I am the Great Granddaughter of Ruby Side Thompson. I inherited her forty-three diaries that span from 1909–1969. They were passed down to my grandmother, Ruth Ferris Thompson who was married to Ruby’s son, John Thompson. Ruby’s Diaries had several…
Tag: WW2
Adolescent angst and wartime woes in World War Two France
The Second World War saw France defeated and subsequently occupied by the Germans. Young girls’ literary responses to the period – their diaries and memoirs – serve a dual purpose: they convey their own personal story whilst providing a historical…
British women at work in the British zone of occupied Germany, 1945-49
The complexities surrounding women’s place in post-war British society have been well documented by historians. This debate centres on whether the Second World War had a liberating effect on women or if, instead, it served to cement women’s place in…
Women’s History Month: Nanna Conti (1881-1951)
Nanna Conti was a leading German midwife during the Nazi era. She was born on 4 April 1881 in Uelzen near Hanover. Her father, Dr. Carl Eugen Pauli (1839-1901), worked as headmaster of the local boys’ secondary school. Little is…
Monday Afternoon Reading
Some women’s history for your reading pleasure.
Women’s History Month: Eleanor Rathbone.
At first sight, there would seem to be little to connect Eleanor Rathbone, Independent MP for the Combined English Universities, with the occupation of Prague by Hitler’s regime on 15 March 1939. But nothing could be further from the truth,…