Interwar Culture

Abstract

Interwar Culture from Adam Matthew is a rich and multidisciplinary resource bringing together numerous periodicals from the interwar period (1919‐1939) and covering a wide range of topics such as fashion, entertainment, home and family life, the women's movement, and children's literature. The collection consists of two modules: one covering the 1920s (which has been released) and another covering the 1930s (which is coming soon, presumably by 2023). Module 1 contains thousands of individual periodical issues from 27 different titles, ranging from the familiar (The Strand, Homes & Gardens) to the less familiar and, in many cases, previously unavailable online (Peg's Paper, Chums). Content ranges from highbrow fashion magazines like Art, Goût, Beauté, and Femina to low-priced homemaking titles such as Woman's Home Companion to children's publications such as The Modern Boy and The Schoolgirls’ Weekly. The collection also includes distinctive titles such as The National Advocate, purportedly the United States’ oldest temperance publication; The Labour Woman and Woman's Weekly, publications aimed specifically at working women; and Time and Tide, a uniquely female-produced publication covering politics and culture. Theatre Magazine, known for its sumptuous color photographs, is another standout title in the collection. The interwar period was a time of great cultural change and technological innovation, and the evolution of entertainment, culture, and fashion can be traced in various ways in the pages of these periodicals. With many of the included titles targeting women in particular, these periodicals helped define as well as record the changing ideas and fashions of this era, such as the move away from Victorian ideals to the more practical ideas and fashions of the flapper generation and the burgeoning world of working women. Boasting visually crisp and clear images from the pages of the original publications and a user-friendly search/browse interface, Interwar Culture has much to offer researchers across numerous disciplines as well as casual users simply interested in the significant and tumultuous years of the 1920s and 1930s.