I recently had the absolute pleasure of working on this historical colourisation for the July Issue of BBC History magazine.
The photo depicts two women loading up scrap metal in 1942. “During the Second World War, the government opened hundreds of nurseries to encourage women into work but, as Britain returned to peace, most closed.“
The image was used across a two page spread for an article written by Helen McCarthy titled Whos holding the baby? where McCarthy traces women’s attempts to solve the childcare conundrum.
Helen McCarthy will be discussing working mothers over on the History Extra Podcast and you can pick up her book Double Live: A History of Working Motherhood over at Bloomsbury publishing.