In 1663 Anne Knutsford, licensed midwife and moneylender, was issued with an inhibition by the parish of Nantwich against practicing midwifery for ‘lyeing, sweareing and curseing’ amongst other allegations. As if to confirm the charges, Anne allegedly ‘abused the authority…
It is often claimed that tattooed women are a symbol of modernity, defying the restricting beauty standards of society.[1] Nonetheless, more wide-ranging research reveals that this is a generalised and too simplistic a view of tattooed women. My research on…
[i]My life-long fascination with the role of gender in shaping women’s working lives began when, at the age of six, a doctor asked me if I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. When I answered that I…
In browsing the English State Papers in the National Archives at Kew or the State Papers Online database, one of the most common types of documents you will encounter are petitions to the crown. Within this subset of records, there…
On a night in 1983, the apartheid police came knocking on the door of a family home in the township of Soweto, located just outside Johannesburg. They were looking for ‘Vicky’ – a seventeen-year-old school student who, according to their…
“To be honest, it is one of the most inspirational things I’ve ever done” said 17 year old Josie of her experience meeting and interviewing 94 year old Bettie Baird. Bettie and Josie both come from Carlisle and the former…
When I was asked to contribute to Penguin’s Pelican series, I was determined to write an accessible account of feminist history that would place it in global perspective. This ambitious framing was certainly taxing, and I must confess, at times…
Many histories of Bath have focused on its rise to become Britain’s premier spa in the late eighteenth century before it slipped into staid respectability after its heyday.[i] The prevalent narrative suggests that ‘nothing much happened’ in the first quarter…
On 26 August 1910, a notice appeared in the San Francisco Examiner: ‘Wanted. For adoption – a newly born infant; must be a boy.’ Four years later, Dorothy Slingsby, an American in her forties, finally confessed to placing the advert.…