Sisters of the Revolution Part 2

What to expect at this event

Acclaimed historians – Professor Maggie Andrews, Dr Janis Lomas and Jane Robinson –  will invite audiences to examine pivotal moments and objects from the history of women’s rights and the suffrage movement, including a spotlight on the campaigns of the suffragists and suffragettes which led to the 1918 Representation of the People Act.

Maggie and Janis take a sideways look at the developing role of women in society: what are the objects that symbolise their journey from second-class citizens with no legal rights, no vote and no official status to the powerful people they are today? And what are the objects that oppress women even now? THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN 100 OBJECTS documents the inanimate objects that have changed their lives, from the corset to the contraceptive pill, the bones of the first woman to Rosa Parks’s mugshot and the iconic Mary Quant cape. Maggie is Professor of Cultural History at Worcester University. Janis is a founding member of the Women’s History Network.

Jane is a social historian specialising in the study of women pioneers. HEARTS AND MINDS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE AND HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE tells the story of the suffragists: the non-militant campaigners for the vote. They were rich and poor, young and old, they defied convention, risked jobs, family relationships and even their lives to persuade the country to listen to them. Eventually they joined forces on an astonishing six-week protest march they called the Great Pilgrimage. By turns dangerous, exhausting and exhilarating, the Great Pilgrimage transformed the personal and political lives of women in Britain for ever. HEARTS AND MINDS was featured on BBC Radio 4 Start the Week. Jane lives in London but her forebears were printers in Lincolnshire!