West of England and South Wales Women's History Network Blog

  Children opening Christmas crackers: illustration on a Victorian Christmas Card It is well-known that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularized the German Christmas Tree in Britain, but what exactly did excited children find under it? [1] A variety of specially made and marketed Christmas gifts were available in the nineteenth century, but they also found practical items – much like the common gift of socks under today’s tree. The novelist and journalist Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury wrote to her friend Jane Welsh Carlyle of one Christmas:   …one was a gathering at Mrs. Schwabe’s for her ‘Christmas Tree’, or rather, ‘New Year’s Eve Tree’, [the party was held on New Year’s Eve] which was a superb affair, and, as your poor — used to say, ‘so expensive’. The guests were chiefly children and family connections; I was nearly the only alien. The presents were a show, and the whole room looked just like the dwelling of a ‘good fairy’, while to see the delight of the children a...

In this fascinating blog based on her presentation at the 2023 WESWWHN Annual Conference on Women and the Natural World: Historical Perspectives on Nature Climate and Environmental Change, Charlotte Oakes explores East German women’s participation in the global ecofeminism movement.   The Democratic Republic of Germany (GDR) was not the first nor the last place for ecofeminist thought to proliferate. Existing research portrays ecofeminism as a globally resonant political ideology but one predominantly focused within the Western hemisphere [1]. To demonstrate that ecofeminism did exist outside of the former capitalist bloc, my paper looks closely at the form that the political ideology took in contemporary East Germany. Ecofeminism, a strand of feminist thought reliant on the belief that women and nature are inextricably connected, flourished from the 1970s onwards [2]. In my period of study, 1968-1989, the woman/nature bond became a valuable tool for some women to justify thei...

Naomi Oakley, Archivist with Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre, describes the recent 'Rooted in History' project which used garden and nature-related archives to encourage people to garden. Naomi had arranged to present a paper on the subject at our last Annual Conference on Women and the Natural World: Historical Perspectives on Nature Climate and Environmental Change, but was unfortunately prevented.    In 2022 the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre were awarded £10,000 through the National Archives’ testbed fund (a fund to trial ideas) with the aim of using garden and nature related archives to encourage physical activity, mental wellbeing, and to get people gardening. The gardening theme also allowed us to further develop our relationship with Rooted Chippenham, a community market garden founded by two women in 2021 and which is based on the History Centre site. One of the benefits of the ‘Rooted in History’ project has been the opportunity to delve into the ...