WHN Student Conference 2021: Studying Herstories Programme and Registration Details We are excited to announce our inaugural student conference on International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2021. This conference will celebrate all of the fresh perspectives that students bring to the study…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
The Role of Women’s Genealogical Societies in the Rewriting of American History, c. 1890-1914 by Anya Cooper
In the aftermath of the Civil War, American nationalists faced the question of how to forge a participatory sense of allegiance to a nation recently divided over slavery. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the United Daughters of…
Suffragettes of Kent by Jennifer Godfrey
The research for my book, Suffragettes of Kent, provided insight into many historic journeys of hope, determination and courage. In the course of my research I discovered many heart-warming stories, including the fruit farmers who provided a place to stay…
Dr Lucy Smith’s Involvement Child Welfare Work in Cork by Eugenie Hanley
Between January and May 2020, I visited the City and County Archives in Cork, Ireland, and mined through the Irish Newspaper Archive, to research the Cork Child Welfare League for my PhD thesis on maternal and infant mortality in twentieth-century…
Remembering Nellie Cressall by Jane McChrystal
Nellie Cressall was one of the brave women who went to prison in support of the Poplar Rates Rebellion in 1921, just one episode in a long life of activism, which began after she joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP)…
Widows: Poverty, Power and Politics by Professor Maggie Andrews and Dr Janis Lomas
Our interest in widows was sparked when writing about the British women’s suffrage movement; we noticed all three leaders of the major suffrage organisations were widows. Was this, we wondered, something of a coincidence, or a more complex and common…
Challenging the Gender Binary of War: Munitions and Disability During the Second World War By Amy Dale
The grand narrative of the Second World War as the ‘People’s War’ remains a dominant theme in British cultural memory. Within that narrative, warfare and traditional ideas about masculinity are inextricably linked. Courage, valour and aggression are all worlds associated…
Born to Dance: Mary Hinkson and the Martha Graham Dance Company by Dr Victoria Phillips
“Race… It is an area of enormous sensitivity in this country. You know. Oh God, the things I listen to on public radio, I can’t believe it. But, you know, the part that’s unpleasant about that is: why do you…
Lips that Touch Liquor: Fighting for the Face of Female Temperance by Dr Gemma Outen
Lips that Touch Liquor: Fighting for the Face of Female Temperance, forthcoming with the Royal Historical Society / University of London Press (2021), will be the first full-length examination of the female temperance movement. Women played a significant part in…