Representations of Single Motherhood in British Cinema, 1945-1970

This PhD research will explore the representation of single motherhood in British cinema from 1945 to 1970. This was a period in which the figure of the single mother became particularly important. Attitudes towards single mothers shifted as a result of changes in abortion law, contraceptive practices and the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, which led to divorce becoming more accessible. Although there have been historical studies of single motherhood, which examine the lived experiences of single mothers and their relationships with charities and the state, historians have largely neglected the representation of single motherhood within popular culture and the media. This project therefore proposes a new approach to single motherhood involving the study of the images of single motherhood provided by cinema, with a view to shedding light upon 'popular,' rather than just 'official,' attitudes towards single motherhood in postwar Britain. This, in turn, will contribute to discussions of the cultural construction of 'motherhood' in cinema and society more generally. This approach will involve a historically grounded analysis, based on archival research, of the images of single motherhood provided by cinema, along with an assessment of how such images spoke to the more general political and social debates of the time. Through the examination of popular cinematic imagery, the research will investigate the ways in which the single mother functioned as an ideologically ambivalent figure, inviting both societal acceptance and sympathy as well as moral judgement and 'punishment'. In this way, the research will contribute both to British film studies, which has largely neglected this figure, and to women's history by revealing how a focus on popular imagery complicates our understanding of the changing norms, and attitudes towards, gender, family, class and sexuality in the postwar period.