Woman’s Outlook: Educating the Modern Housewife

The logo of the Co-operative Women’s Guild shows a woman clutching a basket, reflecting women’s relatively lowly status within the co-operative movement for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when their power came largely from their role as consumers. The CWG was formed in 1883 to bring working-class women out of the home and realise the power they had in numbers. It encouraged women to educate themselves to take a more active role in co-operative businesses and in society, tirelessly campaigning for everything from better maternity services to a national health service to peace and disarmament.

In 1919, these forward-thinking co-operative women got their own magazine to cater for their interests as women, co-operators and members of a rapidly changing world, distributed nationally through CWG branches. Woman’s Outlook was published by the Co-operative Press, first from Long Millgate in the heart of Manchester’s newspaper district, before moving in the 1950s to the vast, imposing former Veno medicine factory in Old Trafford.

Although superficially similar to other women’s magazines – its glamorous, colourful, stylised covers depicted women at work and at play, the picture of youth and vitality, whether hanging out the washing, relaxing on the beach or enjoying a game of golf – Woman’s Outlook was unusual in offering an enticing mixture of the personal and the political. With many co-operative women remaining in the home as wives and mothers, there was a strong focus on the domestic, including serialised fiction with a topical and moralising slant, fashion and clothes patterns, cleaning and home-making tips, recipes and nutritional information, recommendations for child-rearing, and relationship advice. But the magazine went far beyond the domestic, taking a strongly anti-capitalist and international outlook and highlighting the inequalities and injustices affecting women not just in Britain but around the world.

Outlook aimed to inform women so they were confident making their voices and opinions heard and could make a difference. One issue in which women were expected to interest themselves was education. Outlook derided old slum schools and visited new types of schools and nurseries where children would have their “birth right of space, freedom of movement, fresh air, natural light and cleanliness”, including open air schools and, later, London’s first purpose-built comprehensive school, where it praised the “Festival of Britain air” and “extensive use of glass”. Another major theme in Woman’s Outlook was housing, with Outlook sharing how people lived around the world, from traditional whitewashed homes in Majorca to low-cost housing in the slums of Rio. The magazine ran exposés on slum conditions and profiteering landlords – a 1920s article on colliers’ homes described them as “cramped, unsanitary and a disgrace to any civilisation” – as well as offering regular advice on rent and tenants’ legal rights.

At a time when many Britons were living in decidedly un-modern conditions, Outlook embraced the modern, keeping up with the latest experiments in living, from prefabrication to garden suburbs and new towns. Outlook’s reporters went out to see how these ideas were being put into practice in estates such as Wythenshawe, and to scrutinise housing plans put forward by the local council. Reporters also ventured further afield to Scandinavia, to see examples of co-operative and social housing, and visit purpose-built communities such as old people’s towns.

This focus on housing and planning had particular significance during the Second World War, which presented a challenge but also an opportunity. In 1942, Outlook looked ahead to the new society which women would help build after the war, arguing that “post-war housing is a woman’s problem” and “it seems to me especially a job for women to concentrate on plans for the post-war world”. It was optimistic that “the position of the housewife will improve – there is every reason to suppose that her views on what sort of home she wants will be far more seriously considered than they were after the last war”. The magazine argued that women – who would be spending most time in them – should be considered and consulted on the design of new homes and communities, calling for more women architects to enter the profession and for “women of all ages” to be represented on planning councils. It encouraged guildswomen to “get on to every committee” they could “so as to be in an influential position when the right moment comes for constructive action”. Outlook published reading lists to help readers educate themselves, explaining that “town and country planning is not something to be left solely to the expert” and “it is up to all progressive and thoughtful guildswomen to acquaint themselves with what is going on in other active brains”. Outlook also spoke with the planners and architects who would reconstruct Britain, enthusing of plans for the ‘New Coventry’ that it “had a rather thrilling quality about it – it was like opening the door of a darkened room to step into the sunlight outside”. Further boosts to morale came from articles about new developments in materials which would transform the housewife’s life by being put to domestic use after the war, from innovations in plastic to new uses for glass – presumably the easy-to-clean glass walls, glass frying pan and glass rolling pin which would be an “excellent aid to light pastry” were inventions which never made it big.

As the 1950s and 1960s progressed, Outlook became less overtly political and targeted women as co-operative consumers, highlighting ‘best buys’ in Co-operative stores such as the ‘Gaily coloured soft household broom’. Products which could save the housewife labour were praised for freeing up her leisure time for use and enjoyment. Times were changing, both for women and for the CWG: other demands for women’s attention came from television, paid employment and increased leisure op­por­tu­ni­ties. But as Outlook’s final issue noted proudly in 1967: “Outlook has outlasted many of the women’s magazines that were concerned only with the more trivial aspects of a woman’s life.”

Woman’s Outlook: Educating the Modern Housewife

The logo of the Co-operative Women’s Guild shows a woman clutching a basket, reflecting women’s relatively lowly status within the co-operative movement for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when their power came largely from their role as consumers. The CWG was formed in 1883 to bring working-class women out of the home and realise the power they had in numbers. It encouraged women to educate themselves to take a more active role in co-operative businesses and in society, tirelessly campaigning for everything from better maternity services to a national health service to peace and disarmament.

In 1919, these forward-thinking co-operative women got their own magazine to cater for their interests as women, co-operators and members of a rapidly changing world, distributed nationally through CWG branches. Woman’s Outlook was published by the Co-operative Press, first from Long Millgate in the heart of Manchester’s newspaper district, before moving in the 1950s to the vast, imposing former Veno medicine factory in Old Trafford.

Although superficially similar to other women’s magazines – its glamorous, colourful, stylised covers depicted women at work and at play, the picture of youth and vitality, whether hanging out the washing, relaxing on the beach or enjoying a game of golf – Woman’s Outlook was unusual in offering an enticing mixture of the personal and the political. With many co-operative women remaining in the home as wives and mothers, there was a strong focus on the domestic, including serialised fiction with a topical and moralising slant, fashion and clothes patterns, cleaning and home-making tips, recipes and nutritional information, recommendations for child-rearing, and relationship advice. But the magazine went far beyond the domestic, taking a strongly anti-capitalist and international outlook and highlighting the inequalities and injustices affecting women not just in Britain but around the world.

Outlook aimed to inform women so they were confident making their voices and opinions heard and could make a difference. One issue in which women were expected to interest themselves was education. Outlook derided old slum schools and visited new types of schools and nurseries where children would have their “birth right of space, freedom of movement, fresh air, natural light and cleanliness”, including open air schools and, later, London’s first purpose-built comprehensive school, where it praised the “Festival of Britain air” and “extensive use of glass”. Another major theme in Woman’s Outlook was housing, with Outlook sharing how people lived around the world, from traditional whitewashed homes in Majorca to low-cost housing in the slums of Rio. The magazine ran exposés on slum conditions and profiteering landlords – a 1920s article on colliers’ homes described them as “cramped, unsanitary and a disgrace to any civilisation” – as well as offering regular advice on rent and tenants’ legal rights.

At a time when many Britons were living in decidedly un-modern conditions, Outlook embraced the modern, keeping up with the latest experiments in living, from prefabrication to garden suburbs and new towns. Outlook’s reporters went out to see how these ideas were being put into practice in estates such as Wythenshawe, and to scrutinise housing plans put forward by the local council. Reporters also ventured further afield to Scandinavia, to see examples of co-operative and social housing, and visit purpose-built communities such as old people’s towns.

This focus on housing and planning had particular significance during the Second World War, which presented a challenge but also an opportunity. In 1942, Outlook looked ahead to the new society which women would help build after the war, arguing that “post-war housing is a woman’s problem” and “it seems to me especially a job for women to concentrate on plans for the post-war world”. It was optimistic that “the position of the housewife will improve – there is every reason to suppose that her views on what sort of home she wants will be far more seriously considered than they were after the last war”. The magazine argued that women – who would be spending most time in them – should be considered and consulted on the design of new homes and communities, calling for more women architects to enter the profession and for “women of all ages” to be represented on planning councils. It encouraged guildswomen to “get on to every committee” they could “so as to be in an influential position when the right moment comes for constructive action”. Outlook published reading lists to help readers educate themselves, explaining that “town and country planning is not something to be left solely to the expert” and “it is up to all progressive and thoughtful guildswomen to acquaint themselves with what is going on in other active brains”. Outlook also spoke with the planners and architects who would reconstruct Britain, enthusing of plans for the ‘New Coventry’ that it “had a rather thrilling quality about it – it was like opening the door of a darkened room to step into the sunlight outside”. Further boosts to morale came from articles about new developments in materials which would transform the housewife’s life by being put to domestic use after the war, from innovations in plastic to new uses for glass – presumably the easy-to-clean glass walls, glass frying pan and glass rolling pin which would be an “excellent aid to light pastry” were inventions which never made it big.

As the 1950s and 1960s progressed, Outlook became less overtly political and targeted women as co-operative consumers, highlighting ‘best buys’ in Co-operative stores such as the ‘Gaily coloured soft household broom’. Products which could save the housewife labour were praised for freeing up her leisure time for use and enjoyment. Times were changing, both for women and for the CWG: other demands for women’s attention came from television, paid employment and increased leisure op­por­tu­ni­ties. But as Outlook’s final issue noted proudly in 1967: “Outlook has outlasted many of the women’s magazines that were concerned only with the more trivial aspects of a woman’s life.”