Women's History Network

In our latest fascinating post, Arnab Chakraborty details the intersections of gender, caste, and colonialism in nineteenth century Madras.

In late nineteenth century colonial India, it was extremely unlikely that upper caste Indian women were being treated at Western medical institutions. There were certain factors apart from caste, religious and class superstitions, and the purdah that kept the inner sanctum of colonial Indian households hidden from and untouched by the apparent glow of Western healthcare. Madras, one of the three presidencies in colonial India, had one of the most progressive and liberal healthcare systems in the colonial period, and it …

In this blog post, Dr. Kate Hill tells us about her new monograph which sheds light on women as museum workers, donors and visitors.

As a young woman in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, Beatrix Potter spent a lot of her time in museums and galleries. She was exasperated by ‘hordes of young ladies’ in the National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum, making what she thought were hideous copies of paintings, and paid frequent visits to what is now the Natural History Museum, possibly for some respite. Here, she found it ‘peaceful amid the fossils’, but was …