history

Women in the Edwardian and Interwar Era . Top Story - August 2017.

The Edwardian era began with the death of Queen Victoria on January 21st, 1901 and the accession of her son, Edward VII in 1902. Victoria reigned for 64 years, most of the nineteenth century which was a period of great social reform. Industrialization had created vast wealth, which was in the hands of a small minority of the population. Though the middle class was growing in industrialized countries, a significant portion of the population, those who worked in the factories which made the rich wealthy and gave the middle class the comforts they enjoyed, lived in extreme poverty. Poverty leads to many other social problems. The reform movements which sought to solve these problems often had women playing large roles. These reform movements paved the way for the social change of the twentieth century, which allowed for the emergence of some of the most remarkable, and notorious, women in history.