LONDON'S
WOMEN
HISTORIANS
— ABOUT —
LONDON'S WOMEN HISTORIANS
On 13 March 2017 we hosted a conference, ‘London’s women historians: a celebration and a conversation’ held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London (IHR). The event brought together 14 leading historians, and a 90-strong audience, to evaluate and celebrate the contribution of women historians working at the University of London and its colleges—from the early 1900s to the 2010s. As well as a celebration, the day was also a conversation. In 2017, gender equality remains one of the most pressing issues in the historical profession. This is evident from research published by the Royal Historical Society in 2015, longstanding efforts by the Economic History Society to elevate women in their discipline, and an initiative at the University of Oxford to launch a ‘manifesto’ for Women in the Humanities.
Our conference was also therefore a continuation and deepening of this conversation. Panellists and audience members were asked to think about how twentieth-century London institutions have both enabled and constrained female achievements in history.
The day ended with the launch of a portrait exhibition of 20 London women historians, on the walls of the IHR staircase. These 20 images were added alongside the existing portraits of the Institute’s former directors (all male), beginning with Albert (A.F.) Pollard in 1921. Intentionally or not, these original portraits seemed to tell a ‘great men’ story about the historical profession that nobody really believes anymore. Our 20 images identify a small selection of women scholars who contributed to the historical profession, also from the early 1900s. Identifying these images meant looking beyond the institution and, sometimes, the academy. Many of the images we’ve chosen show their sitters as active rather than posed, and many are also joyful. This is no accident.
The gallery below reproduces these 20 portraits. Each image links out to further information on that person, including (where available) to the historian’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
And further below, you’ll find video and audio recordings of each of the four panel sessions from ‘London’s women historians’, plus blog posts on the conference and the making of the portrait exhibition. Here you can also 'continue the conversation' by proposing historians not included in this exhibition; just tweet the details and ideally a portrait with the hashtag #womenhistorians.
Dr Laura Carter (Murray Edwards College, Cambridge)
and Dr Alana Harris (King’s College, London)
Further reading
• Maxine Berg, A Woman in History: Eileen Power, 1889-1940 (Cambridge, 1996)
• Joan Thirsk, 'The history women', in Chattel, Servant or Citizen: Women's Status in Church, State and Society, eds. Mary O'Dowd and Sabine Wichert (Belfast, 1995)
• Joan Thirsk, 'Women local and family historians', in The Oxford Companion to English Local and Family History, ed. David Hey (Oxford, 1996)
• Mary O'Dowd, 'Popular writers: women historians, the academic community and national history writing', in Setting the Standards: Institutions, Networks and Communities of National Historiography Comparative Approaches, eds. Ilaria Porciani and Jo Tollebeek (Basingstoke, 2012)
• Nadia Clare Smith, A "Manly Study"?: Irish Women Historians, 1868-1949 (Basingstoke, 2006)
• Helen Paul, 'Editorial: women in economic and social history: twenty-fifth anniversary of the Women's Committee of the Economic History Society', The Economic History Review (2014), part of Economic History Review special virtual issue: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-0289/homepage/women_s_committee__a_virtual_issue.htm
• Bille Melman, 'Gender, history and memory: the invention of women's past in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries', History and Memory (1993)
— GALLERY —
LONDON'S WOMEN HISTORIANS
Caroline Skeel (1872-1951) was an historian of the Tudor and Stuart periods, who spent most of her career teaching history at Westfield College. She was heavily involved in the foundation of the IHR in 1921 and in the same year was elected to the council of the Royal Historical Society. In 1925 she was appointed to the first Professorship at Westfield College.
Image reproduced with permission from the Queen Mary University of London Archives.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Eleanora Carus Wilson (1897-1977) was an economic historian who spent her career at Westfield College and the LSE. She was mentored by Eileen Power in London, and worked chiefly on medieval trade in England. She wrote England's Export Trade, 1275 –1547 (1963) and ‘An industrial revolution of the thirteenth century’, Economic History Review (1941).
Image reproduced with permission from the LSE Library collection, image Library/964.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Read more via the IHR’s ‘Making History’
Margaret Gowing (1921-1998) was an historian of science, who studied at the LSE before working at the Universities of Kent and Oxford. She focused on the contemporary history of British atomic energy, working with many scientists and policymakers, including on projects relating to the archiving and information management of the history of science. Her books include Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–1945 (1964).
Image reproduced with permission from and © Bill Potter, Oxford.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Olive Anderson (1927-2016) was an historian of war, medicine, and law. She taught at Westfield College, where she rose to a Professorship. She was known for her imaginative teaching methods and breadth of research. She also played a significant role in restructuring the University of London’s history degree. Her books include A Liberal State at War: English Politics and Economics during the Crimean War (1967).
Image reproduced with permission from Olive Anderson’s family
Vera Anstey (1889-1976) was an economic historian. She worked at the LSE throughout her career, holding the title reader in commerce from 1941, and undertaking many administrative roles for the institution. She taught on Indian trade and commerce, which was also the focus of her research. Her books include The Trade of the Indian Ocean (1929) and The Economic Development of India (1929).
Image reproduced with permission from the LSE Library collection, image Library/101.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Rosalind Hill (1908-1997) was a medieval historian who worked at the University of Leicester and Westfield College. She taught and inspired history students at both institutions. Her research centred on the records of English bishops and, later, the crusades, around which she held a seminar at the IHR. Her books include The Rolls and Register of Bishop Oliver Sutton, 1280 –99 (1948–86).
Image reproduced with permission from the Queen Mary University of London Archives.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Mary Stocks (1891-1975) was an economic historian and women’s activist in London. During the First World War she taught at the LSE and King’s College for Women, later becoming principal of Westfield College from 1939. She is particularly noted for her battle against restrictive clothing for women. Her books include A Hundred Years of District Nursing (1960).
Image reproduced with permission from the Queen Mary University of London Archives.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Dona Torr (1883-1957) was an historian and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, through which she pursued her historical interests. She collaborated with figures including Christopher Hill and A. L. Morton and had many disciples amongst this generation of British Marxist historians. Her books include Marxism, Nationality and War (1940) and Tom Mann and his Times (1956).
Image reproduced with permission from the People’s History Museum and © the Community Party of Great Britain Archive Trust.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Eileen Power (1889-1940) was a medievalist who taught at the LSE and Girton College, Cambridge. She pioneered a broad and comparative approach to social and economic history and co-founded the Economic History Society in 1926. Her books include Medieval English Nunneries (1922) and Medieval People (1924).
Image reproduced with permission from the LSE Library collection, image Library/1004
Ellen McArthur (1862-1927) was an economic historian who worked at Girton College, Cambridge. She temporarily headed Westfield College’s history department 1907-1911, and taught and mentored a generation of pioneering women economic historians. Her works include ‘Women petitioners and the Long Parliament’, English Historical Review (1909) and Outlines of English Industrial History (1895).
Image reproduced with permission from the Mistress and Fellows, Girton College, Cambridge.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Frances Yates (1899-1981) was an historian of the Renaissance. She became a full-time lecturer and editor of publications at the Warburg Institute in 1944, and reader in the history of the Renaissance in 1956. Her work focused on the relationship between cosmology and scientific thought. Her books include Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964) and The Art of Memory (1966).
Image reproduced with permission from The Warburg Institute
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Read more via the IHR’s ‘Making History’
Helen Maud Cam (1885-1968) was a medievalist who worked at Royal Holloway and Girton College, Cambridge. Her focus was on constitutional and legal history, working especially on the hundred rolls. She was known as a committed and enthusiastic teacher. She published many articles in the English Historical Review from 1916.
Image reproduced with permission from the Mistress and Fellows, Girton College, Cambridge and © the Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridge Central Library.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Read more via the IHR’s ‘Making History’
Joan Thirsk (1922-2013) was an agricultural historian. She took her PhD at the LSE, before working at the University of Leicester 1951-1965. She developed an influential regional approach to rural industry in Britain. She later worked on consumption at Oxford. Her books include The Agrarian History of England and Wales vol. 4 (1967) and Food in Early Modern England (2007).
Image reproduced with permission from Dr Joan Thirsk’s family.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Read more via the IHR’s ‘Making History’
Joyce Godber (1906-1999) was an archivist, focusing on her home county of Bedfordshire. After working at Oxford University Press, she was assistant secretary at the IHR, before becoming clerk of the records, then County Archivist of Bedfordshire between 1946 and 1968.
Image reproduced with permission from the Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service
Leonore Davidoff (1932-2014) was an historian and sociologist of gender relations. She studied at the LSE before working at the University of Essex, and was central to the development of the Feminist History Group in London. Her books include The Best Circles (1973), (co-authored with Catherine Hall) Family Fortunes (1987), and Thicker Than Water (2012).
Image reproduced with permission from Leonore Davidoff’s family and the University of Essex Archives
Lilian Knowles (1870-1926) was an economic historian who held the UK’s first full-time teaching post in modern economic history at the LSE from 1904, where she was known for her innovative teaching. She was promoted to a Professorship in 1921 and was the first woman Dean of Faculty (economics) from 1920. Her books include Industrial and Commercial Revolutions (1921) and The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire (1924).
Image reproduced with permission from the LSE Library collection, LSE history project/6/2.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Lisa Jardine (1944-2015) was an interdisciplinary scholar of the Renaissance. She worked at Queen Mary and University College London. As well as producing key works on Renaissance figures, she was known for her engaging and accessible writing, and a commitment to digital formats. Her books include Francis Bacon (1974) and Temptation in the Archives (2015) .
Image reproduced with permission from The Royal Society and © Des Willie, 2014
Biographical note from the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, UCL
Patricia Crawford (1941-2009) pioneered a feminist approach to women’s lives in seventeenth-century England and laid the groundwork for such research in the future. She was a regular fixture at the IHR’s Women’s History Seminar throughout her career. She wrote ‘Attitudes to Menstruation in Early Modern England’, Past & Present (1981) and (co-authored with Sara Mendelson) Women in Early Modern England (1998).
Image reproduced with permission from Laura Gowing
Lillian Penson (1896-1963) worked on British colonial and diplomatic history. After teaching at Birkbeck and East London College, she was appointed chair of modern history at Bedford College for Women in 1930. In 1948 she rose to Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. Her books include The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies (1924).
Image reproduced with permission from the University of London Archives.
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
Rhoda Power (1890-1957) was an historian and broadcaster of history programmes on BBC radio from the 1920s-1950s. She invented the ‘illustrated’ history talk, which came to define mid-century broadcasting for schools. She also wrote popular children’s history books, including one with her sister, Eileen Power, Boys and Girls of History (1926).
Image reproduced with permission from the BBC Written Archives Centre
Read the biography in the Oxford DNB
x
—LINKS—
LONDON'S WOMEN HISTORIANS: A CELEBRATION AND A CONVERSATION
Welcome to ‘London’s women historians’, 13 March 2017
Philip Carter (IHR), Laura Carter and Alana Harris (KCL)
Session 1: Women historians and London institutions
John Beckett (Nottingham and Victoria County History), Linda Clark (History of Parliament) and Caroline Barron (Royal Holloway); chair Laura Carter
Session 2: Women historians at King’s
Jinty Nelson (KCL), Alana Harris (KCL) and Laura Gowing (KCL); chair Hannah Dawson (KCL)
Session 3: Roundtable discussion
Amy Erikson (Cambridge), Pat Thane (KCL), Margot Finn (UCL) and Jo Fox (Durham); chair Helen Paul (Southampton)
Session 4: Current initiatives on gender equality
Lyndal Roper (Oxford) in conversation with Peter Mandler (Cambridge); chair Jon Wilson (KCL)
London’s women historians: a celebration and a conversation, Talking Humanities blog post, by Rozemarijn van de Wal (Groningen)
Taking action against inequality in academia, by Dr Anne L. Murphy
Creating the portrait exhibition, Talking Humanities blog post, by Laura Carter and Alana Harris
Twitter Storify: London’s women historians: a celebration and conversation, 13 March 2017
Continuing the conversation
We're really keen that the conference and website just be the start of a conversation about women historians, and we'd love to hear from you if you've got comments or feedback, especially if you have suggestions for historians we've missed out.
Please do tweet using the conference hashtag #womenhistorians or alternatively email Laura at lc449@cam.ac.uk.
ADOBE MUSE CC STARTERS
