Turning a Curse into a Blessing: Propaganda and the Emigration of British Single Women

standards, these women defied British gender categorization. Society scrambled to fix the growing number of single women. Emigration to the colonies offered new options for relocating single women and restoring the gender balance. Yet, emigration to the colonies proved to be a paradoxical option. Emigration resisted oppressive ideals of women, but also redefined single women so they conformed to standard expectations. Newspapers and periodicals assisted in circulating the new definition of single women. 1 Propagandists redefined options for the single woman that allowed her space within the domestic sphere. Instead of being redundant and a burden, propagandists championed single women as proud, valuable British citizens. Feminists entered the emigration debate and made room for single women to explore emigration for their own benefit, not to maintain society‘s gender hierarchy or serve the empire. In both cases, propaganda identified the single woman as agents of imperialism and expanded concepts of Britis