The Doctor’s Bag is now open!

If you find yourself in the East Lothian area between now and the end of May, please do pop along to pay a visit to The Doctor’s Bag exhibition, now open at the John Gray Centre in Haddington.

The Doctor’s Bag project began back in early 2020 as a BSHS Engagement Fellowship in partnership with East Lothian Council Museums Service, and should have been completed by the end of the year – however, Covid-19 intervened.

It was a wonderful feeling to finally put the finishing touches to the exhibition and to see it opened to the public.

The exhibition explores the life and career of Dr Jean Walinck, who practiced as a GP in North Berwick from 1958 and 1990. Dr Walinck donated a range of medical equipment, on display in the exhibition, and her thoughts and reminiscences form the basis for the information in the displays.

The Doctor’s Bag appears alongside another exhibition, Over 70 Years Strong, which has been researched and curated by ELC Collections Officer Dr Claire Pannell. Claire’s exhibition explores improvements in public health and healthcare since the NHS was formed in 1948.

Both exhibitions are free to enter, and open from Wednesday to Friday each week, from 10am to 4:30pm (closed for lunch between 1 – 2pm).

Geographies of Knowledge

My review of Geographies of Knowledge: Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Robert J. Mayhew and Charles W. J. Withers, is now available in the latest issue of the British Association for Victorian Studies newsletter.

This edited volume, which is in some part a tribute to the work of geographer David Livingstone, explores the rise of modern science in the nineteenth century through geographical as well as historical contexts, recognising that that ‘where things happen is crucial to knowing why and when they happen’ (p2).

The collection of essays offers an interesting breadth of contexts and narratives and a variety of different perspectives and offers a significant contribution to this developing field.

Geographies of Knowledge: Science, Scale, and Spatiality in the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Robert J. Mayhew and Charles W. J. Withers, is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Institutionalizing Gender

My review of Jessie Hewitt’s Institutionalizing Gender is now published on H-Disability.

Institutionalizing Gender explores gender and power relations in nineteenth century French psychiatry, a period when, Hewitt argues, shifting power dynamics following the French Revolution created a unique environment for innovation in medical treatment and practices. The book takes us on a journey through key moments and contexts that especially reflect the gendered nature of psychiatric doctrines, and points where significant shifts occurred in ideas and practices.

I really enjoyed reading Institutionalizing Gender, finding many parallels and continuities with my own research.

Thanks to funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open and other repositories.

You can read my review of Institutionalizing Gender on H-Disability here.

Depression Detectives

Earlier this month, I took part in a Q&A session organised by the Depression Detectives user-led citizen science project.

The project brings together people who have suffered from depression with the researchers who study it, foregrounding the principle that the lived experience of depression should be at the heart of research into it. The eventual goal is to identify areas where there is a gap in research through this conversation between scientists and non-scientists.

Depression Detectives hosts regular Q&A sessions which give a members of the DD community the opportunity to put questions to experts and researchers, usually scientists and clinicians. The team thought that it would be interesting to add historians of depression to the mix, and invited me to take part.

The Q&A sessions take place via a closed group on Facebook, to allow participants to talk freely and feel comfortable about asking questions, then a transcript of the session is put up on the Depression Detectives blog.

It was a really interesting experience taking part. The session was scheduled to last one hour, and that hour really flew past! People asked some interesting questions and seemed really engaged with the topic. In fact, they asked some really BIG questions and it was difficult to answer them in a short Facebook post! So there was no space for waffling – I really had to think on my feet and try to get to the heart of what I was saying straight away!

It was great to be involved in an initiative that is so people-centred, and to be able to ‘talk’ about my research in a new environment. It was also good to be able to add a historical context to some of the issues talked about by scientists and health experts in other Q&As.

You can read the transcript from my Q&A session here, or by clicking on the image below, and the full range of previous Q&As is available here.

You can find out more about Depression Detectives on their website, and the project also has a public Facebook page.

Image by Depression Detectives

SHS 2021 Online

The Social History Society has just announced plans for this year’s annual conference, to take place online over two weeks from 28 June to 9 July.

The SHS conference is the largest gathering of social and cultural historians in the UK and provides an invaluable opportunity to share research with members old and new. For 43 years, the event has been held in person, but will be online this year following the success of last year’s online event.

The conference programme is again organised into eight thematic strands, ranging across time and space, from the (pre)medieval to the present. I’m delighted to be co-convening the Life Cycles, Families and Communities strand once more, which considers the role these elements play in everyday life, tracing their manifestations across time and space.

The conference is open to SHS members and non-members. Find out more about. this year’s conference and the benefits of becoming a member of the Social History Society on the SHS website.

Women in Red

If you’re a regular user of Wikipedia, you’ll probably know that when a hyperlink shows up in red that means the linked article is missing. What you might not know is that, of all the biographies available on Wikipedia, less than 20% of them are about women. In October 2014, only around 15.53% of English Wikipedia biographies were about women.

The Women in Red WikiProject – named after those red links – aims to change all that. Founded in 2015 by volunteer Wikipedia editor Roger Bamkin, Women in Red holds edit-a-thons around the world and online, in which participants help to gather lists of red-linked articles and create articles to fill those gaps. As of this month, 18.72% of Wikipedia biographies are about women – but that’s still only 333,928 out of 1,784,219 biographies.

This week, I joined in one of Women in Red’s meet-ups online, hosted by the University of Edinburgh and by the university’s Wikimedian in residence Ewan McAndrew. These events take place every month and are open to editors of all genders. The workshop starts with a training session for those new to Wikipedia editing, then the remaining time is spent working away with the aim of getting some new pages published, with Ewan and other experienced editors on hand for help and advice.

Although I’ve been been involved with Protests and Suffragettes, this was my first Women in Red edit-a-thon, and it was great to get involved. We created and published 15 pages during the workshop – some longer than others but getting the pages up there is the focus for the afternoon and then the pages can be worked on and improved later. I’m looking forward to taking part in future Women in Red workshops – events like these are great for making you set aside the time to edit and get some help and advice when you need it from more experienced editors.

Find out more about Women in Red on the project page.

Will you take a walk with me?

Podcast

It’s been a quiet summer, for various reasons, and I have been taking a break from research and writing, so it was especially nice to be contacted by Michael Park from Be Quiet Media with an invitation to take part in a Scotland podcast.  He had come across my Dangerous Women Project submission, published back in 2016, and wanted to turn my short story about Jessie King, entitled Will you take a walk with me?, into a podcast episode.

The Scotland podcast series aims to explore the ‘wee things that make us Scottish’, looking at the stories and events that have shaped the Scottish people. Michael came across my story when he was researching Jessie King in response to a listener poll, and with the help of Leanne Milne, he recorded the story and turned it into a podcast. 

It was great to revisit my story and to hear it read aloud!

You can listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app, or on the Scotland podcast website here, or click on the image below.

Jessie King

In March 1889, Jessie King became the last woman to be executed in Edinburgh. Britain was in the grip of a moral panic surrounding so-called ‘baby farmers’, and Jessie’s crime, the murder of a young child in her care, was considered too ‘heinous’ for her to escape the death penalty.  A dangerous woman, Jessie was sent to the gallows. Yet a closer investigation of the Stockbridge child murderer reveals an intensely vulnerable and manipulated individual, and a victim of her times. Perhaps she was a child killer, and perhaps not.  In many ways, she was little more than a child herself.

Dangerous Women

Jessie’s story is not part of my research as such, but I came across her while researching women and child murder way back at the start of my PhD. When I read about the Dangerous Women project, I thought her story would fit in well with the project theme. Jessie’s story was one of 365 pieces published between International Women’s Day 2016 and International Women’s Day 2017.  The project examined the ‘dangerous women’ theme by inviting reflections from women of diverse backgrounds and identities, including poets, playwrights and other creative writers, academics, journalists, commentators, artists, performers and opinion formers, and indeed anyone with an angle on the theme.  

The project has now entered a new phase as the team have chosen fifty of their favourite pieces and brought them together in a new book.  Contributors include Nicola Sturgeon MSP, feminist historian Chiara Bonfiglioli, and many others. The fifty selections have been fully revised and updated, and details of almost 350 more pieces from the project are included in the book.  Details of how you can get your hands on a copy will be available on the Dangerous Women website.

You can also still read Will you take a walk with me? on the Dangerous Women website too!

Twelve hours of cutting edge social history!

Recordings from this year’s Social History Society online event are now available on the Society’s website. The event, which replaced the 2020 conference cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, comprised a number of video-conferencing panels based around eight conference strands, a COVID-19 themed panel, a plenary talk with Dr David Coast (Bath Spa) and Professor Jo Fox (Director of the Institute of Historical Research), and virtual awards for our annual prizes.

Together with Dr Ann-Marie Foster and Dr Barbara Crosbie, I helped organise and chair the Life Cycles, Families and Communities strand – and you can view that session here – and you can view all the recordings here, and also through the links below, giving you almost 12 hours of cutting edge social history to catch up on!

The online conference was a fantastic success, and huge congratulations must go to everyone who worked together to make it happen, and especially to Ruth Byrne.

Social History 2020 Online Event Programme and Recordings
Life Cycles, Families and Communities Session

 

Social History Society Online Event

We may have had to cancel this year’s conference, but the Social History Society is pleased to be hosting a series of free online events to celebrate and enhance our community of scholarship.

The events, which will run from 22 June-3 July 2020, will include video-conferencing panels based around our eight conference strands, a COVID-19 themed panel, and a plenary talk with Dr David Coast (Bath Spa) and Professor Jo Fox (Director of the Institute of Historical Research).

The format will differ slightly from our usual conference. Each panel will include a range of speakers, giving ten minute presentations on work in progress. The talks will focus on particular sources, methodological quandaries, historiographical revelations, and the challenges encountered while researching in the midst of a pandemic.

Together with Ann-Marie Foster, I’ll be chairing the Life Cycles, Families and Communities panel which takes place on June 30 from 4 – 6 pm.  Click here to find out more and reserve a space in this session, or here to see the full range of panels and events.

The panels are open to everyone but booking is essential to reserve a space. Bookings close at midnight the night before each panel and you will receive a meeting link on the day.

Perceptions of Pregnancy

I’m delighted to have contributed this month’s post to the Perceptions of Pregnancy Researchers’ Network blog.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk

During the course of my research into puerperal insanity in Scotland, I came across a number of cases of women who were required to leave an asylum when physicians became aware that they were pregnant, despite the fact that there had been little or no improvement in their mental health.  I hope to follow this up in a lot more detail at a later date, but a few of the cases I came across formed the basis for this new blog post.

The Perceptions of Pregnancy Researchers’ Network aims to facilitate an international and interdisciplinary conversation on pregnancy and its associated bodily and emotional experiences from the earliest times to the present day.

Find out more at Perceptions of Pregnancy and read my blog post here: ‘Trouble and Expense’: The Pregnant Woman and the Asylum