In Kensal Green cemetery there is a monument with the inscription of ‘TO HER’ written on it and ‘her’ initials (ES) at its base. If you were to come upon it by chance you would wonder who was this person…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
Understanding the Suffrage Movement and Hunger Striking in Their Own Words – Celia Hitchen
“you don’t get well […] from forcible feeding, afterwards, ever.”[1] These words were proclaimed by Maude Kate Smith in January 1975, long after the suffrage movement’s fight for the vote had ended. A militant suffragette, Smith slashed paintings, smashed windows,…
Inscribing brooches: women and runes in fifth to seventh century Britain – Jasmin Higgs
Early medieval women from before the mid-seventh century could be dressed, at any given point, in many layers of clothing which required fasteners in the forms of pins and brooches. Brooches from the fifth to seventh centuries in Britain are…
A First: The American Suffrage Story as a Musical – Louise W. Knight
For those of us who love women’s history, there is perhaps nothing more spine-tingling than to watch a piece of it come alive as a musical on a New York stage. I never imagined that, after reading books about the…
Rethinking Welsh Women – Daryl Leeworthy
Dorothy Rees, the first working-class woman ever to be elected to parliament in a Welsh constituency, was born almost 125 years ago in the booming docklands of Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. Her hometown, which had been nothing more…
Women’s Health in Women’s Magazines during the 1980s – Hannah Sherwood
During the 1980s, a boom in women’s magazines expanded and reshaped the market. The magazines provided a space for women to explore ideas and concerns about their bodies within a community of others with similar worries searching for the same…
Women’s Activism in Twentieth Century Britain – Paula Bartley
In 1906, the Anglo-Indian journalist Olive Malvery published The Soul Market, a book about women at the sharp end of exploitation. In her chapter about dress-makers, she wrote of a ‘large and fashionable establishment with a ground floor show-room and…
Painting Our Own Portraits – Olivia Wyatt
My grandmother has lived in Britain for sixty five years, but occasionally she transports us back to St Kitts. We listen in awe as she recalls defeating my grandfather in horse races, diving into the sea in search of discarded…
Book Review: Remarkable Women of the Second World War: A Collection of Untold Stories
Kat Perry I was recently lucky enough to be sent a copy of Remarkable Women of the Second World War: A Collection of Untold Stories by Victoria Panton Bacon to review. Split into two sections of ‘British Memories’ and ‘Stories…