Everyday Mobilities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Diaries

This book uses diaries written by ordinary British people over the past two centuries to examine and explain the nature and extent of everyday mobilities, such as travel to school, to work, to shop or to visit friends, and to explore the meanings attached to these mobilities. After a critical evaluation of diary writing, the ways in which mobility changed over time, interacted with new forms of transport technology, and varied from place to place are examined. Further chapters focus on the roles of family and life course, gender, income and class, and journey purpose in shaping mobilities, including immobility. It is argued that easy and frequent everyday mobilities were experienced by most of the diarists studied, that travellers could exercise their own agency to adapt easily to new forms of transport technology, but that factors such as gender, class, and location also created significant mobility inequalities.

Colin G. Pooley is Emeritus Professorof Social and Historical Geography in the Environment Centre and the Centre for Mobilities Studies (CeMoRe), Lancaster University, UK. His research focuses on the social geography of Britain and continental Europe since circa 1800, with recent projects focused on residential migration, travel to work, everyday mobilities and sustainable transport.  

Marilyn E. Pooley is an Historical Geographer. She was formerly a Teaching Associate in the Environment Centre at Lancaster University, UK, and in retirement is researching (with Colin Pooley) everyday mobility in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain using life writing.