Celebrating History’s Heroines: Prize Winners Our theme for this year was “History’s Heroines”. We challenged students to research the history of a woman whom they consider to be a hero and produce a piece of art representing that woman and…
All Posts
The ‘Dudley Dig & Cruise’: Women and Canal Restoration in 1970s Britain
It is the weekend of 26/27 September 1970. Margaret has driven her Mini to Parkhead, a derelict industrial area on the Dudley Canal, waste tip for Doulton’s ceramics. The whole area is buzzing with hundreds of enthusiastic workers clearing the…
Recovering and Reconstructing the Lives of Parish Clergy Wives in Elizabethan England by Dr Anne Thompson
Women in Elizabethan England rarely have a voice of their own, but occasionally an individual emerges whose thoughts, words, and actions come across loud and clear; Avice Helme, widow of a sixteenth-century Dorset vicar, proved to be one such woman.…
Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman, by Dr Tabitha Kenlon
Pop quiz! The passages below are from conduct manuals. Can you guess which century each quotation belongs to – the fourteenth, eighteenth, twentieth, or twenty-first? “Men want to feel like they are dating a model or celebrity, so look like…
Popular Memory and Gender in Medieval England: Men, Women and Testimony in the Church Courts, c. 1200-1500 by Dr Bronach C. Kane
In May 1365, Alice de Bridelyngton and Joan del Hill, spinsters by trade, testified in a marriage case brought in the church court of York between Margery de Merton and Thomas de Middelton. Both women said that they had overheard…
Ellen N. La Motte: Nurse, writer, activist by Lea M. Williams, Ph.D.
The life and work of Ellen N. La Motte (1873-1961) provides compelling food for thought as the world wrestles with the COVID-19 pandemic, one that is affecting racial and ethnic minorities in the United States at a rate five times…
WHN Online Seminar Series 2020-2021
Mark you diaries for the WHN 2020-2021 online seminar series! Please join us in engaging with historians from all over world as they present their latest research on a diverse array of topics within women’s and gender history. The seminars…
2020 Community History Prize winner
2020 WHN Community History Prize Winner Doing It Ourselves: The First Neighbourhood Co-operative Nursery, Walthamstow – Volunteers and On the Record This volunteer-led oral history project collected and archived the history of the First Neighbourhood Co-operative Nursery, a ground-breaking parent-led…
Partners And Pals by Alison Child
Gwen Farrar and Norah Blaney, both classically trained musicians, born in London, met each other around 1917, performing in Lena’s Ashwell’s pioneering concert parties for the troops which toured behind the allied lines in France and Belgium. They quickly adjusted…