Heroine of the Miners’ Strike: Anne Harper

By Isis Barrett – Lally

The community activist Anne Harper was a household name in my family growing up – my grandfather and uncle were miners around Sheffield during the miners’ strike of 1984-85 – but the working class is not generally the author of its own history. During the summer term I attended a Women in Wikipedia event run by Prof. Kate Cooper and Dr. Victoria Leonard of the RHUL History Department hoping to make her story more widely known. You can read the resulting wiki about her here.

Women Against Pit Closures Banner, painted by Calder Valley artist, Andrew Turner, with Harper in purple in centre. Photo: Joan Heath (By permission via Hebden Bridge [http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/news/2012/135.html].)

Anyone who has ever attempted to edit a Wikipedia article, or wiki, will know that success at this is about as challenging as sending a message via semaphore. Two trainers from the Wikimedia Foundation joined our workshop to train us in the production and publication of wikis, including an overview of the site’s editing policy. A large part of the difficulty of contributing new articles to Wikipedia is finding a subject whose life or work is documented in a way that meets Wikipedia’s notability criteria. Oftentimes, women do not fit these criteria because of a dearth of published sources of the kind that Wikipedia will recognise.

This lack of articles on notable women is widely acknowledged (just run it past your favourite search engine). The Wikimedia Foundation trainers advised me that I could struggle to have a new article on Anne Harper included in the encyclopaedia. In order to meet the notability criteria, I had to demonstrate that Harper had received “significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable.” Although Harper is remembered within popular cultural memory, this renown has not necessarily carried from oral to written accounts.

Fortunately, the Davison Library did not disappoint. I was able to find references to Harper in biographies of her ex-husband, Arthur Scargill, contemporary indie press publications, as well as in recent scholarship. Harper was a militant community organiser as well as activist during the 1980s and 90s, who was driven by a desire to bring peace and stability to her community. When she was interviewed for the BBC by Emma Barnett in 2018, Harper described the pit closures as “where the rot set in” for Northern mining areas: “I look at some of the lads [today] and they’re wasting their lives, but what can they do? They can’t get a job… I say to myself, well Anne, at least you did try to prevent all this.”

An astute political commentator with an abundance of humanity and courage, Harper channelled her talents as an organiser and speaker into the strike. Of course, not all miners and their families approved of Harper and her association with the NUM. However, her achievements in terms of community activism through soup kitchens, marches and fundraisers are undeniable.

Here is the rub… I was only able to submit an article on Harper because there were enough traditional Wikipedia style sources available. This meant a biography of her ex-husband, which is itself a problematic source. It is hardly possible within the scope of a Wikipedia article to discuss the limitations of a source that minimises Harper’s political agency. This criticism could be extended to entries on any person whose activities are not well attested in the type of sources Wikipedia’s editing practices require.

The relative paucity of biography articles on women hosted on Wikipedia  is well documented. Unless the user is aware of this shortcoming, it might appear as if women have been absent or scarce at political and social junctures. A hugely popular reference tool in schools and universities, Wikipedia may sometimes mislead students of history to underestimate women’s contributions.

Co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, has written and spoken about a perceived trend towards political bias on the site. In a personal blog post from June 2021, Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever, Sanger argues that the site effectively hides its evident political positions behind the claim that all articles are written from a “neutral point of view.” Sanger gives the example of the near omission of the Biden family Ukraine Scandal from the Joe Biden wiki. If it were not for Wikipedia’s claim to neutrality, this would not be concerning.

Before Wikipedia other encyclopaedia editors made similar claims. The editors of Diderot’s Encyclopédie understood their role “principally [as] arranging materials which for the most part have been furnished in their entirety by others.” However, the 18^th century encyclopédistes produced their volumes for a tiny segment of the European reading public. It is natural that the Encyclopédie would be representative of shared views amongst this group. At scale, no encyclopaedia can be neutral unless it acknowledges and features divergent viewpoints. It could be argued that the entire concept of an encyclopaedia is historically relative and poorly adapted to 21^st century media and knowledge sharing practices.

Decentralisation is a possible, partial solution to this problem. In contrast to centralised sites like Wikipedia, a decentralised approach involves linking independently administered sites into a single network. On 6th September 2021, Sanger launched an open-access seminar series on the topic of decentralisation to inform his new Encyclosphere project. Although still nascent, Encyclosphere is a promising experiment in online encyclopaedia curation that may eventually chart the potential and limitations of decentralised approaches.

While editorial oversight with a decentralised approach is in theory dispersed across multiple sites, the bar for participation is higher. It may take a small time investment to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia, however after this it is a simple process. To run a website of one’s own requires regular maintenance, the cost of a domain name and sever, and a little more know-how. Now is a perfect time to become involved in Encyclosphere and contribute to the design of what could become a powerful reference tool. I would encourage anyone who is involved with a women’s history site to consider partnering with Encylosphere; please contact me if you are interested. Meanwhile, chipping away at the disastrous gender imbalance on Wikipedia has to remain a priority. Please keep an eye out for an invitation to this year’s Wikipedia Workshop, and attend if you can.

Recognising forgotten British business women

New Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage office c.1914, Wikimedia Commons

Lizzie Broadbent is a business professional who consults on inclusivity and organizational change, but she also aims to raise the public profile of C19th and C20th women in business through her blog and a project to collect and share their stories.

‘We continue to see women increasingly well-represented in many spheres of British life but leadership of FTSE-100 companies remains a male bastion. Although a third of FTSE-350 companies are now chaired by women, only 17 of them have women as CEOs. Globally, women still made up only 38% of the applicants to full-time MBA courses in 2018. ¹

Historic stories of women succeeding in business remain difficult to find. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography includes only 89 business women compared to 1,665 men.  Sixteen of the seventeen individuals in London with blue plaques classified under ‘commerce and business’ are men.   Through the project Women Who Meant Business, I am challenging a pervasive public narrative: that in the past women may have worked as domestic servants, mill-workers, secretaries and governesses but they were rarely managers, employers or entrepreneurs in their own right.  Although there is much more historical scholarship which demonstrates the role that women played in business, the general visibility of early business women remains relatively low.

The FT-She 100 is a two-year project to recognise women born in the reign of Queen Victoria who spent at least some of their life running a business in the United Kingdom. While some women are celebrated in their industry or in a local museum, only a handful could be described as household names. When a woman is well-known it is usually not for her business acumen: how many people know that the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll ran a commercial nursery or that or that Emma Cons made the money to acquire the Old Vic Theatre from setting up a chain of coffee shops? It is a two-year project and nearly 90 women have been identified with over 20 women’s stories published so far.

Business records and reports of shareholder meetings give valuable insight into the alliances that were forged around the agenda of women’s economic empowerment. Most of the women can be placed in at least one group with other like-minded women, a club, society or personal network, which often cuts across class and gender lines. Working women actively supported one another, giving each other work or forging useful introductions.

The project covers a wide range of sectors and a time-span encompassing huge shifts in legal rights and social norms for women as well as wider economic and technological progress. So although there are common themes, the individual circumstances and experiences of the women highlighted in this project are all very different as these three short examples show.

If Emma Paterson (1846-1886) is known now it is for founding the Women’s Protective and Provident League in 1874 to support the development of women’s unions in skilled professions. However, she also set up and ran the Women’s Printing Society, a business which operated until 1955. Founded in 1876, the directors included: the Christian Socialist vicar, Stewart Headlam, who twenty years later stood bail for Oscar Wilde; Annie Leigh Browne, who co-founded College Hall in 1882, providing women pursuing their academic studies in London with accommodation, and was active in the campaign to get women onto local councils; and Mary Louisa Bruce, niece and biographer of early suffragist Anna Swanwick.

Helen Lenoir (1852-1913) was one of the University of London’s early women graduates, but changed her name from Susan Black in 1876 and took to the stage.  She quickly decided she preferred life behind the scenes and became assistant to D’Oyly Carte, who soon recognised her sharp commercial brain.  She was making international business trips as early as the 1880s and had overall responsibility for all the D’Oyly Carte business interests, including the Savoy Hotel, for over ten years between Richard’s death in 1901 and her own death in 1913.

Laura Annie Willson, The Vote (1926), British Newspaper Archive.

Laura Annie Willson (1875-1942) left school at 13 to work in the Halifax mills.  A militant suffragette, her husband’s factory was converted to make munitions during the First World War and as a result of her expert management of the women’s division, she was asked to advise on operations in other parts of the country.  She and her husband were the last hold-outs against the 1918 Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act, which sought to reverse employment inroads women made during the war.  She was a founding member of both the Women’s Engineering Society and the Electrical Association for Women and aged 50 embarked on a new career in construction. She built over 500 houses in Yorkshire and Surrey and was the first woman to be accepted as a member of the National Federation of Housebuilders.  

How we think about our history informs the present. The celebrations for the centenary of the Women’s Engineering Society in 2019 shone a much-needed light on the achievements of women engineers including Laura Annie. I hope over time the FT-She 100 will do the same for the women across all sectors, as well as giving women working today new role models and fresh inspiration, recognising what has changed and challenging what has not.

If you want to see how this project develops over the next eighteen months, you can sign up for the monthly newsletter via the project homepage and if your research touches on a woman already featured or you think there is someone who should be on the list, please get in touch.’

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1. Women and the Full-Time MBA: Continuing the Push for Progress’ (March 2019) by the Graduate Management Admission Council; accessible at http://www.gmac.com

‘Believe me, there is such a thing as a broken heart!’ Heartbreak, Emotions and Embodiment in Britain c. 1720-1850, by Sally Holloway

A woman weeping over her dead lover. Drawing, c. 1793. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk

The 2021 Bedford Centre Annual Lecture 2pm on Wednesday 17th March

The broken heart in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain was no mere poetic image, with physicians recording cases where the heart literally ruptured following romantic rejection or the death of a loved one. This lecture will explore the embodied experience of loving and losing love, asking, what did it mean to die from a broken heart? The lecture’s title derives from a letter sent from the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft to her faithless lover Gilbert Imlay in 1795, where she described how ‘There are characters whose very energy preys upon them; and who, ever inclined to cherish by reflection some passion, cannot rest satisfied with the common comforts of life’. Others described symptoms including loss of appetite, drooping spirits, pining, distraction, and overpowering sorrow, culminating in the death or breaking of the heart. This lecture will use letters, case notes, medical notebooks, novels, paintings and prints to explore heartbreak as both a pathological condition and pervasive cultural phenomenon. Studying the causes, symptoms, and cultural constructions of heartbreak sheds light on gendered experiences of emotion, and the changing relationship between emotions and the body in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain. It also reveals the nature of love as an intense but capricious passion with potentially deadly consequences.

The ’emotional turn’ has recently had a major impact on women’s and gender history so we are delighted to welcome former Royal Holloway alumna Sally Holloway, a historian of emotions, gender, and visual and material culture, to deliver this years Annual Lecture.

Sally is a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University and co-convenes the programme for the British History in the Long Eighteenth Century seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in London. She is the author of a much praised book entitled The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions and Material Culture (Oxford, 2019). She recently co-edited a special issue of Cultural & Social History titled ‘Interrogating Romantic Love’ with Katie Barclay, and is co-editor of Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History with Stephanie Downes and Sarah Randles (Oxford, 2018). Her new research explores the cultural history of heartbreak.

Jessica Harrison, ‘Karen’ (2014)

To Book a Place for this Free Lecture:

Please register here via Eventbrite

The event will be run via MS Teams and we will email you a link and password several days before the event takes place. Do circulate this post to anyone else you think might be interested in attending and, as usual, the Bedford Centre is particularly keen to encourage students of all levels to join us. If you have any questions, please do get in touch with Centre Director Nicola Phillips. We look forward to seeing you there online!

Gender and Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales c. 400-1150 CE

Figure 1. Eliseg’s Pillar near Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. Photograph © 2006 by Jeffrey L. Thomas (http://www.castlewales.com/eliseg.html).

The Pillar of Eliseg is an exceptional stone monument in Wales which was erected by Concenn ruler of Powys (c. 854 CE), to honor his great-grandfather Eliseg, who had expelled the Anglo-Saxons from that part of Powys.

The pillar is a round-shafted cross that stands on a barrow near the Cistercian abbey of Valle Crucis. The lengthy inscription carved into the monument is now illegible, but two copies of the transcription in 1696 by Edward Lhuyd have survived, enabling a study of the inscription and its significance.                                                                                                

The archaeological context of this pillar has recently been reconsidered, illuminating how its form and function emphasized the link of the rulers of Powys with the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus and the sub-Roman ruler Guarthigirn. The inscription was intended to be read out loud and that the monument was as an important piece of public propaganda erected at a time when the kingdom of Powys was severely under threat (Edwards, 2009).

Studies of such exceptional monuments can add to the historical narrative and fit into the objectives set by archaeologists of early medieval Wales to better understand the relationship and interaction between different political and cultural groups in the early medieval period. However, important questions about the social structure of Wales—in particular—the function of gender evidenced through the stone monuments has yet to be explored.                                                                                                           

A total of 565 monuments for Wales c. 400-1150 CE. The volumes cover into three geographical regions: the South-East Wales and the English Border (Redknap and Lewis, 2007), South-West Wales (Edwards, 2009) and North Wales (Edwards, 2013). The three regions have 191, 216, and 158 number of monuments respectively. Most of the stones with inscriptions include a name in the nominative or genitive case, which implies that the stone is the ‘monument of X’ and also includes the filiation, frequently by the use of filius or fili, followed by the name of the father in the genitive ‘X son of Y’.

These types of monuments may have also functioned as grave-markers, but do not include the phrase hic iacit. There are 20 stone monuments with inscriptions that include the formulae with filius or fili or the equivalent. Many of the stones contain the formulaic Latin ‘hic iacit’ ‘here lies’and ‘pro anima’ ‘for the soul[s] of’, commemorating the dead and their souls in Christian fashion.

The imagery on the stone monuments include human figures, most of which are arguably Christian and depict familiar Biblical scenes or ecclesiastical figures. This study is a focus on gender representation, display, and power during this religious transformation.

What can these functions and formulae say about gender in early Wales? Firstly, that the stone monuments had commemorative and religious functions. The surviving stone monuments present an overwhelming majority of mens’ names and filiation. It can be argued that the stone monuments were for men to display their genealogy and kinship as well as their religious status. From the formulae and filiation on the inscribed stones, it is clear that Christianity was an important part of the display of identity in early Welsh society. However, the patterns reveal that this was an act done by and for male kin.

Figure 2. Vaynor (Abercar) B47

An exception is one of the stones that is included under fili, which can be transcribed as filia, considering that the name that comes before it is in the feminine form, transcribed as the name Cupeta.

The only possible stone monument in this dataset that mentions a woman is Vaynor (Abercar) B47, which is lost. A photo and a drawing of the stone survive, so the inscription is still clear (see Figure 2). T. H. Thomas recorded it as follows:

Fragmentary Latin inscription, reading vertically:

[-]PETAFILI[-]

[-]peta fili[a-]

=(Cu)peta, daughter [of…]

Cupitus/Cupita was a particular popular cognomen in Celtic areas, including Roman Britain, the most likely reading is [CV]PETA, with Vulgar Latin E for I. There are less likely possibilities, such as Hospita, Popita, but these are not attested in Roman Britain. (Redknap and Lewis, 247)                  

Even in this particular example where a woman’s name is mentioned, she is the daughter of someone else to whom the stone monument claimed ownership of. Her relationship to her father was important enough to be included, and it is even possible that Cupeta had the stone monument erected for her father. This is also potential significance in terms of agency and the potential significance that her father’s status was being used to bolster hers.

By carving one’s name into permanence, along with one’s kin, men used the stones to harness a self-image and their continued remembrance after their death, as well as for their kin. The evidence of the kingroup of early medieval Wales gives insights into their worldview of association, property-holding, inheritance, legal rights, and aspects of the soul, which allow us to recognize the persistence of ancient social forms into the society of the early middle ages.

Masculine power is directed into the production and maintenance of political and social formations (the stones) to consolidate political, economic, and legal powers for men. The stones were placed in public, visible spaces (such as the Pillar of Eliseg) in an attempt to define mens’ powers in these spaces, while womens’ overwhelming absence from the stones reflected the cultural belief in womens’ incapacity to carry out public professional responsibilities.                              

Overall, the stones marked the preponderance of masculinity and in the few cases where women do appear on the inscriptions or imagery, they are marked by their relationships and elite or religious statuses.      

Arica Roberts is a doctoral student in the University of Reading’s Department of Archaeology. Her thesis is a study of gender during the Christianisation of early medieval Wales c. 400-1200 CE. 

Conference: Gender, Religion and Power

Registration is now open for our interdisciplinary conference

Saturday 21 September, Birkbeck, University of London

Please register here

Both religion and power are salient research subjects within gender and women’s history. These subjects have particularly attracted recent attention in discussions of hegemonic structures, as researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of using power as a means to evaluate relationships between and amongst men and women. Understandings of patriarchy, and its multitudinous nature have arisen. These two topics have also inspired conversation about agency of those who seem to willingly submit themselves to religion and power structures. This is a multidisciplinary conference which analyses the historical links between gender and religion, gender and power, or all three.

Stay tuned to updates by following our twitter account @RHBedfordCentre

If you have any questions, please contact the conveners here: genderreligionandpower@gmail.com

Keynote speakers:
Professor Kate Cooper (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Professor Clare Midgley (Sheffield Hallam University)

Provisional Programme:

The Emily Davison Memorial Project

The maquette (small model) of the proposed life-size sculpture of Emily Wilding Davison.

A group of Epsom residents are leading a campaign to install a memorial to the suffragette and former Royal Holloway student Emily Wilding Davison, who died after running out in front of the King’s horse during the 1913 Epsom Derby.

Emily is arguably one of the most famous suffragettes after Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters because of her actions that day. The incident was captured on the newly invented technology of the time, the moving image, and viewed by millions nationally and internationally. Emily became a controversial figure and there was much debate about her intentions, which were interpreted by many at the time as suicidal. These persisted until recently, when new evidence came to light suggesting she was attempting to attach a suffragette banner to the horse’s bridle as it passed the Royal Box, in order to highlight the campaign for votes for women to the King.

However, Emily was so much more than what happened that fateful day. Born in Blackheath, London on 11 October 1872, but raised in Morpeth, Northumberland, Emily was intelligent and academically minded. She studied at both Royal Holloway College and Oxford University where she completed two degrees, despite the fact that women were not allowed to graduate. She subsequently became a teacher and a governess in order to earn a living, as her father had died and left her and her mother in financial hardship. She also had many other talents and interests, which included swimming, cycling, singing and writing.

During her campaign to secure women the vote, Emily was imprisoned a number of times. She went on hunger strike seven times and was subjected to force feeding no less than 49 times. Emily is also well known for boldly hiding in a broom cupboard overnight in the Houses of Parliament during the census, thus claiming her address as ‘Houses of Parliament’. There is now a plaque to commemorate this event on the cupboard door.

Residents in Epsom also want to commemorate Emily in the town where she lost her life on that fateful day, and so the Emily Davison Memorial Project has been formed with the aim of installing a life-size bronze statue of Emily sitting on a contemporary granite bench in the redeveloped Market Place in Epsom town centre.

The artist commissioned to make the statue is Surrey-based sculptor Christine Charlesworth, an elected member of the Society of Women Artists and the Royal Society of Sculptors. Christine has created many sculptures for individuals, local authorities and businesses and won a gold medal at the 2017 Chelsea Flower Show. Christine was an official artist with BT leading up to and including the 2012 Olympics with a selection of sports sculptures, and she created an action portrait of Paralympic basketball player Ade Adepitan for Jubilee Square, Woking.

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council and Surrey County Council are both behind the project, along with Emily’s family. All permissions have been granted and the fundraising campaign is in full swing; the Committee are almost halfway towards their £50,000 target. If you would like to donate to this important project to ensure Emily and all she did to secure women the vote is properly commemorated, please donate via the website. Donations of any size are welcome. There are also corporate sponsorship opportunities available, with companies or individuals donating £5,000 having their name engraved on the statue.

Sarah Dewing, Chair of the EDMP says. “It is time that Emily Wilding Davison is properly recognised for the part she played in bringing about the Governments’ decision to give some women the right to vote. It is due to her sacrifice and that of many others that women today have equal rights in law and opportunities to fulfil their potential that Emily’s generation could only dream of”.

To find out more, please visit www.emilydavisonproject.org, or the Emily Davison Memorial Project Facebook or Twitter page (@Emily Memorial). You can contact the Committee at info@emilydavisonproject.org

Women’s Power and the Fall of Norse Paganism

Sally Todd throws a spear in the 1958 film The Saga of the Viking Women and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent

Vikings and the Viking Age have long provided the general public with a source of fascination, and many popular presentations have been attempted with varying degrees of historical accuracy. The TV show Vikings is an example of this, and the rather less successful Saga of the Viking Women featured above. While neither provide a genuine reflection of Viking Age society, TV shows and films can often spark interesting discussion, especially in the case of women. Vikings’ Lagertha and Áslaug, two very different characters, are both likely fictitious but nevertheless give us something to think about: the female presence.

Viking women are very much a part of the historical conversation today, particularly as a result of surprising archaeological discoveries. Recently, a warrior’s grave in Birka, Sweden, was reassessed to reveal that the person interred was biologically female, sparking intense debate as to whether this proves the historical existence of female Viking warriors. Similarly, the well-known example of the Oseberg ship burial in Norway is known to have contained women ostentatiously buried in a style similar to male Viking Age chieftains.

Unfortunately, this does not conclusively prove anything at all, but these burials provide small indications of a world that can be further illuminated by a close reading of the narrative sources: the Old Norse sagas. Through my research into the saga representation of aristocratic women, I have found that the Norse pagan image of female power is shown to have been vastly different from contemporary Medieval Europe, which was dominated at the time by clerical Christianity.

The historiographical sections of the saga literature, situated somewhere between history and legend, present a world in which Scandinavian aristocratic women were allowed considerably higher status and influence than their sisters to the south, and this is corroborated by more contemporary written and material evidence.

These same sources indicate that this difference seems to have gradually evaporated with the Scandinavian conversion in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is difficult to assess the actual situation given the nature of the source material, but in the written narratives, women’s power on the socio-political scene disappears almost entirely.

On one hand, Christianisation presented new and different opportunities for women, such as alternative religious careers outside the family, and there are signs of increased relative independence of women from families through these new opportunities. However, increased restraints were imposed upon women’s freedom of action inside the family. Previously having been given great prominence in Scandinavian kin networks, aristocratic women are now shown merely as coin to be spent for political gain.

Women’s role and agency within the religious structures also changed. With Christianisation, women were excluded from their existing place in the mythic cult, and religious leadership became reserved for men alone. Simultaneously, new religious issues were in play: women were now seen as guilty of original sin, more closely connected to sexual uncleanness, and overall, they were to a much larger degree subjugated by men.

All indication suggests that Christianisation appears to have forced women into the ‘private sphere’ and away from what independence they may have enjoyed prior to the conversion. This does not necessarily mean that women’s lives generally became more miserable, but if they lost their autonomy and their access to the public scene, there is an evident transformation of female power that needs to be investigated.

There is need for great care in this area, both as the sagas are notoriously unreliable and because the distinction between the private and the public sphere can be both enticing and misleading, as is the belief in (or hope for) the historical existence of literary archetypes such as female Viking warriors. The body in the Birka grave contains no signs of battle or proof of anything beyond ceremonial status. We have yet to find a real Lagertha, and it is highly possible that we never will.

Overall, however, it seems likely that the sagas and other sources paint a picture of female sociopolitical power increasingly restricted by the rise of Christianity, and that consequently the potential for women’s power was greater, and different in character, prior to the full establishment of the church. Whether this was the case it remains to be seen.

Markus Mindrebø is a doctoral student at Royal Holloway. His thesis explores women, gender and power in Early Medieval Scandinavia.

 

Event: Rediscovering the Women of Royal Holloway and Bedford College: Wikipedia Workshop

The Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome and The Bedford Centre joint event

Thursday June 6^th 2-5pm, International Building, Computer Lab 005

Sarah Parker Remond (1815-94), African-American abolitionist and suffragist

Did you know that Wikipedia is the largest and most influential source of knowledge in the world? The encyclopaedia has five million articles in English, and 800 articles are added every day. Yet only one in six of its 1.5 million biographies feature women, and only 15% of Wikipedia editors are women.

Would you like to know more about Wikipedia’s problematic gender bias? Would you like to be part of the solution? Then please do join us for an afternoon workshop with the aim of increasing the representation of the lives of women staff and graduates of RHUL and Bedford College on Wikipedia. Working with a team of wiki-trainers from Wikimedia UK, the workshop will introduce participants to the skills required to create Wikipedia entries as well as exploring best practice for representing women’s lives online.

No previous knowledge of Wikipedia or editing is required!

This workshop warmly welcomes people of all genders and is for all interested students and staff.

Places on the workshop are limited so please contact Bedford Centre co-ordinator Adam McKie if you would like to join us: adam.mckie.2016@live.rhul.ac.uk

Organised by Dr Liz Gloyn, Professor Jane Hamlett, and Dr Victoria Leonard

The Value of Religion in Women’s History, Part 3: Opportunities and Activism

Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie, c. 1797

Religion was often the centrepiece of Christian women’s identities in the 19^th century. Women prioritised their love for God, as in him was to be found ultimate happiness and purpose, and married women prioritised domestic duties in service to God.

Many religious women in nineteenth-century Britain believed that men and women should have separate roles and responsibilities – that women’s lives should be centred on the home – and that this was an application of the teachings of the Bible.

However, it must also be acknowledged that religion did not sequester women in the home. As noted by many historians who criticise the separate spheres paradigm, faith offered women numerous opportunities as well. Some suggest that religion allowed women to enter a ‘third sphere’ via the church and associated ministries in which they could have an active role.

Indeed, this argument is often used to suggest that separate spheres were not as separate as some historians have argued, since religious women found ample opportunity to engage outside of the home in their churches, communities, and through activism.

In 1763, Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested that women ought to hold the same religious views as their husbands, in order to maintain a docile and submissive order – an important factor in the Christian home. He said the reason for this delineation was because women – due to their weak faculties – would be led astray when left to themselves:

 “Women being incapable of forming articles of faith for themselves, cannot confine them within the limits of evidence and reason; but permitting themselves to be led astray by a thousand foreign impulses, are always wide of the mark of truth…”

Renowned feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, objected to this premise in her famous Vindication of the Rights of Women. She framed her response to Rousseau by arguing that a woman must have some religious autonomy in order to fulfil her domestic roles – as teacher to her children and companion to her husband:

“How should she incline them to those virtues she is unacquainted with, or to that merit of which she has no idea?… How indeed should she, when her husband is not always at hand to lend her his reason?… The man who can be contended to live with a pretty, useful companion, without a mind, has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for more refined enjoyments…”

Wollstonecraft employed faith to argue for improved educational opportunities for women. She suggested that women would be better suited raising children and acting as companions for their husbands if they were permitted substantial education which allowed them to form their own religious opinions.

Thus, even Mary Wollstonecraft, the first renowned ‘modern feminist’, interpreted the liberation of women within religious terms. Often when women engaged themselves in opportunities outside of the ‘domestic sphere’, they used expectations about the feminine role to further their agendas. Their arguments, such as in the case of Wollstonecraft, often focused on benefits which complimented the status quo – such as those which might impact domestic happiness and success.

While from our own contemporary perspective it is easy to see the powerful gendered inequalities in 19^th century society, it is important to understand how women perceived their own lives within this structure. The tensions caused by religion were palpable – though women did often find their own way to manoeuvre within the existing structures.

Admittedly, we can critically assert that these manoeuvres were not enough, certainly not by our standards. However, it is also important to consider the ways women viewed their own agency while living in this reality – which, for religious women, was often connected to their love and service to God, rather than absolute freedom to do as they wished.

Whether a religious woman was a housewife, an activist, or a female minister travelling the globe, they believed their lives and work were intertwined with their religiosity. It is therefore essential to study this intersection when engaging in women’s history.

Angela Platt is a PhD student in Royal Holloway’s Department of History. Her thesis explores the lives of nonconformist families in England between 1780 and 1850.

The Value of Religion in Women’s History, Part 2: ‘Separate Spheres’ and Agency

Elizabeth Fry c. 1823, by Charles Robert Leslie

As previously discussed, religion was an important part of life for many women in 19^th-century Britain – so much so that it informed the centerpiece of their identity. Happiness and purpose were to be found in God and the obedience of his precepts. This could also mean religious beliefs reinforced societal expectations of ‘separate spheres’ for many women.

‘Separate spheres’ is historian lingo for a movement generally believed to have arisen in the late-18^th century as work increasingly became separated from the home due to urbanisation and industrialisation. As this separation grew, men began to leave the home to go to work, while women continued to stay in the home, and were tasked with ‘domestic duties’.

There is much debate among historians as to whether this bifurcation of ‘home’ and ‘work’ was too distinct – suggesting that women and men crossed over these ‘boundaries’ frequently between the public sphere of work, and the private sphere of home. Families heavily influenced by evangelicalism did, however, tend to expect this division to be part and parcel of married life.

Helen Martineau, a Unitarian wife of a physician, remarked how happy domestic life had made her in August 1823, despite her previous apprehension due to her lively life outside the home:

“It is astounding how I am changed. I who used to enjoy society so much. I do still enjoy it, but I have a still dearer source of enjoyment in my child & when my husband also is with me – then it is almost heaven upon earth.”

Some women were worried about getting married at all, in the understanding that they would have to prioritise domestic work and possibly forfeit some of their other activities and interests. Elizabeth Gurney – later Fry – (a thoroughly active Quaker, female minister, and philanthropist) believed that marriage would mean serving God in a ‘different way’ in which the domestic realm would take precedence. She notes in a letter to her cousin in 1799:

“I have almost ever since I have been a little under the influence of religion, rather thought marriage at this time was not a good thing for me…If I have any active duties to perform in the church, if I really follow as far as I am able the voice of Truth in my heart; are they not rather incompatible with the duties of a wife and a mother?… but it is now at this time the prayer of my heart, that if I ever should be a mother, I may rest with my children, and really find my duties lead me to them, and my husband; and if my duty ever leads me from my family, that it may be in a single life.”

Religion shaped women’s understanding of family life, which – in their understanding – expected married women to prioritise domestic duties.

It is important to remember that belief in ‘separate spheres’ was shaped by an understanding of the Bible which was taught by the churches to which the women subscribed. Women were not simply subjected to these rules by force: they believed it was the ‘right thing to do’ to submit to them.

Freedom of choice for women did not always mean the ability to do whatever you wished or to challenge patriarchy – it also was notably defined by the willingness to ‘choose what is right’ – which, for many, were the principles their church believed were aligned with Scripture.

Thus, religious women found their identity and in purpose in God, and prioritised their love for him above all which manifested in their duties and activities. For married women, it was generally anticipated this would mainly include domestic work.

Angela Platt is a PhD student in Royal Holloway’s Department of History. Her thesis explores the lives of nonconformist families in England between 1780 and 1850. The next post will examine exceptions to this norm as religion provided women opportunities in the ‘public sphere’.