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CATHERINE CLAY: Hello, I'm Dr. Catherine Clay. And I'm associate professor in feminist and literary studies at Nottingham Trent University, UK. So Time and Tide, it was a feminist weekly review

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of politics and the arts and an agenda-setting magazine for equal rights feminism in the interwar period. It was the brainchild of a woman called Lady Margaret Rhondda. She was a wealthy industrialist, a Welsh suffragette.

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And she along with other women from the women's suffrage movement launched the magazine in May 19, '20, just two years after the 1918 representation of the People Act gave some women the vote for the first time

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in British history. Later towards the end of the 1920s, the magazine began to distance itself from the feminist label in order to establish itself among the general audience

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intellectual weeklies of the day. But even then with its all-female board of directors, Time and Tide retained its distinctly feminist perspective on culture throughout the interwar years.

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In terms of the context, a key context for the publication of Time and Tide was the backlash against women's participation in public life following their service during the First World

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War and the perception among the paper's founders that the mainstream newspaper press was turning public opinion against women workers. Rhondda tells us in her autobiography

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that ever since she was a small child, she had wanted to edit a newspaper. But in the mainstream press of this period, women were far more often the subjects

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of news than its producers or makers. When Rhondda came to establish Time and Tide in 1920, she decided upon the weekly review format. As though relatively small in circulation,

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such papers were read by people with influence. And as she writes in her memoir, she wanted passionately to, I quote, "change customs and influence ideas."

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And I just want to turn here to a letter that she wrote to her friend Doris Stevens in 1927. Doris Stevens, a leader of the women's movement in America, where Rhondda writes to her saying,

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"There has never as far as I been a serious weekly review run by women before. It's offering a new world of achievement to us if we succeed.

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There have been propaganda papers before, but never this. I believe the day of the weeklies is at hand. And I want there to be a weekly run by women amongst them." So this letter is very illuminating, I think.

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Because it gives us a really important insight into Time and Tide's early aspirations both within and beyond feminist spheres of influence. Too often, both in its day and since,

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Time and Tide has been pigeonholed as a women's paper and regarded as limited to women's interests. As such, Time and Tide has shared the fate of other papers by women such as the suffrage organs or the propaganda papers

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as Rhondda identifies them and describes them here. And these papers are rarely read for their contribution to wider political discourses. Time and Tide was an avowedly feminist paper.

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And in its early years, it was predominantly written and read by women. But it also operated on much wider lines and extended its reach among male readers too.

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Press historians have identified the 1920s and the 1930s as the golden age of the weekly review. And while only two titles from this age survive today, the New Statesman and the Spectator, Time

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and Tide's place within this history deserves to be better known. Time and Tide is important for several reasons. First, as the only weekly review in Britain

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produced and edited by women, Time and Tide is unique. Against a backdrop after the First World War in which modern women frequently attracted attention as subjects or talking points in the popular press,

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in Time and Tide we see women as producers of news and a magazine which mediated interwar culture from a feminist standpoint. Furthermore, the feminist goals and commitment

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that underpinned the magazine at the beginning in the early '20s persisted long after the moment of its later rebranding as a more general audience weekly and when an equal rights agenda became less visible in its pages.

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Quite simply, Time and Tide was the leading feminist magazine of the interwar years. And its significance in this respect cannot be overstated, especially when we consider that this period is often still

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perceived as one in which feminism went into retreat. After the insurgency of the suffrage campaign, so the dominant narrative goes, the women's movement lost its way only to resurface with the second wave

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in the 1970s. But this narrative is challenged by Time and Tide which covered a huge number of feminist campaigns and issues relating to women--

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from women's education and employment to marriage and motherhood and birth control, along with the ongoing campaign for the equal franchise. Of course, it wasn't finally won until July 19, 1928

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when women won political rights on the equal footing with men. So a really key example of Time and Tide's strong feminist mandate is the prominence that it afforded to the Six Point Group, which was Britain's leading gender equality

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campaigning organisation of the interwar years. So this is the agenda of the Six Point Group which was publicised in Time and Tide's issue of the 25th of February, 1921.

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And in this issue, it carried a leading article on the inauguration of the group. And it publicised six campaign points, from child assault for-- looking to secure

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satisfactory legislation on child assault through rights for the guardianship of infants and to the equality of teachers' pay. So the group's founders included Lady Rhondda and other Time

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and Tide directors and staff writers. While the magazine was not an official mouthpiece of the group, it did publicise its events and support its campaigns.

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For example, in 28th of January, 1927 issue, we can see a letter here in Time and Tide's correspondence columns. And the letter is requesting publicity

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for a petition that's been organised by the Six Point Group on the subject of a factory's bill then passing through parliament. And you can see at the bottom of this letter,

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it's signed by Rhondda, chair-- identifying her as chair of the Six Point Group. And here in this issue from later the same year, the 1st of July, 1927, we can see this

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reports an announcement feature, a regular feature. And the top here, the top item is on the Six Point Group. It reports the success of a series of successful evening meetings it's held.

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And then announces the equal franchise demonstration that's going to be taking place later the same month. And so regular columns like these are an absolute goldmine for tracking

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the events, activities, and campaigns associated with the interwar feminist movement. On the same page, we can see this week's "Westminster" column, which, in this issue, has

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an update on the progress of legislation relating to the trafficking women, i.e. prostitution. A couple of pages later in the same issue,

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we have this regular feature timetable. This was a weekly noticeboard of events organised by feminist organisations, as well as cultural events. And towards the bottom of this column,

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we can see another announcement for a Six Point Group meeting on the equal franchise, and then the announcement of the equal political rights demonstration that was taking place on Trafalgar Square on July

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the 16th. But also in the same column, we've got items relating to other feminist and women's associational events.

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We've got the opening of Crosby Hall library. This was the London clubhouse of the International Federation of University of Women, which formed after the First World War to unite university-educated women around friendship

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and peace, kind of peace and reconstruction after the war. And we have also a reference to an exhibition with exhibitors involving the Girl Guides movement and also the women's institutes.

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So again, a mine of treasure trove of different activities and women's associational groups and what they were doing on a week by week basis. We've got these kind of timetable here of events.

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Another very significant regular column in the 1920s was called "In the Tideway." And this feature compiled feminist news and comment in the style of tidbits, often spotlighting the treatment

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of women in other press organs. This one here is actually signed North Wind. Until 1926, it was signed by and Big Ben, which was very likely the pseudonym for Helen Archdale, who

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served as Time and Tide's editor until she was replaced by Lady Ronda in the summer of 1926. So Time and Tide is hugely important for researching feminism in the interwar years.

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There won't be a single feminist historian of this period for whom Time and Tide is not an extremely valuable archival resource. But Time and Tide is equally important for researchers

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looking beyond women's lives and feminism. Because it was a hub for so many political and cultural crosscurrents in the interwar period. A long-running periodical, and the title

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finally expired in 1979 after a series of mergers and takeovers following Lady Ronda's death in 1958. Time and Tide spanned a complex and rich period of history. And for the interwar years, it's an exceptional cultural record

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of many overlapping strands, including labour, peace, and anti-fascist movements, as well as feminism, international as well as domestic politics. Increasingly so in the 1930s as economic and other

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crises unfolded in this decade. And it was extremely significant for its cultural content too, which included short stories and poems, as well as regular reviews of books, theatre, and music,

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and at different points, art and film. I would say that it's Time and Tide's multifaceted aspect that makes it so central for researchers of interwar culture, more than any other magazines

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in this resource, I think. It intersects with so many other titles collected here, even if only to register its strong divergence from the dominant preoccupations of some other publications,

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for example, of the domestic focus of women's magazines such as Women's Home Companion and ideal Home. Yes, this is remarkable.

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And one of the things I found most fascinating when researching Time and Tide was the way in which it adapted and evolved to expand within multiple and sometimes competing markets to extend

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its reach without abandoning its core target audience and expanding class of newly enfranchised women who formed its early readership base. I've referred already to the feminist audiences as addressed

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by Time and Tide to its coverage of interwar feminist debates, activities, and campaigns, particularly those of the Six Point Group. But the magazine also established a readership

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among women who may not have identified as feminist or ever participated in any form of political activism. Among them, ordinary women housewives with interests beyond the domestic sphere.

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And I think it's important to stress here that Time and Tide was very definitely not a magazine serving the domestic interests of middle class housewives.

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There were dozens of publications catering for this market in the interwar years, including titles in this interwar culture resource, for example, Women's Home Companion, Home Magazine,

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and Ideal Home. Time and Tide actively differentiated itself from such magazines and the popular women's press in general.

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And we can see this, for example, in its spoof of the women's page, which ran for four issues in 1924. So this feature is called "Our Men's Page."

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And it features an editor, a fictional persona, Sir Duffer D'amboring. And the feature will offer his opinions on the modes, manners, and morals for men.

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And it's very, very funny. Just as a really lovely kind of insight to just how much humour there was in Time and Tide as well, and the kind of fun that these women must have had putting

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together making this magazine. The first item has a fictional reader, Horace Pauncefort Smith writing in to ask for advice about his wedding costume, and Duffer D'amboring giving him some very pointed advice

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on his clothing and so on. So it was very much this spoof of the women's page. It was very much through that enacting its kind of differentiation from those kind of papers which

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regularly carried a women's page that this wasn't the kind of magazine that Time and Tide was. But while Time and Tide distanced itself from the women's paper category with respect

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to such staples of women's journalism traditionally defined fashion, the home, romantic fiction, and so on, it did overlap with these markets as we can see in this very interesting example from Time

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and Tide's pages here. And so this is a full-page advertisement in the 4th of March 1927 issue of Time and Tide-- a full page advertisement for Good Housekeeping promoting

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its 5th anniversary number. Good Housekeeping had been launched in Britain. The British version of Good Housekeeping had been launched in Britain in 1922 and published monthly.

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And it was one of the most successful of the new mass market service magazines catering to women of the middle and lower middle classes. This advertisement for its 5th anniversary number

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was apparently placed in exchange for two small advertisements for Time and Tide which appeared in Good Housekeeping in February and March the same year.

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In the first of those adverts, Time and Tide announced itself as the weekly review for the women of today, and in the second promoted its cultural criticism-- its book reviews, theatre reviews, music, and I quote,

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"its original literary competitions and acoustics." Both advertisements offered a four-week trial-- that's both advertisements in Good Housekeeping offered a four-week trial of the magazine.

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And with its huge circulation, Good Housekeeping offered Time and Tide the potential for reaching new female audiences. And I think it's significant that Time and Tide places

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emphasis on its cultural content in the adverts it placed in Good Housekeeping. The numbers of women go into the theatre increased in the interwar years.

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And women formed the majority interwar cinema audiences. Women were also the primary target audience for fiction. So Time and Tide's substantial review section was thus catering for women's interests

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in the cultural sphere as well. It wasn't a narrowly political or propagandist magazine. In fact, Time and Tide's book related content was its most significant area of growth

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during the interwar period. Just a few months before this Good Housekeeping advertisement in September 1926, the magazine announced that it was enlarging the space devoted

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to the discussion of current literature in response to repeated requests for more book reviews. And following the paper's size and price increase in October 1928, its book review section more than doubled.

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Good Housekeeping published a regularly monthly book essay contributed for several years by the popular playwright and novelist Clemence Dane who is also an early contributor to Time and Tide.

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And Clemence Dane is listed here in this advertisement for Good Housekeeping, another sign of the overlapping networks and interests shared by these otherwise quite different magazines.

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That's a very interesting question. And again, this advertisement exchange with Good Housekeeping, that I was just discussing a moment ago, is very revealing,

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where it tells us the kind of woman reader that Time and Tide thought to attract, essentially addressing a middle class demographic. Women readers of mass market story papers titles

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like Peg's Paper in this interwar culture resource, papers which publish sensational and romantic fiction for working class readers, these were not the kind of women that Time and Tide sought to address.

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Time and Tide very much saw itself as a high-class weekly for the educated and cultured woman reader. And in its publishing of short fiction, I'd say,

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had more in common with a magazine like The Strand than with mass market story papers and popular women's magazines like Women's Weekly, which also provided a regular diet of serial romantic fiction.

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The Strand was the preeminent magazine publishing short fiction in Britain in this period. And like The Strand, Time and Tide can be seen as a publisher of literary rather than romantic

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fiction. Contributors of short stories to Time and Tide in the 1920s and '30s include such names as Stella Benson, Elizabeth Bowen, Vera Britton, Stella Gibbons, Winifred Holtby,

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Naomi Murchison, Kate O'Brien, Jean Rees, Dorothy Whipple, E.H. Young, just to name a few. This is a stellar cast of writers and testifies to the importance of the magazine for women's

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literary writing of the period. Just two months prior to the Good Housekeeping advertisement in January 1927, Time and Tide had introduced a new section in the paper under the heading "Miscellany," which

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created a designated space in the paper for the publication of short fiction as well as other light content, such as sketches and familiar essays. So this is the 28th of January 1927 issue,

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where this "Miscellany" section first appeared. And you can see, well, it's positioned kind of in the middle of the paper, sort of between the front political pages of the magazine

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and the back pages with the kind of cultural criticism and book reviews. And so this opening feature includes contributions from E.M. Delafield

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and a story by Sylvia Townsend Warner. And like the previous authors I mentioned, both Warner and Delafield are really important writers of the period.

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They were commercially successful in their day. But they've also attracted much scholarly attention since particularly with the growth of academic interest in the middlebrow.

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Warner first started writing for the paper in October 1926, following the publication of her acclaimed novel Lolly Willows, which was the first selection of America's Book of the Month Club.

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Delafield, she'd been a contributor of book reviews and occasional short stories and sketches since 1922. But she came to play a very significant role

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in the magazine as one of its board of directors from December 1927, so later in this same year. She's best known today for her comic novel Diary of a Provincial Lady, which first appeared serially

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in Time and Tide in Time and Tide's "Miscellany" section between December 1929 and December 1930. And then after its appearance in Time and Tide, it then became a bestseller in book form.

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And in contrast with some highbrow critics of the period, people like Q.D. Leavis, who's 1930 book Fiction and the Reading Public did much to denigrate the middlebrow.

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Time and Tide defended and celebrated middlebrow fiction and along with this celebrated and defended the literary taste and intelligence of the women readers that it catered for.

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Yes, this question of readership is very important and one that I found particularly fascinating during the course of my research on this magazine. And again, it's Time and Tide's advertising content

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that has a particularly interesting story to tell. I'd like to draw attention to this advertisement which appeared on the inside front cover of the magazine in its issue of the 11th of March 1927.

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This is just one week after the Good Housekeeping one. It's an advertisement for the Nation and Athenaeum, another weekly magazine of the period billed here as the organ of a new school of liberal thought

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and promoting among its most exclusive features articles written by its editor, the economist John Maynard Keynes. This was the first of eight advertisements for the Nation

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and Athenaeum, which appeared in Time and Tide between March 1927 and December 1928. And they were apparently placed in exchange for an equal number of advertisements

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for Time and Tide carried by the Nation and Athenaeum over the same period. In my book, I argue that this strategic alliance played a key part in Time and Tide's move

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into the forefront of the general audience weekly reviews. The Nation and Athenaeum was one of the leading weekly reviews of the period.

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Others include two titles-- two surviving titles today, the New Statesman and the Spectator. Time and Tide by rebranding itself

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by association with the Nation and Athenaeum was effectively promoting itself as a political as well as a literary review and paving the way for its own size and price increase in October 1928,

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which would complete its transition into the 6-penny weekly market. But in its rebranding, as a general audience intellectual weekly, Time and Time

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had to take its existing female readership with it. And I think it's significant that the Nation and Athenaeum was the most book-focused of the intellectual weeklies. And notably, its literary editor was Leonard Woolf.

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In early advertisements placed in the rival publication, Time and Tide promoted its arts content most heavily. And in this advertisement for the Nation, which promotes among other things its spring books number,

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Time and Tide's readers are told that, quote, "the ably written book reviews have been called the cream of critical literary intelligence."

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So what we see here is a very sophisticated internal and external marketing strategy by which Time and Tide aim to sell to its existing readers a particular brand of weekly review journalism identified

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with the Nation, and at the same time to promote its own content, and particularly its literary content amongst readers of this leading intellectual review.

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Also fascinating is that this advertisement exchange with the Nation and Athenaeum coincides with its exchange with Good Housekeeping. So the first advertisement for the Nation

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appears in Time and Tide just one week following the advertisement for Good Housekeeping's 5th anniversary number. So viewed together, these prominent advertisements

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are another example of Time and Tide's position within multiple sets of distinct, but interlocking periodical networks. They reveal just how savvy Time and Tide

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was as it worked to extend its reach simultaneously amongst new female audiences and within a more general audience and intellectual review reading public. I think it's worth mentioning here too

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that the recruitment of Marion Jean Lyon to Time and Tide's board of directors in 1926 was undoubtedly a very significant development for the magazine.

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Marion Jean Lyon was advertisement manager of the family Punch magazine. She was president of the Women's Advertising Club of London, and one of the best known women in advertising

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during the interwar period. So by recruiting her to the magazine, to Time and Tide at this point in the mid-twenties, her expertise would have done much for the magazine

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during this key phase of consolidating its position in the periodical marketplace. Time and Tide's interwar history can be mapped out in three key phases.

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And its format and content reflects these shifts in emphasis. So phase 1 spans the years from 1920 to 1928. And it's the period in which the magazine's

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strong feminist mandate is most overtly visible in its pages. And I've spoken about some of those features already, particularly the Six Point Group material. And Time and Tide's chief competitors in this period

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were other feminist papers, in particular to form a suffrage organs, the women's leader and the vote. And these feminist papers also extended their remit beyond the issue of equal franchise.

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But while their circulations declined, Time and Tide's circulation grew as the paper increased in prestige and influence. So that was the first phase, 1920

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to '28 of a very overtly kind of feminist, wearing its feminist label very strongly in its pages. Phase 2 spans the years from 1928 to 1935. And it's the period in which Time and Tide

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took on an increasingly literary identity. We see this in the significant expansion of its book review section, including special literary supplements which sometimes more than doubled the overall size

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of the magazine. Also in the gallery of distinguished writers and intellectuals, male and female, who are now contributing to the magazine.

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This shift of emphasis in the magazine from the overtly feminist to the more literary has sometimes been seen and read as a dilution of Time and Tide's early feminism.

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But this reading underestimates the importance of Time and Tide's feminist interventions in the cultural sphere, where it played a critical role in the publication and reception of women writers.

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This is thrown into sharp relief. In fact, when we compare Time and Tide with another of the leading weekly reviews, the New Statesman, which showed very little interest

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in the work of women writers, most of the short stories that the New Statesman published were by male writers. Another important aspect of Time and Tide's book-related content is the role it played in broadening

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the appeal of the magazine as it worked to rebrand itself as a more general audience weekly review. So here, we're looking at the issue of the 12th of October 1928.

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This was the first issue in Time and Tide's new format. And we can see here that the paper has raised its price from 4 pence to 6 pence. And it now typically ran to 32 pages.

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Formerly, it had 24 pages. So this size and price increase brought it into line with the leading weekly reviews, the New Statesman, the Nation and Athenaeum, the Spectator.

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But look at the content of its advertising cover. Here on the front page, we have a large advertisement for Viola fabric, for women dainty night wear. And on the inside cover of this issue,

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we have an advert for Marshall & Snelgrove, which was one of London's leading department stores. And here, this ad is promoting women's fur coats. So although Time and Tide was by now marketing itself

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as a more general audience weekly review, the magazine was still packaged for the woman reader. What we see during the course of Time and Tide's second decade is the gradual disappearance

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of such feminine coded advertising as advertisements for fashion and fabrics gave way first of all to advertisements for books. So this was another important aspect of Time

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and Tide's literary turn. With the expansion of its book-related content, Time and Tide also strengthened its relationship with a new set of advertisers, publishers, instead

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of department stores. And this in turn aided the magazine's transition into a more general audience review. The years 1935 to 1939 represent the third phase

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of Time and Tide into war history. And it's in this period that we see the magazine taking on an increasingly international outlook.

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In 1931, Time and Tide had incorporated the international news journal Foreign Affairs as a monthly supplement. And as the decade advanced, the content across the paper

00:29:10.990 - 00:29:26.560

became more internationally than women focused. These are of course years of economic crisis following the Wall Street crash, and years which saw the rise of fascism across Europe, leading to another world conflict.

00:29:26.560 - 00:29:37.720

Time and Tide still operating with an all-female board of directors and women in key editorial and staff positions, offers a unique vantage point for viewing the political upheavals of this decade

00:29:37.720 - 00:29:50.920

through a feminist and female-centric lens. During this period, Time and Tide also continue to occupy a position on the political left. The bright red cover it sported from February 1935

00:29:50.920 - 00:30:03.520

is suggestive of its radical affiliations. In fact, there was considerable overlap in Time and Tide's contributor base in the mid to second half of the 1930s with contributors to the radical periodical left

00:30:03.520 - 00:30:12.610

review which will feature in module 2 of this digital resource. For example, Naomi Mitchison, Winifred Holtby, Phyllis Bentley, Storm Jameson, as well as

00:30:12.610 - 00:30:25.260

Sylvia Townsend Warner all wrote for both magazines. And two of the founding members of the anti-fascist Artists International Association Paul Binder and James Fitton contributed artwork to both publications too.

00:30:31.810 - 00:30:40.630

Yes, several reasons. I think one reason would be the connections of Lady Rhondda and the people that she gathered around her. Many of the magazine's first directors

00:30:40.630 - 00:30:50.950

and early contributors were drawn from women's suffrage networks, among them such feminist and literary luminaries as Elizabeth Robbins. She played a crucial role in the early days

00:30:50.950 - 00:31:03.820

on the literary side of the paper and was a member of Time and Tide's first board of directors. Cicely Hamilton, another veteran suffragist, a director from 1921 and regular writer

00:31:03.820 - 00:31:17.910

of leading political articles. And Rebecca West, she was Time and Tide's first theatre critic and director of the paper from 1922. And so the board was composed of some really key figures

00:31:17.910 - 00:31:29.400

with key connections themselves in the period. Later, the board included E.M. Delafield, who I've mentioned and the importance of her role already as a director from 1927.

00:31:29.400 - 00:31:38.730

Also, incredibly important was Winifred Holtby. She was Time and Tide's youngest director. Joined the board in 1926. And according to Rhondda, she contributed

00:31:38.730 - 00:31:47.480

more than any other single individual to the success of the paper, particularly on its political side. I should also mention Theodora Bosanquet.

00:31:47.480 - 00:31:58.160

She became Time and Tide's literary editor in 1935 and did much to cement the literary reputation of the paper during its second decade. So all these figures were notable contributors

00:31:58.160 - 00:32:07.970

in their own right. They also had access to a range of political and literary networks that could be leaned upon to augment the paper. Naomi Mitchison, who is a regular contributor

00:32:07.970 - 00:32:17.680

to the paper from the late 1920s, she has this to say in her memoir of the interwar years, You May Well Ask. She writes, "In the early '30s, I

00:32:17.680 - 00:32:27.830

did reviewing of current French novels for Time and Tide, which was then in full flood with a number of good authors writing for it. "It was the first avowedly feminist literary journal

00:32:27.830 - 00:32:37.910

with any class in some ways ahead of its time. Lady Rhondda was always tremendously encouraging and gave gorgeous parties. I remember driving back from one of them,

00:32:37.910 - 00:32:49.370

cautiously since there had been a fair consumption of alcohol, but feeling splendid as though the whole world was opening up and everything would work out, not only for myself, but for women in general."

00:32:49.370 - 00:32:59.870

I love that kind of memory of Time and Tide back then and the sense it gives the people, the real people behind the magazine. And a magazine is never just the text

00:32:59.870 - 00:33:13.430

on the page, the words on the page, but the people behind it. And Mitchison would be among the first feminists of her generation to observe how quickly women's advances actually started to roll back as fascism loomed

00:33:13.430 - 00:33:24.170

large later in the decade. But her recollection here is a really powerful testament to the sense of that post franchise optimism that was shared by her and other women writing for Time and Tide

00:33:24.170 - 00:33:35.090

at this Time and to what the paper stood for in relation to women's opportunity and achievement. Another key factor in the paper's attraction of notable and high-profile contributors

00:33:35.090 - 00:33:44.780

was the support lent to it by leading male writers and intellectuals. And a key figure in this regard was George Bernard Shaw, whose name and signature provided a celebrity

00:33:44.780 - 00:34:01.250

endorsement of the magazine for highbrow intellectuals who read and wrote for the weeklies. So I've got here this issue from the 8th of November 1929, a full-page, pen and ink drawing of George Bernard Shaw

00:34:01.250 - 00:34:13.400

with the caption, Saint Bernard comes to Bloomsbury, All Saints' Day, 1929. And it accompanied an article on a house-warming luncheon that Time and Tide held to celebrate the magazine's

00:34:13.400 - 00:34:27.020

relocation from Fleet Street to Bloomsbury earlier that year in May. Here, Shaw is depicted standing in Time and Tide's new offices which overlooked the British Museum.

00:34:27.020 - 00:34:36.710

And incidentally, it's worth noting here that Time and Tide's graphic art content was another distinguishing feature of the magazine. By the 1930s, it regularly included a variety

00:34:36.710 - 00:34:50.930

of illustration, including pen and ink drawings, cartoons, lithographs, and woodcuts. And this really set it apart from other weekly reviews which by comparison contained very little visual content.

00:34:50.930 - 00:35:02.780

But in terms of male contributors, Shaw-- here, his cultural stature as Britain's greatest living playwright and a leading public intellectual on the left, made a really valuable imprint on Time and Tide

00:35:02.780 - 00:35:14.630

during its period of expansion and rebranding as a general audience weekly review. By the mid 1930s, we have such figures as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound contributing to the magazine

00:35:14.630 - 00:35:24.590

as well. Finally, I think another reason for why writers of such calibre were attracted to Time and Tide was Lady Ronda's approach as an editor in seeking out and publishing

00:35:24.590 - 00:35:35.960

a broad range of opinion. Writing in Time and Tide's columns in February 1935, she described the weekly review as, I quote, "a salon in which writers and thinkers are

00:35:35.960 - 00:35:46.190

free to think aloud and to argue in full view of the other guests," end quote. And then she outlined her view of the editor as someone who, quote, "should make

00:35:46.190 - 00:35:56.870

a point of printing a good deal with which he does not himself agree," end quote. Rhondda made these pronouncements in the magazine's regular notes on the way column

00:35:56.870 - 00:36:08.300

which hosted many writers of different political persuasions and had a deliberate policy of allowing them an entirely free pen. And this journalistic freedom was significant,

00:36:08.300 - 00:36:19.880

particularly in the context of an erosion of liberties during the '30s as one contributor highlighted at the height of the Munich crisis in 1938. He said in this column, quote, "These notes

00:36:19.880 - 00:36:32.060

are the greatest opportunity in current journalism. Nowhere else are you free of the censorship clamped down, with increasing firmness, on the newspaper column and broadcast talk," end quote.

00:36:32.060 - 00:36:45.590

More research needs to be done, I think, on Time and Tide's contribution to public and political discourses at an international level in this period. But as a leading journal of opinion in the 1930s,

00:36:45.590 - 00:36:55.220

it drew so many leading political and literary figures to contribute to its pages. To conclude, I believe that it was Time and Tide's female-centric culture that

00:36:55.220 - 00:37:07.070

acted as a gravitational pull for so many of the periods leading women writers and thinkers. But at the same time, its commitment to cross gender collaboration ensured its broad appeal.

00:37:07.070 - 00:37:18.230

Throughout the interwar years, Time and Tide claimed a journalistic space for women to work alongside men in the reconstruction of society after the devastation caused by the First World War.

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This work became all the more urgent in the 1930s in the face of new perils leading to the outbreak of the Second. And it's Time and Tide commitment

00:37:26.810 - 00:37:32.580

to women's participation in public life that remains throughout this period.