This annual prize of £500 is awarded to the team behind a Community History Project by, about, or for women in a particular locale or community which has been completed between the 1 January 2018 and 31st May 2019. It…
Category: Blog and News
News items of interest to WHN Members
Call for Papers – Love Letters
Call for Papers – Love Letters What is and does a love letter? Are there any essential elements, or do the defining characteristics of amorous correspondence change from generation to generation, and from one culture to another? Is a song,…
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903, By Dr. Maureen Wright.
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903 ©Dr. Maureen Wright, University of Chichester, founder and lead of Women’s Political Rights, www.womenspoliticalrights.uk It might be fair to say that for many women’s…
Blitzmädels an die Front: A Lesser Known Female War Film
‘Women, Oberführerin,belong in the kitchen and in bed.’[1]Oberleutnant Wagner’s scathing dismissal of women at war epitomises the gender challenges faced by Oberführerin Hanna Helmke and her female air signals assistants in “Blitzmädels an die Front” (‘Lightning Girls on the Front’). Released on…
Research in Progress Postgraduate Workshop – Histories of Gender, University of Reading, 24 October 2018
A report from the post-graduates students who were awarded a grant by the WHN in 2018. The University of Reading’s History Department hosted its inaugural postgraduate workshop under the recently launched Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster. The theme of the…
‘There is a good deal of uncertainty as to how the women will vote’: The 1918 General Election in Birmingham
100 years ago, on 14 December 1918, women in Britain went to the polls to vote in a General Election for the first time. Just ten months after the Representation of the People Act had awarded the franchise to some…
The Enigma of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) – Dr. Veronica Isaac
Ellen Terry (1847-1928) ‘Of Ellen Terry, the actress, Our Lady of the Lyceum as Oscar Wilde used to style her, what a series of wonderful pictures live in the memory”[i] A leading late nineteenth century actress, Dame Ellen Terry’s lifestyle…
Why we should remember the housewives of the First World War, by Professor Karen Hunt
As our high streets become covered in poppies, we should ask ourselves who we are being asked to commemorate. Despite four years of television programmes, exhibitions, art installations and local history projects, we still seem to find it easier to…
War Widows and the controversy over Remembrance Sunday services at the Cenotaph (1972-1982), by Dr Janis Lomas
Remembrance Sunday has a particular significance this year as it marks the centenary of the First World War armistice, yet few remember the First and Second World War widows who following the foundation of the War Widows’ Association (WWA) in…