Speaker: Professor Krista Cowman
This talk relates to a regional aspect of the history of women’s politics in the United Kingdom in the period before the First World War. Its purpose is to investigate how women’s politics functioned at the grass roots, away from the schisms and personality clashes of the national political scene. The talk investigates the membership, activities and campaigning of a variety of formal political organisations ranging from branches of national auxiliary bodies such as the Women’s Liberal Federation through women’s involvement in local branches of the Independent Labour Party and on to the autonomous suffrage organisations. The impact of the all-female suffrage campaigns on older political groups in which women still competed with men for positions and policies is also considered.
Professor Cowman studied English and History at the University of Keele. Subsequently she taught in a secondary school in East London while studying for an MA in the History of the European Labour Movement at the Institute of Historical Research funded by Newham Council. Following this she taught in the Department of History University of York and for the Open University then the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University from 1998. In 2006 she moved to the University of Lincoln as its first Professor of History. She joined the School of History Politics and International Relations at Leicester in the summer of 2021.
Tickets available April 30.
