of civic redevelopment transformed working-class people's experience of urban life. Frequently represented as a social problem or simply ignored by prewar planning and political rhetoric on civic participation, working-class people were treated as vital to civic life in postwar England. This change had profound implications for people's experience of civic life and for class identity. However, historians of urban change have focused on planners and politicians, while the few histories of postwar working-class life that exist concentrate on selfhood, home, and neighborhood life. Drawing on personal testimonies, press reports, and planning documents this paper argues that working-class people were active agents of change in England's civic centers. Moreover, the experience of civic reconstruction encouraged the development of a sense of entitlement for a more secure and fuller life than earlier generations had experienced. The rebuilding of the civic centers was widely recognized as an achievement of ordinary working-class people, and the rebuilt centers were understood as places that should and could provide for their needs.</jats:p>
The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010

2015
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Book

'There was nothing extraordinary about my childhood or background. And yet I looked in vain for any aspect of my family's story when I went to university to read history, and continued to search fruitlessly for it throughout the next decade. Eventually I realised I would have to write this history myself.' What was it really like to live through the twentieth century? In 1910 three-quarters of the population were working class, but their story has been ignored until now. Based on the first-person accounts of servants, factory workers, miners and housewives, award-winning historian Selina Todd reveals an unexpected Britain where cinema audiences shook their fists at footage of Winston Churchill, communities supported strikers, and where pools winners (like Viv Nicholson) refused to become respectable. Charting the rise of the working class, through two world wars to their fall in Thatcher's Britain and today, Todd tells their story for the first time, in their own words. Uncovering a huge hidden swathe of Britain's past, The People is the vivid history of a revolutionary century and the people who really made Britain great.
Class, experience and Britain's twentieth century

2014
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Journal article
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Social History
Family Welfare and Social Work in Post-War England, c.1948-c.1970

2014
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Journal article
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The English Historical Review
Class conflict and the myth of cultural ‘inclusion’ in modern Manchester

2013
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Chapter
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Culture in Manchester: Institutions and urban change since 1850

This book brings together studies of cultural institutions in Manchester from 1850 to the present day, giving an unprecedented account of the city's cultural evolution. These bring to light the remarkable range of Manchester's contribution to modern cultural life, including the role of art education, popular theatre, religion, pleasure gardens, clubs and societies. The chapters show the resilience and creativity of Manchester's cultural institutions since 1850, challenging any simple narrative of urban decline following the erosion of Lancashire's industrial base, at the same time illustrating the range of activities across the social classes. This book will appeal to everyone interested in the cultural life of the city of Manchester, including cultural historians, sociologists and urban geographers, as well as general readers with interests in the city. It is written by leading international authorities, including Viv Gardner, Stephen Milner, Mike Savage, Bill Williams and Janet Wolff.
People Matter: The Making of the English Working Class

2013
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Journal article
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History Workshop Journal

One enduring legacy of The Making of the English Working Class is Thompson’s careful attention to the agency of ordinary people. I suggest that his methodology offers a means of identifying agency and resistance across different periods of history. His use of both class and experience, which were challenged by the cultural turn, deserve renewed attention, as they offer important analytical tools for historians. Rather than simply describing class as a social phenomenon, The Making provides us with a way to analyze class as a dynamic, historically-specific relationship. At a time when inequality is presented by politicians as normative and inevitable, we need these insights more than ever.
Thai Brides and Teacakes: working-class culture and the modern city

2013
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Journal article
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Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester