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This paper revisits the work on youth cultures and subcultures that emerged from Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (hereafter CCCS) during the 1970s. I engage with a number of recent critiques of the 'youth sub/cultures project', including Thornton's influential work on rave and club cultures and its troubled engagement with class. I argue that the focus of the youth sub/cultures project on mediated cultural practices through which young people constitute themselves and their (gendered, classed and racialised) positions remains of value, especially the emphasis on a 'symptomatic reading' that locates these processes in a 'conjunctural analysis'. I end by exploring the legacy of this project for understanding youth, class and culture in contemporary late modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology to shed light on the previously unexamined female business owners of late nineteenth-century Birmingham. Examination of the Birmingham trade directories from 1849 to 1901 shows that women continued to enter the business community of late nineteenth-century Birmingham and owned a range of businesses. These findings suggest not only that women continued to trade in late nineteenth-century Birmingham as they had prior to 1849, but also that there was no marked deterioration in their opportunity to do so. Attention then turns to the personal and professional lives of some of the 20,000 businesswomen identified in the trade directories. Using a wide variety of sources, the article explores the professional achievements of the businesswomen, their familial and friendship networks, their assets, and their wealth distribution strategies. The results of this analysis demonstrate not only that businesswomen played a public role in the urban business economy of late nineteenth-century Birmingham, but that they acted first and foremost as business owners. This highlights the dangers of using gender as a way to describe the economic opportunities available to women in nineteenth-century England and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging commonality as well as difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the changing nature of Birmingham's Jewish com munity over a hundred-year period. By focusing on the ways in which Jews were portrayed by non-Jews and how Jews saw themselves, it attempts to illuminate the early history of the Jewish community at the end of the eighteenth century, including the synagogue as a focus of meaning; identity and organisation; how Jews and non-Jews related to one another; Jewish collective action to defend and promote their interests; the importance of funeral rituals and burial; rich and poor Jews; and Jewish women. Jewish experiences and representations not only throw light on the history of AngloJewry, but illuminate the attitudes, fears and prejudices of Birmingham's British society and ways in which others are portrayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]