Department of History

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Between duty and desire : pre-nuptial pregnancy and unmarried motherhood in Anglican Cape Town during the first half of the twentieth century
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Richardson, Laura Jane; Fourie, Johan; Ross, Robert; Kok, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Throughout the first half of the twentieth century couples were exhorted by both the church and secular authorities to delay sexual intercourse until after marriage, but popular attitudes towards premarital sexuality did not always reflect those of the authorities, nor were such attitudes necessarily a good index of popular behaviour. Marrying qualitative and quantitative techniques in a way that is sensitive to the limitations of both approaches, this thesis presents an interpretation of new evidence regarding prenuptial pregnancy and unmarried motherhood amongst a select group of South Africans living in Cape Town during this period. In so doing, it aims to shed light on the complex relationship between prescription and practice in the intimate lives of ordinary men and women. At the Cape, as in many other areas of the globe, the early to mid-twentieth century – an era often referred to as the ‘golden age’ of marriage and the family – saw a higher share of couples than ever before going to the trouble and expense of contracting marriages recognized by law. Nonetheless, the quantitative evidence presented in this study, compiled using individual-level birth and marriage records drawn from seven socio-economically diverse Anglican parishes in Cape Town, shows that, despite growing pressure towards marriage, out-of-wedlock pregnancies accounted for a substantial proportion of births, particularly within working class coloured communities. Although many out-of-wedlock pregnancies resulted in marriage, falling pregnant outside of wedlock was risky, especially for women from fragile family networks. Initially there was very little help available for women who, having fallen pregnant outside of wedlock, were unable to secure marriage, and while caring for unmarried mothers and their infants did slowly come to be regarded as necessary, if unpopular work, the social stigma attached to unmarried motherhood continued to influence the kinds of assistance they received. The qualitative evidence is used to examine some of the debates that emerged between female philanthropists, social workers, medical professionals and moral conservatives regarding the care of unmarried mothers, looking especially at notions of female deviancy and how these shifted to reflect different moral and political agendas. In addition, case records from two Anglican unmarried mothers’ hostels are used to contrast the ideas put forward in these debates with the actual courtship experiences of unmarried mothers in Cape Town. These records support the hypothesis that attitudes towards premarital sexuality tended to be more ambiguous and courtship experiences more diverse than has previously been supposed.
By the stroke of a pen : an evaluation of the Cape Times and Die Burger’s portrayal of racial reclassification from 1980-1990
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-03) Chalmers, Brittany Inge; Fourie, Johan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During apartheid, South Africans were assigned one of four main racial categories: white, black, Indian, or coloured. Given the fluidities of race, “misassignment” was common, leading individuals to apply for a different government-imposed racial classification. In 1950, the racial canvas of South Africa gained definitive lines with the passing of the Population Registration Act. On paper, the racial fluidity that existed before was gone, but on the ground, classifications were in limbo. The Cape Times and Die Burger newspapers reveal the startling statistics, political agendas and emotive stories linked to the complex racial transitions that occurred by the stroke of a government pen.1 This dissertation evaluates how two major newspapers portrayed reclassification during a decade of severe media restrictions. By employing a method of qualitative coding, the discourse styles present in 50 newspaper articles are evaluated. The results reveal the significant comparisons between the Afrikaans Die Burger and the English Cape Times. Reclassification is used as a lens to assess the newspapers and their potential to affect the racial agenda of the day. The lived experiences of individuals affected by the country’s reclassification legislation are also analysed by means of a close reading. This microhistory approach uses the newspaper articles to highlight the stories of the reclassified and in doing so, incorporates them into a history of South Africa from below.
Enfranchised Africans and disfranchising legislations : an analysis of the educated landowners of Queenstown as an African middle class, c.1872-1909.
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Visser, Beaurel; Fourie, Johan; Ehlers, Anton; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The right to vote in public political elections for parliamentary representatives in the Cape Colony was determined by various legislations reflected through the Cape franchise. For 34 years, Africans had the right to vote for parliamentary representatives in the Cape Colony under the Constitution Ordinance of 1853 with no barriers of racial discrimination. Under Responsible Government (1872-1909), franchise requirement became more stringent with the aim of excluding Africans from being able to vote given that they had started to register more frequently. The battle of an emerging African middle class against economic and political forces is explored through the analysis of the implementation of stringent disfranchising legislations implemented in 1887, 1892 and 1894. Newspapers are used alongside a range of government publications to illustrate how the effects of disfranchisement legislations in the Cape Colony were complex and more nuanced than has been explored in existing historiography. The study illustrates some of the effects disfranchisement legislations had on the enfranchised African middle class and uses the Queenstown electoral division as a lens through which it brings this into focus. The primary tools that were used to achieve disenfranchisement were land and education which are themes used throughout the study to demonstrate persistent voter registration of the African middle class despite the implementation of disfranchisement legislations. The study moves away from the emphasis of African political participation as a primary contributor to maintaining certain politicians in parliament but rather illuminates the agency of Africans who desired to participate in Cape politics through the franchise. What this study aims to contribute to historiography is a perspective on the views and experiences of Africans towards disfranchisement as expressed in a selection of newspapers. These African perspectives are complemented by a statistical analysis of the voters' rolls which more precisely determines the size of affected African voters and adds to an understanding of the extent to which Africans participated beyond 1887 with a focus on the Queenstown electoral division.
A historical analysis of joint stock companies in the Cape Colony between 1892 and 1902
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Maphosa, Lloyd Melusi; Fourie, Johan; Ehlers, Anton; Kerby, Edward; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The promulgation of laws sanctioning the use of limited liability joint stock companies during the nineteenth century has been linked to economic growth in Europe and North America. These legal changes minimised transaction costs in business practices, which in turn encouraged entrepreneurial innovation, and expanded the capital market. This is because as companies multiplied, income distribution improved, thereby increasing the amount of savings available for companies from which to pool capital. Despite similar legal changes in frontier markets such as South Africa, very few attempts have been made to analyse these outcomes. In South African history, although companies feature in broader economic history studies and micro-firm studies, attempts to analyse their long-term impact remain under explored. In the few studies that examine their growth, attention has either been on their distribution in the period prior to the legal changes, or generally on their legal framework. This study aims to add to this body of knowledge by analysing the impact of the Cape Joint Stock Company Act of 1892 on company growth and the private capital market. It is the first study to use company micro-data to assess the distribution of companies and investors in colonial South Africa. It examines the sectors in which these companies were engaged, their geographic location, size, average lifespan, and the individuals who financed them. The analysis shows that there was a substantial increase in the number of companies engaged in various sectors of the economy between 1892 and 1902. In this significant feat of colonial business, the middle-class constituted 31% of the capital market, and had the highest percentage of individuals registered as starting members of companies. This meant that they were not only the largest source of capital, but were at the helm of entrepreneurial innovation. Within this dynamic, women towards the end of the nineteenth century became regular participants in the private capital market, despite strong cultural institutions that prohibited them from many economic activities. Farmers, despite being the second largest group in the capital market, had the lowest capital value by contrast. Proposed explanations for this are that women used the securities market to exercise economic freedom, while farmers used it to salvage the agricultural sector that had been scourged by environmental disasters. This is because during this period there was a growing ideology that supported women’s independence. Also, farmers, unlike other investor groups that spread their investments, channelled most of their finances towards agricultural companies. Therefore, the nature of joint stock companies during this period and the diversity of the capital market show that the Company Act of 1892 had a profound economic impact on the Cape Colony.
The runaways : a study of enslaved, apprenticed and indentured labour flight at the Cape in the emancipation era, 1830-42
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) Bergemann, Karl Jason; Fourie, Johan; Fourie, Johan, 1982-; Ekama, Kate; Mitchell, Laura; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Desertion at the Cape is a “tradition” that spanned centuries and encompassed scores of runaways from different social strata. This thesis uncovers the lived experiences of enslaved, apprenticed and indentured labourers in one of the colony’s most crucial defining moments: the emancipations of the enslaved in the 1830s. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods to tell their stories, it creates a further nuanced landscape of desertion by placing these actors at the centre of the study and showing both individual and collective biographies of labourers at the very lowest end of the hierarchical scale. Using two primary sources, the Government Gazette, the mouthpiece of the colonial government, and De Zuid Afrikaan, the first Dutch colonial newspaper in the colony, runaway advertisements have been extracted and collated into two unique datasets. From these advertisements a collection of variables has been deduced and grouped to provide investigations of broad themes within runaway advertisement. These offer insight into themes of demography and personal description; sightings, advertiser supposition and runaway skillsets; information about whereabouts and possible avenues of pursuit; flight cycles, advertising trends and advertorial lag; and finally, information on advertisers themselves, including the locations from where runaways escaped, the rewards offered for their recapture and the masters who advertised for their return. The thesis frames an investigation into the motivations of escape as well as the mechanisms that allowed escapees to create new lives on the run, suggesting a new mode of flight in the form of “assimilation marronage”, where, unlike runaways in earlier periods of the colony’s history, escapees lived within the framework of colonial society rather than escaped it outright. Further questions concerning who the runaways were, when they chose to run, where they ran to and from, what they did while on the run, as well as who placed the advertisements and what rewards were offered were asked of the sources. Overall, the thesis adds to a global narrative of disaffection and reformulation of social existence, positing that runaways at the Cape took necessary steps to alleviate their social deaths and showed that life in the colony was more porous in this state of legal transition than it had ever been before.
Work, wedlock and widows : comparing the lives of coloured and white women in Cape Town, 1900–1960
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) Rommelspacher, Amy Fairbairn; Fourie, Johan; Bickford-Smith, Vivian; Inwood, Kris; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation explores the lives of coloured* and white women in Cape Town from 1900 to 1960. This period includes the South African War, the formation of the Union, white women obtaining the vote, the two World Wars and the formalisation of apartheid. The comparison is appropriate because the population sizes of the two groups were similar – and there were many other social and cultural similarities, from language to religion. One important difference is that while white women have received some academic attention in South African history, coloured women have not. This work aims to fill the gap. I do so using sources such as a household survey and marriage records in order to understand their position in society. Themes that are investigated include marriage age, employment trends, family structures, living standards, wages and the gender wage gap, to name a few. Although these topics might seem disparate, they are all aspects of women’s lives that have been identified as important factors in understanding women’s agency within a society. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have argued that these aspects of women’s lives, such as whether or not they are employed in paid labour, play a pivotal role in their own position in society as well as that society as a whole. Ultimately, my purpose is to study the factors that shaped the lives of coloured and white women in early twentieth-century Cape Town. In other parts of the world these aspects of women’s lives have been investigated by historians in much detail, but women’s history in South Africa has been marked by different concerns and approaches. When South African scholars first turned their attention to women’s history, the country was in political turmoil amidst the apartheid regime; this set the tone in the field for decades. This thesis focuses on the history of coloured and white women in South Africa by asking new questions and adopting new approaches to answer them. While the subject is no longer neglected in South Africa, there are areas of women’s history and approaches to the field that have been overlooked. Women’s history has been limited by the availability of sources – and these sources usually focus on specific aspects of women’s lives, such as their involvement in political organisations or events. Often, though, we lack a basic understanding of women’s social lives. This has forced historians to make assumptions; assumptions that I am able to test with new evidence. This dissertation therefore challenges some ideas that have been expressed in existing historiography. One such idea, for example, is that all white households employed domestic servants in South African history. New sources and approaches show that this was simply not the case. This dissertation also provides significant information on wages – something that is severely under-researched in South African history. This wage information is used in this thesis to determine the nature of women’s work in Cape Town, to understand race and gender wage gaps and to ascertain whether Cape Town was a male-breadwinner society. Interdisciplinary methods and new ways of using source material now provide the opportunity to study hidden aspects of women’s lives that have been disregarded. These new approaches can challenge past assumptions and shed light on new questions.

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