Dedicated to Mary Philomena Collins, and every mother in history who has experienced the pain of being separated from their child. The London Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by philanthropist Thomas Coram for the ‘maintenance and education of exposed…
Category: Blog and News
News items of interest to WHN Members
The ‘ambiguity’ of equal pay for equal work : Ethel Watts, ICAEW and the 1944 Royal Commission on Equal Pay – Jane Berney
Following the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) admitted its first female member. To mark the centenary of the Act, I researched and wrote a booklet published by…
Fat is STILL a Feminist Issue – Re-reading a classic of the second wave by Saffron Kricha
At university, I became interested in women’s embodied experiences – considering how women’s bodies are not only passive entities, but a site of empowerment and activism. Hence, when I was introduced to Fat Is A Feminist Issue, an inquisitive nerve…
Hannah Brutton and the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 – by Charlotte Fairlie
While the limitations and inequalities of the 1857 Divorce and Marital Causes Act have led to debate over its significance, the case of Brutton v. Brutton illustrates how it empowered ordinary women to escape unhappy and dangerous situations.[i] Certainly, factors…
7th December 2022: Disability History Month Special Seminar – Senses of Technology: Deaf Women and the Telephone in the Soviet 1960s
Don’t miss our special Disability History Month seminar! Dr. Claire Shaw (Warwick) will share her paper on ‘Senses of Technology: Deaf Women and the Telephone in the Soviet 1960s’. Wednesday, 7 December 2022, 4pm GMT. Sign up on Zoom here.…
Juries of matrons vs. the male “touch:” incarcerated pregnant women, capital punishment, and medicine since the 18th century in the U.S.A – Bethany Kotlar
In 1778 Bathsheba Spooner was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. She pleaded pregnancy, and according to Massachusetts law at the time was examined by a jury of 12 matrons. The jury found that she was not…
23rd November 2022: MA Prize 21/22 Lunchtime Roundtable Celebration
Join us for a very special roundtable session featuring the recipients of our MA Prize 2021/22 accolades! Our speakers will share their award-winning and shortlisted research, featured in their MA Prize submissions. A wonderfully diverse range of topics will be…
Scent and Sensitivity: Writing Women from their Archives – Victoria Phillips
So, is this a key distinction as we go through the archives of women: we sense their smell, their perfume, or not, as we open folders? And what will it tell us as biographers and historians if we can, or…
Fashioning the Self: Jennie Jerome, a twentieth century Victorian in the Library – Laura A. Macaluso
In 1940, a high school class took lessons at the New Haven Free Public Library. The library, open since 1887—the year Jennie Jerome’s parents were married, and her father, Yan Phou Lee published When I Was a Boy in China—drew…