Carved onto the gravestone of Baroness Mary Vetsera in Heiligenkreuz, this Bible verse provides a sobering outlook on her short life. In the early hours of the 30th of January 1889, seventeen year old Mary was shot – willingly –…
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Individual competitive sport as a site of women’s emancipation in Britain c.1948-1970 by Sophie Olver
At the Tokyo Olympic Games 2021, women will compete in all thirty-three available sports. In the British team, women will outnumber their male counterparts for the first time in history. By contrast, at the 1948 Olympics, women were restricted to…
‘Love Thy Neighbour’: Neighbourly conflict in early modern Nantwich, by Sarah Fox
In 1663 Anne Knutsford, licensed midwife and moneylender, was issued with an inhibition by the parish of Nantwich against practicing midwifery for ‘lyeing, sweareing and curseing’ amongst other allegations. As if to confirm the charges, Anne allegedly ‘abused the authority…
Tattooed Women: a misleading notion of empowerment and agency
It is often claimed that tattooed women are a symbol of modernity, defying the restricting beauty standards of society.[1] Nonetheless, more wide-ranging research reveals that this is a generalised and too simplistic a view of tattooed women. My research on…
When sources hurt: Researching anti-trans ideologies as a trans person, by Rebecca Hickman
My project delves into the political strategies and concepts that have powered the trans rights movement in the United Kingdom over the past half-century, particularly the concept of ‘recognition.’ The aim of my research is to understand what ‘recognition’ has…
Calamity Cora – how one woman’s uncanny ability to predict crop harvests went global. By Elizabeth Bartram
Have you ever considered the role of women in milling? Milling is an integral part of feeding the world, from putting food on the table to influencing global decision-making. It has touched on almost every facet of our lives, feeding,…
The Miracle Workers Project Update: Mini-Conference
In March 2021, The Devil’s Porridge Museum launched it’s Miracle Workers Project, which aimed to research the 30,000 people who worked at H. M. Factory Gretna during World War One. Thanks to a generous grant from the D&G Costal Communities…
‘Unfit and untrained, physically and morally, to stand so sudden and violent a change of environment’ : Irish Female Emigration to Britain in the Late Twentieth Century
[i]My life-long fascination with the role of gender in shaping women’s working lives began when, at the age of six, a doctor asked me if I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. When I answered that I…
A Symposium on Women in the 1920s
The 1920s were heavily overshadowed by the Great War. Women’s experience of the war, in employment, in public and voluntary service, in bereavement and in the upheavals to family life meant that life would never be the same again. At…