News items of interest to WHN Members
Our interest in widows was sparked when writing about the British women’s suffrage movement; we noticed all three leaders of the major suffrage organisations were widows. Was this, we wondered, something of a coincidence, or a more complex and common…
The grand narrative of the Second World War as the ‘People’s War’ remains a dominant theme in British cultural memory. Within that narrative, warfare and traditional ideas about masculinity are inextricably linked. Courage, valour and aggression are all worlds associated…
In 2019 the BBC released a documentary[1] which showcased interviews with nurses that had worked during ‘The Troubles.’ Compelling and poignant, one of the exceptional features of the documentary was just how willing and keen nurses were to share their…
“Uncleanliness of the mind and body act and react,” wrote the Edinburgh-trained physician J. Milner Fothergill in his 1874 Maintenance of Health, “and perfect health of one is incompatible with an unhealthy state of the other.” The Victorian middle classes…
In mid-August 2020, Dolly Parton was in the news. This is not unusual, but the headlines were a bit bigger this time because, unlike her usual practice, Dolly had made a political statement. In a prominent interview for Billboard,[1] she…
“Race… It is an area of enormous sensitivity in this country. You know. Oh God, the things I listen to on public radio, I can’t believe it. But, you know, the part that’s unpleasant about that is: why do you…
Lips that Touch Liquor: Fighting for the Face of Female Temperance, forthcoming with the Royal Historical Society / University of London Press (2021), will be the first full-length examination of the female temperance movement. Women played a significant part in…
Over the course of two days in July of 1962, more than 150,000 people packed Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California for the fourth edition of the United States-Soviet Union dual track and field meet, an event organized to encourage…
Whilst the events of this summer have thrown into sharp relief the effects of state sanctioned violence against Black communities, globally, it is important to recognise that alongside the campaigns to end racism there has also been activity that seeks…