ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the constant factor in female emigration propaganda after 1880. The combination of female emigration propaganda with the heady enthusiasm of fin-de-sicle imperialism gave a unique twist to the rhetoric of the feminine civilising mission, which was stronger at the end of the century than it had been during mid-Victorian years. By the twentieth century it was as difficult for the truly distressed gentlewoman to emigrate as it was for her to obtain respectable and remunerative employment in Britain. The Colonial Intelligence League, formed in 1910, was directed primarily to ensuring that this kind of progress took place. The clientele of the societies domestic training colleges was overwhelmingly middle-class in origin, mostly, it seems, composed of models of the distressed gentlewoman stereotype. Moreover, to the extent that the home-help idea was a real solution, it was so largely for genteel women who lacked qualifications for other work at home or overseas.