Category Archives: 20th Century

Bullet Proof Ms

With the sad news of the death of Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of  Kevlar, reproduced here is the short piece written by Michael Williams about her, from the final edition of HerStoria Magazine. 

Where are the Women in School History?

Sue Johnson takes an historical look at the curriculum ….. `Why didn’t I know that before?` and `… but Women’s History is real history!’ are both familiar cries from undergraduates on women’s history modules. Why are they only making this

Railwaywomen: from backstage heroine to train driver

Railways are imbued with maleness to their very core. Everyone connected with the creation and operation of railways was male: business men and financiers, architects and engineers, navvies and bricklayers, managers and operating staff. The masculinity of railways was reinforced

Secret Agent - Part 2

Yvonne Baseden

It took hours. We were all lying in this aircraft, you know on the bare metal and we could hear a lot of banging going on. We couldn’t see a thing. Then the dispatcher used to come round and say

Secret Agent - Part 1

Yvonne Baseden

Juliette Pattinson interviews Yvonne Baseden and tells the story of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during WWII

Lily Montagu, Religious Reformer and Social Worker

By Rabbi Lawrence Rigal Today both Liberal and Reform movements now have women Rabbis and they use new prayer books written in inclusive language, where God is no longer referred to in male terms. All of this directly followed on

Women and femininity in the history of science

By Claire Jones Women have always participated in scientific endeavour, even before the term ‘scientist’ was invented. (The term ‘scientist’ is usually attributed to William Whewell, Cambridge academic, who used it in its modern sense in 1841, but some scholars

Women’s access to higher education: An overview (1860-1948)

Women’s struggle for higher education did not begin in the mid-late nineteenth century. There had been calls for women to receive educational opportunities equivalent to their brothers well before, including pleas from notable women including Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673),  Mary Astell

‘the only black-out is the black-out in my soul’

British women’s poetry of the Second World War by Anne Powell … experiences connected with the blitz, the home front, symptoms deserted wives, and deceived husbands, broken homes, dull jobs, bad schools, group squabbles, are so much a picture of

Women and the bicycle

By Claire Jones In the mid 1880s, tadalafil the emergence of a new, clinic relatively stable and easy to ride ‘safety bicycle’ provided women with a chance for mobility, increased  independence and freedom from the confines of the home. Women