ABSTRACT
The rapid and dynamic economic and demographic changes in Europe during the quarter-century before the First World War led to equally dynamic transformations of social structures and social institutions. Class structures evolved, following the developments in industry and agriculture. A second, closely related, change was the rapid increase in urbanization: the growth of very large metropolitan centres and urban networks, and the transformation of cityscapes. A third was the continued expansion of voluntary associations and their centralization and reorganization. Finally, the period saw the increasing development of mass consumption and the tentative beginnings of a consumer society in Europe, at the intersection of new media, new forms of retailing and new versions of leisure and recreation. Every one of these developments, but the first and the third particularly, had a profound effect on structures of gender and gender relations.
