Single Women in History:
1000-2000 Programme
Supported by Women's History Network, the British Academy and the Economic History Society
West of England & South Wales Women's History Network
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Supported by Women's History Network, the British Academy and the Economic History Society
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Friday June 23rd
Registration from 9.am. The Link
10.00. The Chapel Lecture Theatre
Welcome by Sir Howard Newby, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West of England
1st Plenary session Chair June Hannam
Katherine Holden, University of the West of England,
The shadow of marriage: defining the single in twentieth century Britain
11.00 Coffee Main Building M30
Parallel Sessions – all start at 11.30 am
Strand 1, Work/Migration
Gender, Work and Marital Status Main Building M29
Chair: Raingard Esser, University of the West of England,
Valerie Hall, Peace College, North Carolina, USA Single Women in Farming and Inshore Fishing Communities in Northumberland, England, 1870-1939
Deborah Simonton University of Southern Denmark: ‘Doing it for themselves: negotiating the commercial world in eighteenth-century towns’
Moira Martin, University of the West of England, Single Women in unpaid social and philanthropic work in late 19th and early 20th century England
Strand 2 Family/Sexuality
Single Women and Demography Main Building M9
Chair: Fiona Reid, University of Glamorgan
Kathrin Levitan, University of Chicago, USA, Redundancy, the “Surplus Woman” Problem, and the British Census, 1851-1861
Andrew Hobbs, Preston, UK, It doesn’t add up: Myths and measurement problems of births to single women in Blackpool, 1931-1971
Christine Jones, University of Essex, UK, Those whom God hath not joined: a study of single women and men in 19th century England
Strand 3 Politics/Social Action
Single Women’s Networks Main Building, M33
Chair: Ursula Masson, University of Glamorgan
Karen Phoenix, University of Illinois, USA, A Global Network of Single Women (This paper will be read by Sarah Toulalan, University of Exeter)
Linda Marz, American University of Paris, France, Faith in a Single Network: Emmeline Pethick, Mary Neal and the West London Mission
Lee Chambers, University of Colorado, Singlehood, Sibship, and Sororiality: Challenging the “Rule of the Brother” in Nineteenth-Century America
Strand 4 Cultural Representations
Images of Single Women in Journalism and Parliament Main Building M14
Chair: June Hannam, University of the West of England
Fiona Hackney, Falmouth University College, UK “That Dangerous Modern Problem”: Single Girls and Working Women in Commercial Women’s Magazines in the Inter-War Years
Martine Stirling, University of Nantes, France Images of Spinsters in British Parliamentary Debates during the Interwar Years
Erika Flahault, University of Maine-Le Mans, France, The perception of the press on "single women" in France from 1900 to date
1.00 Lunch Traders Cafe Bar
Parallel Sessions – all start at 2.00 pm
Strand 1: Work/Migration
Wealth, Property and Enterprise Main Building M9
Chair: Moira Martin, University of the West of England
Jill Powlett Brown, University of Edinburgh, UK A Unique Concentration: Single women living and Working in an Edinburgh SuburbStephanie Wyse, Kings College, London, UK Gender, Wealth and Margins of Empire: Wealth of urban New Zealand Spinster and Widows, c1890-1950
Deborah Wilson, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK Single women and property in the Irish Wealthy landed class 1750-1850
Strand 2: Family/Sexuality
Single Motherhood Main Building M29
Chair: Katherine Holden, University of the West of England
Tanya Evans, Centre for Contemporary British History, University of London, UK, Unmarried Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Britain
Offra Koffman, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK, From unmarried mothers to teenage pregnancy?: social scientific literature in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.
Alyson Henley-Einion, University of the West of England, UK, Doing what was best for the baby: dimensions of single motherhood through three generations
Strand 3: Politics/Social Action
Single Women and Political Action Main Building M 33
Ursula Masson, University of Glamorgan
June Hannam, University of the West of England, UK, “Married to the Labour Party”, single women and British Labour politics between the wars.
Jane Howells, Salisbury, UK, Sister of the More Famous Henry
Tricia Franzen, Albion College, Michigan, USA, The Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and US Womanhood
Strand 4: Cultural Representations
Single Women and Fiction Main Building M 14
Chair: Fiona Reid, University of Glamorgan
Stephanie Oppenheim, The City University of New York, USA, Spinsterhood and the 18th- and 19th-Century British Woman Writer
Estella Tincknell, University of the West of England, UK, Jane or Prudence? Barbara Pym’s single women, female fulfilment and career choices in the age of marriage.
Sonya Tiernan, University College Dublin, Ireland, Engagements Dissolved; Eva Gore-Booth, Urania and the Challenge to Marriage.
3.30 Tea Main Building M30
Parallel Sessions – all start at 4.00 pm
Strand 1 Work/Employment
Lone Women and Independence Main Building M33
Chair: Madge Dresser, University of the West of England
Melanie Gustafson, University of Vermont, Harriet Hubbard Ayer’s New York Career in Face Creams, Tonics and Advice to Women and Men.
Angela Leonard, Loyola College in Maryland, Black Women in "Juke Joints"
Orsolya Kereszty, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, Promoting women’s education both practically and theoretically: The life and works of Antonina De Gerando
Strand 2 Family/Sexuality
Single Women and Social Deviance Main Building M29
Chair: Moira Martin University of the West of England
Gillian Swanson, University of the West of England, UK, The gratification of the Moment...the Limit of their Mental Horizon: Eugenics, Psychology and the ‘Problem Girl’
Cliona Rattigan, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, Being a single girl I was afraid of the disgrace: single women and Infanticide in Britain and Ireland 1922-1949
Antje Kampf , Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, “A little World of your own”: singleness, gender and contact tracing venereal disease cases in 20th century New Zealand
Strand 5 Conceptualising Marital Status
Spinsterhood in Differing Cultural Contexts Main Building M14
Chair: Katherine Holden, University of the West of England
Roona Simpson, Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh, Accounting for Spinsterhood: Changing Discourses around Partnership and Parental Status
Arja Mäkinen University of Tampere, Finland, Spinsters, city singles, sad losers and maybe lesbians
Sheila Wright, University of York, UK, Status and being a Single Woman in the Society of Friends – 1750-1850
Strand 6 Religion/Spirituality
Single Women and Medieval Mysticism Main Building M9
Chair: Virginina Bainbridge, Editor, Wiltshire Victoria County History
Anita Higgie, Catholic University of Paris, France, Medieval Mystics: a wife’s affective piety in the shadow of an Anchoresses’ intellectual response
Frances Beer, York University, Ontario, Canada, Radical Mystics: Hildegard, Mechtild, Julian and the power of being single
Sophia Lucia Deboick, London, UK ‘…all man…is synfull…of which man I am a member’ – Julian of Norwich, Sin, Singleness and Socialisation
5.45- 6.15 AGM of the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network
Main Building M29
6.30 Reception The BOX (enter through Traders cafe Bar)
7pm Documentary film: The Misses Autti at the Window by Mervi Autti The Chapel Lecture Theatre
7.45 Dinner Traders Cafe Bar
Saturday June 24th
Registration from 9am The Link
10.00 Second Plenary Session The Chapel Lecture Theatre
Chair: Elaine Chalus, Bath Spa University,
Amy Froide, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, USA, The Spinster and the Old Maid: Representations of Never-Married Women in Early Modern England
11.00 Coffee Main Building M30
Parallel Sessions – all start at 11.30 am
Strand 1 Work/Migration
Single Women, Work and Migration Main Building M29
Chair: June Hannam, University of the West of England
Jennifer Redmond, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Sinful Singleness?: The morally problematic emigration of single Irish Women, 1922-1948
Mary Muldowney, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Wartime Adventurers?: Single Irish Women and War Work in Britain, 1939-1945
Strand 2 Family/Sexuality
Single Women and Witchcraft Main Building M9
Chair: Peter Fleming, University of the West of England
Martha C. Skeeters, University of Oklahoma, USA, Single Mothers Surviving: Evidence from early modern English Witchcraft Cases
Linda McGuire, The Solitary Old Woman: Images of Danger and Persecution
Strand 4 Cultural Representation
Single women and the Visual Arts Main Building M14
Chair: Fiona Reid, University of Glamorgan
Midori Green, University of Minnesota, USA, The Noir Secretary
Mervi Autti, University of Lapland, Finland, The Misses Autti’s 1920: A Gaze at the Northern Modern through Photography
Sue Lovell, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, Vida Lahey, art and self-representation
Strand 5 Conceptualising Marital Status
Using Marital Status as an Analytic Category Main Building M33
Chair: Amy Froide, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, USA
Hanne Marie Johansen, University of Bergen, Norway, Divorced women’s status and rights as “social widows” - The example of Norway - 17th and 18th century.”
Catherine Dollard, Denison University, Ohio, USA, Fraulein oder Frau: German Women between Marriage. Work and War 1850-1919
Jenea Tallentire, University of British Columbia, Canada, Thinking through marital status as a category of analysis
1.00 Lunch Traders Cafe Bar
Parallel Sessions – all start at 2.00 pm
Strand 2 Family/Sexuality
Women’s Friendships and Intimate Relationships Main Building M29
Chair: June Hannam, University of the West of England
Amanda Harris, University of New South Wales, Australia, Music versus marriage: Women composers at the turn of the twentieth century.
Erin Gill, University of Wales Aberystwyth, UK Careful how you classify her: Lady Eve Balfour women’s single status.
Strand 5: Conceptualising Marital Status
Marital Status and the Law Main Building M33
Chair: Sarah Toulalan, University of Exeter
Elaine Chalus, Bath Spa University, UK ‘She was universally reputed, received and acted as a single woman’: perceptions of the legally single woman in the eighteenth century
Cordelia Beattie, University of Edinburgh, UK, Medieval Single Women: Categorizing Women in Late Medieval England.
Strand 6: Religion/Spirituality
Single Women, Celibacy and Prostitution Main Building M9
Chair: Moira Martin University of the West of England
Mytheli Sreenivas, The Ohio State University, UK, Between divine marriage and mundane prostitution: Devadasis and categories of singleness in late colonial India
Priyadarshini Vijaisri, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India.
The Myth of the Consecrated Virgin: Defining Single women in Hindu Regional Tradition
Tsvetana Boncheva, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria Regarding the Problem of Women’s Religious Celibacy among the Bulgarian Catholics in Plovdiv Region during the First Half of the 20th Century
3.30 Tea Main Building M30
4.00 Third Plenary Session: Singleness Studies: The Way Ahead Main Building M33
Chair: June Hannam, University of the West of England
Closing discussion led by Anne Byrne, National University of Galway, Ireland, preceded by a short paper: Creating Dana: Single women look back, look forwards
5pm conference ends