'The height of its womanhood': Women and genderin Welsh nationalism, 1847-1945

Abstract

This dissertation places gender at the center of multiple articulations of power that constituted the imperial relationship between Wales and England, as well as the self-fashioning development of Welsh nationalism between 1847 and 1945. Research in both Welsh and English language sources and the materials of Plaid Cymru: the Nationalist Party of Wales reveals that Welsh women, as both ideological symbols and actors, played crucial roles in the formation of Welsh nationalism. This dissertation challenges the notion of a homogenous 'British' identity during the nineteenth century, placing Welsh nationalism firmly within a larger comparative framework of imperial and post-colonial movements, particularly using gender to constituting power relationships between various groups of men. Yet Welsh nationalism differed from other movements in that no major articulation of feminist agendas occurred within the nationalist movement between 1880--1945, particularly within Plaid Cymru. The conservative gender roles disseminated by nationalist groups based itself instead on hegemonic Victorian English gender roles of the early nineteenth century as outlined in the periodical Y Gymraes, syncretically combined with an emphasis on Welsh women as primary communicators and representatives of Welsh culture via their weaving and wearing of flannel and the pointed Welsh hat. Both practices sprang from nationalist fervor of Lady Llanover, often dismissed as a dilettante. These themes dominated nationalist publications and party doctrine until 1945, despite women's contributions of labor and financial support that kept Plaid Cymru viable during its formative decades.