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Tag: Suffragettes

Women and Wikipedia….Open Learning and a hobby for life!

This post is the seventh in a series of blog posts for Open Education Week.

By Karen Bowman, University of Edinburgh

Public Domain Image, Wikimedia Commons

I am Karen, a member of the University of Edinburgh administrative staff. I spotted a new open learning experience for staff and students in Creative Learning Week 2018 with ‘no experience needed’ – Wikipedia edit-a-thon for Vote100 centenary anniversary of (some) women’s right to vote [1].

To my amazement, I found that I could quickly:

  • create Wikipedia articles in a fun, educational and empowering afternoon,
  • learn from great teachers, with cakes and coffee on hand,
  • be part of a community of (mainly) women making a difference [2],
  • access a range of research, references, materials to hand, discussions and sharing.

Wikimedians Ewan McAndrew from the University and Alice White from Wellcome Library made it all so easy!

Now with a bit of an ‘addiction’ to editing Wikipedia (for women, especially for the amazingly brave suffragettes), I have been known to

  • wear ‘We can edit’ T-shirt, sport a ‘Deeds not Words’ sticker on the laptop,
  • meet, share ideas with Wikimedian Roger, co-founder of ‘Women In Red‘,
  • repeat the ‘refresher’ training, but never feel inadequate in my skills,
  • find constant support as a volunteer and aware of joining a global effort,
  • listen to a University archivist sharing the history of our University,
  • see an original letter to Christabel Pankhurst in prison, from one of University of Edinburgh’s few female students,
  • read the handwritten register of the University Womens’ Education Group from an era when ‘we’ could study but couldn’t graduate [3].

A joyful open learning community is truly collegial and uplifting, and even has cute messages of support.

== A cupcake for you! ==Many thanks for coming to our International Women’s Day editathon today, Karen.

 

Vote 100 Editathon, CC BY, Karen Bowman

A hobby for life

Processions Karen & Suzanne, CC BY SA, Kaybeesquared, Wikimedia Commons

Now I am proud to tell family and friends of my new (though limited) editing skills, made so easy in VisualEdit and with great Wikimedians there to help!

So I re-joined the University Library and local City Library to track down secondary sources to cite on our suffragists and suffragettes[4][5], joined events on the topic and was part of the Processions 2018 artwork with thousands of women acknowledging the success and the suffering and sheer persistence of notable (and less known) women who led the way and as a result now have my own picture in Wikimedia Commons, and a hobby for life!

Open Learning from history

Open Learning[6] has helped me enjoy learning from the past and creating materials again to acknowledge the women who made it possible for me to march, to have a political voice, complete graduate education, and have a long, varied and satisfying professional life.

Thanks to Open Learning and Ewan McAndrew, University of Edinburgh Wikimedian in Residence – Inspiring Women!

Wikimedia Partnership of the Year, CC BY SA, Stinglehammer, Wikimedia Commons

References

^ “Vote 100 home”. University of Edinburgh Vote 100 homepage.

^ Leonard, Victoria (12 December 2018). “Female scholars are marginalised on Wikipedia because it’s written by men”. The Guardian. Retrieved 17 February 2019.

^ “Bodleian Oxford University re First Woman Graduate”.

^ Rosen, Andrew (1974). Rise Up, Women!. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

^ Atkinson, Diane (2018). Rise Up Women: the fascinating lives of the suffragettes. ISBN 9781408844045.

6 ^ “Centre for Open Learning at The University of Edinburgh”.

About the author

Karen Bowman is Joint Director of Procurement at the University of Edinburgh, FCIPS, now part-retired. A former NHS Scotland procurement leader and hospice pain research nurse, she started and led the University staff/student Fair Trade steering group and was awarded the Principal’s Medal for outstanding service in 2011. She has continued to learn throughout her life including with Dame Cecily Saunders, OM, DBE; with Harriet Lamb CBE and since joining in Open Learning events and with ‘Women in Red’ is now starting to wiki-edit (a little).

Celebrating 100 years of Votes for Women

A photograph of the Great Procession and Women’s Demonstration in Edinburgh in 1909. The image shows crowds of people congregated together to watch the procession. Many of those marching are carrying large banners. There is a brass band marching in front of the banner procession. There are also horses and carts that are carrying men and women. The photograph also shows a long view of Princes Street, which emphasises the amount of people who turned out for the demonstration. CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons – kindly shared by Edinburgh Central Library’s Capital Collections.

To celebrate 100 years since the Representation of the People Act (1918) gave some women the vote, we held three #Vote100 Wikipedia editing events.

34 brand new biography articles have now surfaced on Wikipedia about Scotland’s suffragettes and the Eagle House suffragettes, along with 220 improved pages and items of data so people can discover all about their lives and contributions.

Wikipedia editathon for Processions 2018 at the University of Edinburgh Library. CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons

Students and staff creating new Wikipedia pages about Scottish suffragettes at Processions 2018. CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons.

 

“Annie’s Arboretum” at Eagle House

Eagle House (suffragette’s rest) became an important refuge for suffragettes who had been released from Holloway prison after hunger strikes. Many major people from the suffragette movement were invited to stay at Eagle house and to plant a tree to celebrate a prison sentence — at least 47 trees were planted between April 1909 and July 1911, including by Emmeline Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Charlotte Despard, Millicent Fawcett and Lady Lytton.

Read more in the Histropedia timeline (external website).

Suffragettes Annie Kenney, Mary Blathwayt and Emmeline Pankhurst, Eagle House, Batheaston 1910. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The Scottish suffragettes

New Wikipedia pages have been created about: Maude Edwards slashing the portrait of King George V at the Royal Scottish Academy and her defiance at trial; the force-feeding of Frances Gordon and Arabella Scott at Perth Prison by the doctor who was “emotionally hooked” to Arabella Scott and offered to escort her to Canada; the attempted arson conducted by pioneer doctor Dorothea Chalmers Smith; the Aberdonian suffragette & organiser, Caroline Phillips, being sacked by telegram by Christabel Pankhurst; and the “energetic little woman from Stranraer” Jane Taylour who was a firebrand lecturer on Women’s Suffrage touring up and down Scotland and England.

Read more in the Histropedia timeline (external website).

Bessie Watson – suffragette aged 9 years old.
In 1909, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) staged a march through Edinburgh to demonstrate “what women have done and can and will do”. Bessie Watson had played the bagpipes from an early age and at the age of nine she was asked to join the WSPU march and play the pipes. The march had a big impact on Bessie and she became involved in the suffragette movement. This involved playing the pipes outside the Calton Gaol to raise the spirits of incarcerated suffragettes. Playing the pipes led Bessie to do remarkable things and she became one of the first Girl Guides in Edinburgh and was seen by the King. The Capital Collections exhibition includes images of Bessie and the 1909 march as well as pictures of Calton Gaol. CC-BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons. Kindly shared by Edinburgh Central Library’s Capital Collections.

She Persisted – Outcomes of ‘Bragging Writes’ Wikipedia event for International Women’s Day 2017

by Lafayette (Lafayette Ltd), half-plate film negative, 3 February 1928

Suffragist and journalist Helen Alexander Archdale. Pic by Lafayette (Lafayette Ltd), half-plate film negative, 3 February 1928

As part of Gather Festival 2017 and to mark International Women’s Day, on Wednesday 8th March 2017, the University’s Information Services team ran a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at the School of Informatics. Full Wikipedia editing training was given to attendees before the afternoon’s editathon focused on creating new articles about the many inspiring women missing from Wikipedia.

In November 2014, just over 15% of the English Wikipedia’s biographies were about women. Founded in July 2015, WikiProject Women in Red has brought the figure up to 16.83%, as of 29 January 2017. But that means, according to WHGI, only 242,601 of our 1,441,879 biographies are about women. Not impressed? “Content gender gap” is a form of systemic bias, and Women in Red events take place across the globe in order to address it in a positive way.

Screengrab of latest WHGI stats.

Screengrab of latest WHGI stats.

 

Mary Susan McIntosh (1936–2013) sociologist, feminist, political activist and campaigner for lesbian and gay rights in the UK.

Mary Susan McIntosh (1936–2013) sociologist, feminist, political activist and campaigner for lesbian and gay rights in the UK.

Outcomes – New pages created

  • Helen Alexander Archdale – (1876–1949) was a feminist, activist, and journalist. Helen took part in a WSPU demonstration in Edinburgh on the 9th of October 1909. Later that month she was arrested with Adela Pankhurst and Maud Joachim in Dundee and convicted of a breach of the peace after interrupting a meeting being held by the local MP, Winston Churchill. Following this on 20th October all three women went on hunger strike. All three were released after four days of imprisonment. In December 1911 Helen received a sentence of two months’ imprisonment for window-breaking at Whitehall.  Her daughter, Betty Archdale (1907-2000) remembered collecting stones for her mother to use, and visiting her in Holloway Prison. Helen was the secretary, and later international secretary, for the Six Point Group founded by Margaret Rhondda. The group’s specific aims were: (1) Satisfactory legislation on child assault; (2) Satisfactory legislation for the widowed mother; (3) Satisfactory legislation for the unmarried mother and her child; (4) Equal rights of guardianship for married parents; (5) Equal pay for teachers; (6) Equal opportunities for men and women in the civil service. In 1926 Helen and Margaret founded the Open Door Council with Chrystal Macmillan and Elizabeth Abbott in order to focus on economic emancipation. In 1927 Helen became active in international feminist activism, and began working in Geneva lobbying for an Equal Rights Treaty at the League of Nations in the early 1930s. She became secretary of the Liaison Committee of Women’s International Organisations, a coalition to promote equal rights, disarmament and women’s representation at the League. From 1929 to 1934 she chaired Equal Rights International, founded at The Hague ,an organisation dedicated to promoting campaigning for equality of women with men in law and in the workplace. Helen was also active in Open Door International, also founded in 1929, and a leading advocate of the equalitarian feminism.
  • Agnes Syme Macdonald (1882 – 1996) was a Scottish suffragette who served as the secretary of the Edinburgh branch of the WSPU before setting up the Edinburgh Women Citizens Association (WCA) in 1918[1]. She was WCA’s fist and longest-serving secretary. She campaigned on various social issues and was active in the Quaker relief work for European refugees (Society of Friends); the Barns School for delinquent city boys and the Edinburgh Old People’s Welfare Council.
  • Catherine Isabella Barmby – (1816/17 – 26 December 1853) was an utopian socialist and writer on women’s emancipation. She was the daughter of Bridstock Watkins and belonged to the lower-middle class. Little is known of her early life or education, however, her instruction allowed her to become a writer and lecturer. She wrote several articles for the Owenite socialist newspaper New Moral World on feminist demands and her Millennialist beliefs.
  • Ketaki Kushari Dyson – (nee Ketaki Kushari) is a Bengali-born poet, novelist, playwright, translator and critic, diaspora writer and scholar. Born (26 June 1940) and educated in Calcutta (Kolkata), she has lived most of her adult life near Oxford, U.K. She writes in Bengali and English, on topics as wide-ranging as Bengal, England, the various Diaspora, feminism and women’s issues, cultural assimilation, multiculturalism, gastronomy, social and political topics.
  • Mary Susan McIntosh (1936–2013) sociologist, feminist, political activist and campaigner for lesbian and gay rights in the UK. In 1960 Mary was deported from the USA for speaking out against the House Un-American Activities Committee. On her return to the UK Mary worked as a researcher for the Home Office from 1961 to 1963 before taking up the post of lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester from 1963 to 1968. Mary joined the University of Essex in 1975 as a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, she later became the first female head of the department and remained at the University until she retired in 1996. Throughout her career Mary taught a wide range of courses covering criminology, theory, sociology, social policy, the family, gender studies, feminism and Marxism.
  • Mira Hamermesh (15 July 1923 – 19 February 2012) was an independent Polish filmmaker and artist who made documentaries for British television. She was a student of painting at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem and later moved to London to study at the Slade School of Art. Mira returned to Poland in 1960 to study at the polish film school where she began documenting her personal experience of fleeing Nazi occupied Germany as a Jewish teenager.
  • Mary Elizabeth Phillips (suffragette) (15 July 1880 – 21 June 1969) was a suffragette, feminist and socialist. Mary was the longest serving suffragette prisoner.
  • Mona Wilson (author) (29 May 1872 – 26 October 1954) was a British civil servant and author. After being appointed to the National Insurance Commission in 1911, she received a yearly salary of £1000, making her the highest-paid woman civil servant of the time and one of the first women to receive equal pay. She wrote several scholarly works after her retirement from the civil service in 1919, including The Life of William Blake (1927), which went through several reprintings and remained popular for several decades.
  • Maggie Keswick Jencks (10 October 1941- 8 July 1995[1]) was a writer, artist, garden designer and co-founder of Maggie’s Centres.
  • Kathleen Molyneux Mander (29th September 1915 − 2013) was a documentary film-maker. During the 1930s she joined the Communist Party and attended Left Book Club meetings. Her political leanings would later influence her filmmaking. In 1937 she was the first woman to join the film industry’s union, the Association of Cinematographic Technicians (ACT) (now BECTU). She had a column in the ACT journal, The Cine-Technician, until the 1950s, where she wrote union issues such as the need for equal pay and post-war job security. After the end of WW2 her membership of the Communist party made it more difficult for her to find work.
  • Emilia Vosnesenskaya – Vosnesenskaya taught Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists. She became a naturalised British citizen on January 1st 1957 at which point she was an Assistant University Lecturer. She moved to the University of Edinburgh in 1956 and taught there until her retirement. She contributed to the BBC series Keep Up Your Russian, and associated grammar booklet, in 1960.
  • Kay Carmichael (née Rankin) born Shettleston, Glasgow on 22 November 1925. She was an influential character in Scottish politics and activist against nuclear submarines in Scotland. Studying at Edinburgh University she went on to hold the post of Senior Lecturer at Glasgow University. At the age of 20 she joined the Independent Labour Party in Scotland. Her activism included ‘guerrilla raids’ into Faslane Naval Base to plants flowers for which she was sentenced to two weeks in prison.
  • Şükûfe Nihal Başar – (1896 – 24 September 1973) was a Turkish educator, poet and activist who took part in the earliest women’s liberation movements during Turkey’s nation building process. Having graduated from the Geography department of the Literature Faculty of İstanbul Darülfünün in 1919, she holds the title of “the first woman graduate of Darülfünun”. Whilst she worked as a literature tutor for many years in Istanbul High School for girls, she took active role in various women’s associations and wrote columns in journals and newspapers about women’s rights. In her short stories and novels, she highligts the female female characters, trying to be the voice for “the new woman” of the early republican era.
  • Elizabeth Burns (poet) – (1957-2015) was a poet and creative writing teacher. She was born on 17 December 1957, in Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. Her mother Muriel (Hayward) was from Bristol and her father, David Grieve Burns from Kirkcaldy.
  • Lucrezia Buti (Florence, 1435 – sixteenth century) was an Italian nun, and later the lover of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi. She is believed to be the model for several of Lippi’s madonnas.
Women in Red - articles that are red-linked on Wikipedia are ones awaiting creation. Only 16.85% of biographies on Wikipedia are about notable women.

Women in Red – articles that are red-linked on Wikipedia are ones awaiting creation. Only 16.85% of biographies on Wikipedia are about notable women.

We Can Edit

We Can Edit

A Storify of the day can be found here.

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