‘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 shopping queues, the home front, deserted wives, deceived husbands, broken homes, dull jobs, bad More »
Women’s History Walk around Radical Manchester
By Michael Herbert. Manchester was the world’s first great industrial city—‘Cottonopolis’—its privilege and poverty both dazzled and appalled by turn. It played a significant role in the formation of radical movements that More »
Women and Madness
By Claire Jones. The association of madness with 19C femininity has generated much research by historians of women’s history. Although this association can be traced back to medieval times, to woman mystics More »
Sylvia Pankhurst: Activist with Attitude
As a little girl growing up in Woodford Green, on the fringe of Epping Forest, just before World War Two, I was warned by my very conventional Conservative parents to walk on More »
What is women’s history?
History is all too often exactly that - His Story. Typically the narratives told are the stories of men, with major events interpreted according to their impact on the masculine sex, to More »
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
Writer, feminist and radical; author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) Overview Mary Wollstonecraft was a passionate Enlightenment thinker who is generally celebrated as the first major feminist. Her most significant text, A Vindication of the Rights
Writing wrongs? Women wordsmiths of the 18th and early 19th centuries
By Jennifer C Kelsey. The art of communication has always been important for women. Whether sharing thoughts, relating experiences, voicing opinions, giving advice or creating fictions, one vital means of communication for women in the past was through the written
The Married Women’s Property Acts (UK, 1870, 1882 and 1893)
By Claire Jones These acts were a milestone along women’s route to equality. The legal position of married women for most of the nineteenth century was little short of that of a slave. (This was the way in which philosopher
Octavia Hill (1838 - 1912)
Housing reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and co-founder of the National Trust. By Claire Jones In her time Octavia Hill was an influential and well-known figure, now she is regarded as an important pioneer of female activism in the public sphere.
Prostitution and the Contagious Diseases Acts (1864, 1866 and 1869)
Overview The passing of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which stripped poor and working-class women of their rights, shocked many respectable middle class women and provoked a major campaign for repeal. The Acts were a legal embodiment of the Victorian sexual
Josephine Butler, 1828-1906
Worker for poor women’s rights, advocate for prostitutes and campaigner against the Contagious Diseases Acts Overview Josephine Butler is remembered for her compassion for prostitutes and her tireless championing of poor women and children. Importantly, she is also remembered for
Ethelflaed (Aethelflaed) d. 918
Saxon princess, ‘freedom figher’ and ruler of the Mercians Ethelflaed was the daughter and first-born child of Alfred the Great. She led her troops into battle against the Vikings and it was only with her active support that her younger
‘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 shopping queues, the home front, deserted wives, deceived husbands, broken homes, dull jobs, bad schools, group squabbles, are so much a picture
A brief history of feminism
By Claire Jones Many people think of feminism as beginning with the women’s movement of the 1970s, but feminism was around even before bras had been invented - let alone burned. Women scholars were arguing for a fairer deal for
Women and the bicycle
By Claire Jones In the mid 1880s, the emergence of a new, 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 took to
