First Call for Papers Women’s History Network 33rd Annual Conference Online via Zoom Thursday 4 & Friday 5 September 2025 Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Archives, Libraries, Museums and Personal Collections. One of the many exciting aspects of researching women’s history is the discovery of previously unknown lives which have lain hidden or overlooked […]
One of my most vivid memories from childhood, is of my mother reading the Nordic folktale ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ to me. The tale, first collected in Norway in the mid-nineteenth century tells of a young girl who leaves her cottage, on the back of a polar bear, to rescue […]
My first exposure to the history of nursing was the Ladybird book Florence Nightingale, in the ‘Adventure from History’ series. Like many primary-school children before and since, I was beguiled by Nightingale’s dedication to her cause. The only depiction of an earlier nurse in the Ladybird book comes as an illustration on page nine: an […]
We are delighted to announce the winners of our annual book prize for 2021 and 2022. The 2021 winner is Siobhan Hearne for her book, Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford University Press) There are joint winners for the 2022 prize: Jane Freeland for her book, Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism […]
The Women’s History Network is delighted to announce the results of this year’s Independent Researcher Grant. This year, the award received a record number of applications and we were thrilled to see the amount of interest in women’s history from people of all backgrounds. It did, however, make choosing incredibly difficult – if only it […]
This talk on 22 March 2025 at Chichester Cinema celebrates Women’s History month by examining film’s enduring fascination with Tudor women, from ‘The Execution of Mary Stewart’ (1895) to ‘Firebrand’ (2023). Audiences have continually relished the politics, tragedy and intrigue of lavishly costumed, queens and princesses disrupting and destabilising the Tudor court. During the 118 […]
This one-day conference builds on the exhibition Newnham and Bletchley Park: Women’s Work in World War II, which opened at Newnham College, Cambridge, in March 2024 and received national press coverage. The research uncovered 77 alumnae of Newnham College who were employed at Bletchley Park during the Second World War in a variety of analytic, […]
The Autumn 2024 issue of Women’s History Today is now available for purchase or downoad. This special issue of Women’s History Today marks thirty years since the first ‘journal’ was published by the Women’s History Network back in 1994 as Women’s History Notebooks.
The Summer 2024 issue of Women’s History Today is now available for purchase or downoad. This special issue is focused on childcare and includes rich and varied themed contributions across continents and generations.