Jessie Street National Women’s Library Ultimo Sydney Australia is a specialist library which collects preserves and promotes the literary and cultural heritage of Australian women. It is unique resource established in 1989 and named in honour of the well-known activist…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
Women’s History Month: Women in 19th century colonial Hong Kong.
The colonial authorities of nineteenth century Hong Kong believed that the vast majority of the Chinese women residing in the colony were prostitutes. For example, in 1878 Charles May, a member of the colonial government, testified to an inquiry into…
Women’s History Month: Nanna Conti (1881-1951)
Nanna Conti was a leading German midwife during the Nazi era. She was born on 4 April 1881 in Uelzen near Hanover. Her father, Dr. Carl Eugen Pauli (1839-1901), worked as headmaster of the local boys’ secondary school. Little is…
Women’s History Month: Lady Colin Campbell (1857-1911)
Lady Colin Campbell became the centre of media attention in 1886 when her husband accused her of adultery with a Duke, a general, a doctor and a fire-chief. The subsequent divorce trial was one of the longest in English legal…
LGBT History Month: Bessie Craigmyle (1863-1933)
On 27 February 1933, Bessie Craigmyle was sitting by her fireside reading a newspaper. Two days earlier she had observed the forty sixth anniversary of the death of “the friend of her life” Maggie Dale. Possibly she dozed off; at…
Monday Afternoon Reading
Some women’s history for your reading pleasure.
Women, Clothing and Theft
14th July 1731, Old Bailey Court, London. Martha Brannan, Mary Row, Eleanor Gore, and Mary Fitzgerald, were indicted, the two former for feloniously stealing divers wearing Apparel, Linen and Woollen, in the Dwelling-House of Henry Brand, the 5th of this…
Slave Narratives
Between 1936 and 1938, the American Works Progress Administration conducted oral histories amongst ex-slaves and the children of slaves across America. This is the story of Ms Holmes. More information and more life histories can be found here. Ms. Holmes…
Patriarchs, Power and Eighteenth Century Marriage
you reign my Eliza alone in mine (heart), & every sentiment of it, is subservient to you … as long as you love me, the most endearing word to my thoughts is wife, because it implies my possession & enjoyment…