The Women’s History Network blog
Scanning Auntie Emmie’s attic with torchlight, a time-worn leather suitcase caught Susan’s eye. Emmie would regularly retrieve the suitcase from the attic, but its contents were never shared. Opening it up carefully, Susan was presented with material traces of a…
What’s in a letter? For a woman living in England in the nineteenth century with limited access to social freedoms and even paper—everything. Historians have given mixed reviews on the value of Jane Austen’s surviving personal letters. Some brush off…
During my PhD research on the role of professional archaeologists on BBC radio, one of the first files I accessed from the BBC Written Archives at Caversham was that of archaeologist Dina Dobson. I quickly became a little obsessed with…
Content warning: this blog post includes discussions of eugenics and racism which some readers may find upsetting. This blog post is a brief introduction to my research on Marie Stopes’ children’s books written under the pseudonym ‘Erica Fay’ between 1926…
Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India (1844 -1925) is a royal figure often disregarded in historical literature. Although studies surrounding Alexandra’s husband, King Edward VII, are plentiful, there is comparatively little written…
Content Warning: This article includes discussions of revolutionary politics and examples of violence against women in Sri Lanka. Reader discretion is advised. This blog post explores the fundamental questions of why and how women in the Global South and North…
The White Rose resistance movement began in Nazi Germany and ended in a shock trial where three of its members were executed. This blog post focuses on Sophie Scholl, one of the members of the movement who was executed by…
Virginia Woolf’s maxim in her now-classic polemic was this: ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’.[1] But what if a writer did not have access to these resources – this…
Please note that this article contains content that may be sensitive to readers with herpetophobia In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the British public was reportedly enthralled by a snake charmer’s performances. She was“richly attired in picturesque Hindoo…