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…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
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…
Queen Mother Moore and Reparative Histories by Dr Hannah Ishmael
Whilst the events of this summer have thrown into sharp relief the effects of state sanctioned violence against Black communities, globally, it is important to recognise that alongside the campaigns to end racism there has also been activity that seeks…
Diane Abbott: A Potted Herstory of a Pioneer by Drs Robin Bunce and Samara Linton
In many ways, Diane Abbott is a pioneer. In 1987, she became the UK’s first black woman MP. This alone was a historic achievement and should entitle her to a place in any serious history of British politics. However, this…
Lilian Bader: one of the first Black British women in the Royal Air Force by Lucia Wallbank
In 1990, a group of African and Caribbean ex-service personnel appeared on an episode of the BBC television show ‘Hear-Say’. One woman explained why Britain’s Black citizens chose to take up arms in the Second World War. If Hitler had…