Race, gender and imperialism: a century of black girls' education in South Africa

It is striking how relatively absent women are from John MacKenzie's recent discussion of popular imperialism, that late nineteenth-century cluster of ‘monarchism, militarism and Social Darwinism’ infusing and propagated by every organ of British life. The relative dearth of research on women and empire partly reflects, of course, what masculine activities war and conquest have been, but it is still surprising that, after pointing to female emigration schemes, he has only two other — admirable — pieces of work to refer to: Brian Harrison's on the imperial enthusiasm of the Girls’ Friendly Society and Anna Davin's portrayal of the concern for a healthy race of imperial sons which informed much schooling for motherhood and social projects for women at the turn of the century. ¹