Yesterday was ‘Blogging against Disablism’ day, where bloggers everywhere are called to speak out against discrimination against those with disabilities. With that in mind, I began to think about what historians know about women with disabilities in the British past…
Category: Event
Before there was internet, part 2- chain mail.
Anyone who has had an email address for any length of time has probably received a chain-email- one of those emails sending you a poem or a melodramatic story, followed by a dire warning to forward it on to ten…
Sexual Assault Awareness Month
The month of April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, designated to highlighting the ongoing problem of sexual assault in society, and encouraging people to work towards eradicating it. The problem of sexual assault and rape is a topic that has…
Women’s History Month: From the Trade Union Congress.
In March 1921, faced with a massive increase in the rate, the Council refused to cut the level of relief to the poor and withheld £270,000 in contributions required by the London County Council (LCC) until the wealthy West…
Women’s History Month: From the Women’s Library.
On this day: We remember…Eunice Guthrie Murray who died on 26 Mar 1960. Along with her mother and her sister, Sylvia Murray, Eunice joined the Women’s Freedom League and by 1913 was President of the League in Scotland. In…
Women’s History Month: Eleanor Rathbone.
At first sight, there would seem to be little to connect Eleanor Rathbone, Independent MP for the Combined English Universities, with the occupation of Prague by Hitler’s regime on 15 March 1939. But nothing could be further from the truth,…
Women’s History Month: Ada Lovelace Day.
Augusta Ada King, Countess Lovelace (1815-1852) wrote the world’s first computer programme for the Analytical Engine (an early computer), invented by Charles Babbage. She had been taught mathematics by her mother, Annabella Byron, and met Babbage in 1833. When translating…
Women’s History Month: Shall We Go to the Pictures?
Three figures approach a doorway, lured in by the promise of a ‘stupendous’ time, their shapes thrown into relief by the bright lights of the picture house. The image comes from Shall We Go to the Pictures?, written by…
Women’s History Month: From the Trade Union Congress.
The Trade Boards Act 1909 introduced minimum wages in certain industries. In 1910, the Chainmaking Trade Board set a rate of 2½d per hour for adult women workers which was almost double the rate paid at the time. Mary Macarthur…