vendredi 22 mars 2013

Louise Raw / Bryant and May Matchwomen


Séminaire franco-britannique d’histoire
Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, en partenariat avec l'Institute of Historical Research (University of London) et le Groupe d'histoire intellectuelle (Université Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis)
Maison de la Recherche, 28 rue Serpente, Paris 6e, salle D040

Jeudi 28 mars à 17h30 : Louise Raw, autour de son livre Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History (Continuum, 2011)
Abstract: This book, about a strike by 1,400 mostly young and female London- matchwomen in 1888,  revealed for the first time that the matchwomen were the mothers of the entire modern labour movement, and not the puppets of Victorian ‘celebrity socialists’ like George Bernard Shaw and Annie Besant, as had been previously claimed. Their strike was a turning point in British history, and sowed the seeds of today’s global trade union movement, and the UK Labour party.
By tracing descendants of the matchwomen, Louise Raw was able to reveal that the wild and wonderful women of Bryant and May were far from helpless ‘little matchgirls’.  They had the respect and love of their families and communities, and actually issued threats to ‘Jack the Ripper’, whose crimes in their East End neighbourhoods began shortly after their victory. The very identities which made the matchwomen ‘the lowest of the low’ to their supposed betters were actually key to their success, the book argues. They shared an Irish heritage, and the London Irish community was politicised by oppression at home, with traditions of solidarity and defiance of authority. They were the friends, neighbours and relations of the mostly-Irish London dockers who began a massive strike in 1889, and whose leaders would urge their men to ‘remember the matchgirls, who won their fight and formed a union’.

Le texte est disponible sur simple demande.
Discutante : Marie Terrier (Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle / Caen)

jeudi 14 mars 2013

JE SAGEF/GRER : Women and the Great War


Vendredi 12 avril 2013
Université Paris Diderot
Bâtiment Olympe de Gouges, salle 720

9h30 -10h00 Accueil
10h00 -11h00 Keynote Speaker
Pr Laura Doan (Université de Manchester, Angleterre)
« 'Muscular Femininity': The Amazon and the Public during the First World War »
11h-12h
Dr Claire Delahaye (Université de Tours)
« Aux armes, citoyennes ! Soldates et organisations paramilitaires pendant la Grande Guerre »
12h-14h Déjeuner
14h-15h
Dr Florence Binard (Université Paris-Diderot) 
« The 'War-working type' of 'woman' and 'race degeneration' in inter-war Britain »
15h-16h
Dr John Mullen (Université Paris Est-Créteil)
« Les femmes dans le music-hall britannique durant la Grande Guerre 1914-1918 »
16h-17h
Dr Marc Calvini (Université Aix-Marseille)
« Identifying Feminism in the Context of Total War »

Sisterhood and After - Oral History

The British Library has just launched a unique oral history archive depicting the stories of those involved in the Women’s Liberation Movement, developed in partnership with the University of Sussex and The Women’s Library. 
The interviews can be listened to in full at the Library and you can find excerpts on their website at http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/sisterhood/index.html.