General, Politics, Source, Women's History

Saving Women’s History : The Employment Tribunal Archive – Pt 1

Derby has much to do to set up the Archive in a way which enables its richness to be fully explored but it will be worth it. On some matters it may be possible to set information from the Archive alongside contemporaneous research and to discover, for example, whether early case decisions back up research findings that women who experienced sexual harassment tended to be those who were about to break into a male preserve – in other words, the harassment was not about sex, it was about power.

Event, Politics, Source, Women's History

Left on Pearl – 1970s Women’s Liberation Remembered

1970s Women’s Liberation Movement activism not only brought together women of diverse backgrounds. It ensured women’s voices were heard in political struggles of the time which women saw as intimately connected with women’s drive for a new world where egalitarian ideals would be met and women’s independence, bodily integrity and empowerment would be central. The 888 action was determined that women’s space should be free for women to consciousness raise and engage with the antiwar movement, civil rights, black power, lesbian and gay rights movements on women’s terms. Consistent with past wmen’s movement struggles, affordable housing was one of the issues taken up – reminiscent of Jane Addams and the Chicago movement of times past, where women trade unionists and suffragists like Alice Henry and Miles Franklin took up the banner.

Biography, Event, Politics, Women's History

Margaret Rawlings at the National Portrait Gallery

Rawlings (1906 – 1996) … made her stage debut on 21 March 1927 in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘The Doctor’s Dilemma’ at the Grand Theatre, Croydon. During the 1930s, her reputation as a leading tragedy actress gained ground as she starred as Bianca Capello in Clifford Bax’s play ‘The Venetian’ and Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome’, and she continued to receive praise from critics for her vivid and emotional performances. Rawlings was particularly successful playing the spectacular dual role of Mary Charrington and her husband’s murdered Mistress, Lucy, in Gordon Sherry’s thriller ‘Black Limelight’, which had a long run at the St James Theatre in 1937 … Rawlings gained further recognition following her roles as Eliza Doolittle in Shaw’s ‘Pygmalian’; ‘A House in the Square’ by Diana Morgan, in which she starred with Lillian Braithwaite; and Vittoria Corombona in John Webster’s tale of corruption and deceit ‘The White Devil’.