The Women’s History Network blog
A History of Women in Men’s Clothes: from cross-dressing to empowerment Pen and Sword Books, June 2021 Norena Shopland Ménie Muriel Dowie (1867–1945) rode through the Carpathian Mountains alone and described her travels in a number of popular books.…
‘Honouring the Shirt Factory Workers’ Friends of the Factories Plaque Initiative in Solidarity with Derry Trades Union Council The Friends of the Factory Workers scheme was the winner of the Women’s History Network Community History Prize in 2021. This project…
Building on the success of last year’s series, the Women’s History Network seminars are back for 2021-22! All events take place on Wednesdays at 4pm (UK) on Zoom. Details about each seminar and the registration link can be found…
Wednesday, 15th September 2021, 4pm (UK) Women and Finance in Twentieth-Century China Join us for this exciting double-bill event. Register for your place on the Zoom webinar: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PJIMvAD_QteAqvBZ0kulig ‘Women, Inheritance, and Property Expansion in the Republican Period…
In 2020 I wrote a piece for the WHN blog about the biography I’m not writing. In ‘Giants and Geniuses’ https://womenshistorynetwork.org/giants-and-geniuses-by-lucienne-boyce/ I explained my decision not to write about someone very famous, or someone who’s described as a ‘giant’ or…
In the summer of 1922, Winifred Coombe Tennant (1874-1956) was selected as a delegate to the Third Assembly of the League of Nations, making her the first woman to ever represent Britain at this international organisation. In this pioneering role,…
Approximately 70,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Britain fleeing Nazi persecution from 1933 until the outbreak of the Second World War. 20,000 of those refugees were women who were allowed entry under domestic permits: there were also an unknown amount who…
Women who produced ‘bastard’ children during the Civil War and Interregnum period were often depicted, within both court and popular literature, as ‘lewd women’ in opposition to patriarchally-defined models of the ‘chaste maid’ or legitimate wife. Yet in certain circumstances,…
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 –…