The Women’s History Network blog
This annually-held conference addresses the role of women in consumerism, shopping, global trade, domestic trade, markets (literary and otherwise), currency, and varying practices of exchange. The conference is interdisciplinary in nature, bridging literature, material culture, gender studies, theatre and economic…
Following the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) admitted its first female member. To mark the centenary of the Act, I researched and wrote a booklet published by…
At university, I became interested in women’s embodied experiences – considering how women’s bodies are not only passive entities, but a site of empowerment and activism. Hence, when I was introduced to Fat Is A Feminist Issue, an inquisitive nerve…
While the limitations and inequalities of the 1857 Divorce and Marital Causes Act have led to debate over its significance, the case of Brutton v. Brutton illustrates how it empowered ordinary women to escape unhappy and dangerous situations.[i] Certainly, factors…
In 1778 Bathsheba Spooner was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. She pleaded pregnancy, and according to Massachusetts law at the time was examined by a jury of 12 matrons. The jury found that she was not…
Join us for a very special roundtable session featuring the recipients of our MA Prize 2021/22 accolades! Our speakers will share their award-winning and shortlisted research, featured in their MA Prize submissions. A wonderfully diverse range of topics will be…
So, is this a key distinction as we go through the archives of women: we sense their smell, their perfume, or not, as we open folders? And what will it tell us as biographers and historians if we can, or…
In 1940, a high school class took lessons at the New Haven Free Public Library. The library, open since 1887—the year Jennie Jerome’s parents were married, and her father, Yan Phou Lee published When I Was a Boy in China—drew…
Two well-known women-led events in Nigeria’s colonial era are the Aba Women’s War (1929) and Abeokuta Women’s Tax protests (1946/48). Beyond these events, historiographical accounts are mostly written from male perspectives, with women barely mentioned. For instance, the height…