Woman's Hour - 09/02/2010

With Jane Garvey. In a special programme, Woman's Hour goes back to the 1930s. It was the decade that began with Amy Johnson's epic flight to Australia and ended with Vivien Leigh winning the Oscar for Best Actress for Gone with the Wind. It was also the decade of the Great Depression, the abdication and appeasement, as the country drifted towards the Second World War. But how did all this impact on the lives of ordinary British women? To what extent were they ruled by domesticity? In 1928, women won the equal voting rights with men, so was politics something that now interested them? And what about glamour - did this make often mundane lives worthwhile? Jane is joined in the studio by the historian Juliet Gardiner, author of a new book, The Thirties: An Intimate History. Also taking part in the programme are Sally Alexander, Emeritus Professor of History at Goldsmiths College, Judy Giles, Professor of Gender and Cultural Criticism at York St John's University, and Carol Dyhouse, Research Professor of History at the University of Sussex and author of Glamour: Women, History, Feminism.