WOMEN’S HISTORY NETWORK ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2019
Professional Women:
the public, the private, and the political
2019 marks the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act in Britain, which opened all ‘civil professions or vocations’, including the civil service and legal profession, to women. It was a significant landmark – but neither a beginning or an end – in the history of professional women.
This conference will explore not only the significance of the 1919 Act, but also the ‘professional woman’ in all periods, nations and forms. She is found far beyond ‘the professions’, in fields ranging from agriculture to industry, from education to the arts. She …
Call For Papers: Women of the Far Right (November 9 2019)
The University of Worcester’s annual Women’s History Conference seeks papers for this year’s event under the heading of: ‘Women of the Far Right’. Send an abstract of 300 words to Dr Wendy Toon w.toon@worc.ac.uk by 31 August 2019.
During the twentieth century the image of the far right has largely been dominated by men, and linked inseparably with personality traits which tended to fall under the stereotype of masculinity. Traits such as bravado, confidence and aggressiveness were writ large by Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. However, to reduce the far right movement to this handful of men grossly underestimates the durability …
Women and museums 1850-1914: Modernity and the Gendering of Knowledge by Dr. Kate Hill
In this blog post, Dr. Kate Hill tells us about her new monograph which sheds light on women as museum workers, donors and visitors.
As a young woman in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Beatrix Potter spent a lot of her time in museums and galleries. She was exasperated by ‘hordes of young ladies’ in the National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum, making what she thought were hideous copies of paintings, and paid frequent visits to what is now the Natural History Museum, possibly for some respite. Here, she found it ‘peaceful amid the fossils’, but was …
Margaret Bondfield (Re) Discovered by Dr. Paula Bartley
In our latest post, Dr. Paula Bartley reflects on some of the archival challenges of studying women’s history in her latest excellent book, Labour Women In Power: Cabinet Ministers in the Twentieth Century.
One of the many challenges facing historians of women is lack of source material. So much of the evidence of women’s lives, including those of famous women, has simply disappeared. In 1929, ninety years ago, Margaret Bondfield became the first ever female Cabinet Minister. Yet, little has been written about this ground-breaking individual. One re
ason is that her archive simply vanished. Ross Davies, a “Times” journalist …
Righting the Wrong: Mary Macarthur – The Working Woman’s Champion by Cathy Hunt
In our latest blog Cathy Hunt reflects on writing the history of Mary Macarthur, a lesser known trade unionist.
In the summer of 2018 I was delighted to be asked by West Midlands History to write a biography of Mary Macarthur. Remembered and celebrated in the Black Country’s Cradley Heath for her involvement in the 1910 women’s chain makers strike, Macarthur’s name is well known in the region. Every year, the Women Chain Makers’ Festival is held in the Mary Macarthur Memorial Gardens in the town to commemorate the low paid women home 
workers whose courage and persistence resulted in …
Women and Materiality in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland: Symposium Report
Our latest blog post by Dr. Rachel Delman (York) is a report on the symposium Women and Materiality in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland that was held at the University of Edinburgh in April.
On Friday 26th April 2019, academics, heritage professionals and authors gathered at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) for a one-day symposium on ‘Women and Materiality in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland’. The event was an outcome of my 8 months as Susan Manning Fellow at IASH, during which time I explored the architectural patronage of Queen Mary of …
