IWD 2022: Sources
Our first ever alumna
Writing about a woman we know literally nothing about is not as easy as it sounds. We can say nothing with any certainty, but we can speculate. If we look at the context of what we do know and pair it with what we can find out about the time period, a blurry picture of our first ever alumna emerges. In a time when disease was rampant, living standards for many were poor and seemingly important records could be lost to history, we used a range of sources to build a blurry idea of Victoria.
150 years of women at YSJ
Some of our history is very well-documented. Other aspects are less so. When looking back to 1872 and 1922, there was far less to look at then when we looked into 1972 or 2022. In fact, although we hold some records, we don’t hold them all and it is far easier to find out what life was like for women in general, than those specifically in Ripon or York.
Sources used
Books
- Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
- Life More Abundant: York St John University 1841-2008 by Gordon McGregor
- Ripon Training College 1862 – 1962: The First Hundred Years by A M Wilkinson
TV and Film
Online sources
Victorian life
- An article about the working class and the poor in Victorian England from The British Library
- An article about education in Victorian Britain from The British Library
- Information from the UK Parliament website about the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act
- An article from the Smithsonian magazine about anaesthesia and childbirth
- A blog post about a York St John student researcher’s work about YSJ’s links to colonialism, including missionary work
- An abstract from a longer research document about the history of lesbians in Britain since 1500
The 1920s
- An article about marriage bars in interwar Britain
- A BBC webpage with an overview about marriage bars and an unsuccessful court case challenging them
- A webpage on the .GOV website about The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919
- A news article from The Telegraph listing 13 things women couldn’t do 100 years ago
The 1970s
- A timeline of the women’s liberation movement from 1960 onwards from the British Library
- An excerpt from Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the UK Woman’s Liberation Movement, 1968-present
- A Guardian article about the first National Women’s Liberation Conference
The 2010s-2022
- An article from the Institute for Fiscal Studies about the gender pay gap for graduates
- An article from Digital Trends about the size of a smartphone
- A list of items and spaces designed for men from Business Insider
- A BBC news article listing 8 ways the world is not designed for women
- A Guardian article about items not built to work for women, and their consequences
General Information
- An article about domestic violence in the UK in the past, present and looking ahead
- A webpage about the number of women MPs from the House of Commons Library
- A webpage with further information about women MPs from the House of Commons Library
- A timeline from Monster (a careers website) about women in the workplace
- A Guardian timeline about women’s rights and their money
