Making socialists Mary Bridges Adams and the fight for knowledge and power, 1855-1939

Making Socialistscombines a biographical study of a virtually unknown woman with an original exploration of several major themes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century political and educational history. More than a local politician, Mary Bridges Adams was among the dynamic late nineteenth-century women activists who sought to transform government policy through socialist initiatives, with the ultimate (utopian) aim of creating a social nation. The author has assembled a thorough range of sources, including new materials that will bring fresh insights to this biography and more generally to Labour Party and socialist historiography, well-studied topics. The people Adams knew and the circles in which she travelled are particularly attractive features of this book. Foes thought her an awful woman: friends like George Bernard Shaw remembered the power of her oratory. Placed against the circumstances in which she lived and presented as part of a militant and anti-capitalist tradition within labor history, her life story contributes to new ways of seeing both socialist and feminist politics.

Jane Martin is Professor of Social History of Education at the Institute of Education.