Description
In May 2021, The Devil’s Porridge Museum hosted an online conference on the theme of Women in War. Over two days, there were six panels with 24 different speakers looking at various different aspects of women in war. The conference also included a keynote lecture by Professor Angela Woollacottt, author of ‘On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War’ and a performance by Claire Hastings, award winning folk musician, of her son ‘The Gretna Girls’.
If you missed the conference, this is an opportunity to gain access to the recordings, powerpoints and performance. Within a couple of days of completing your purchase, you will receive an email to a link to access the recordings. There is no time limit on this and you can access this as often as you wish. Please do not share the link or make use of any of the recordings without the permission of The Devil’s Porridge Museum.
Conference Plan
Day 1: Thursday May 20th
9.15 Welcome and introduction
Panel 1
‘Pitching in’: women hockey players in World War One
Dr Jo Halpin, PhD in Sport History, University of Wolverhampton
Female cinema employees of The Second World War
Linda Pike, MPhil/PhD student at University of Worcester
Art and artifact: women war artists from allied nations in World War One and Two
Dr Mary Raum, Professor at United States Naval War College, Rhode Island
‘Two cup finals and then banned for life’: women’s football in World War One
Martin Peagam, Local historian and researcher, Cleveland and Teesside
Panel 2
Whatever happened to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erica Remark?
Jon Wilkins, PhD researcher, University of Aberystwyth
Does she deserve the vote? Women’s First World War Work and Women’s Franchise
Lucienne Boyce, Writer of historical fiction and working on a biography of suffrage campaigner, Millicent Price
Irish Women in Resistance in World War Two
Mary Moynihan, Writer, Director, Theatre and Film Maker, Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
‘Singing for our lives’: music, song and artwork from the women of Greenham Common
Celia Outram-Turner, University of Manchester Masters student currently on placement at the Imperial War Museum
Panel 3
Ballistic Women: civilian and military women in ballistic testing from 1918 to 1980s Dr Nina Baker, independent researcher
‘A regular terror’: Laura Annie Willson, suffragette, munition worker, engineer, businesswoman, housebuilder, founder member and president of both the Women’s Engineering Society and the Electrical Association for Women
Henrietta Heald, Author of Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines: a centenary of the Women’s Engineering Society
Women and the North Eastern Railway in the First World War
Rob Langham, independent researcher
The Verena Holmes Diaries (1945-1947)
Helen Close, Women’s Historian and Heritage Project Manager, Women’s Engineering Society
Katherine Kirk, Lecturer in Engineering
Lecture from key note speaker: Professor Angela Woollacott (pre-recorded due to time difference)
Day Two Friday May 21st
Panel 4
‘What claims have such workers upon the country?’ Leeds munitionettes and the problem of demobilisation.
Lauren Theweneti PhD candidate University of Hull
Women on the Railways
Dr Becky Peacock, Museum Director of Scottish Railways Museum
Fashioned for War: The Essential Role of Women in the Utility Clothing Scheme 1941-1945
Lucy McConnell, Dress and Textile historian, Doctoral candidate at University of Huddersfield
Wartime Yarns: experiences of female millworkers at Stanley Mills during World War Two
Fiona Davidson, Learning Officer, Historic Environment Scotland
Panel 5
‘The pluckiest little country in the world and the most misunderstood’: Rewriting the Balkans in the First World War memoirs of British medical women.
Ross Cameron, PhD researcher School of Modern Languages and Culture (University of Glasgow) and the Humanities and Social Sciences Graduate School (University of Strathclyde)
In the name of the Chinese Red Cross: women’s activism, gender roles and humanitarian relief efforts during wartime (1937-1945)
Federica Cicci, PhD student University of Venice
‘The employment of policewomen is not considered necessary at this time’: Women’s policing in Staffordshire during the Second World War and resistance to it
Lisa Cox-Davies, Doctoral student, University of Worcester
Great Grandma Barrett was a Shining Women: Reflections on the Radium Girls and Industrial Disease
Erin Becker, Visitor Services and Volunteer Co-ordinator Long Island Maritime Museum
Panel 6
Scotland’s own Land Girls; the Women’s Land Army during WWII
Elaine Edwards, Manager and Curator of Biggar Museum
The 2nd Airborne Division: American Women at War
Orla Kennelly, Trust Librarian at the American Library, Norwich
They Were Soldiers, These Women: A Women’s Army Corps Officer in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
Patrick Naughton, US army officer and Military Historian
‘Anything to Anywhere’: the Women Pilots in the ATA
Liz Millward, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba, Canada
Conference close: performance of ‘The Gretna Girls’ by Claire Hastings, folk musician.
