A University of Worcester historian will be giving a snapshot into women’s lives in Worcester at different time periods over the last 500 years in a special interactive workshop.
Dr Anna Muggeridge
Dr Anna Muggeridge is running a workshop, ‘‘A Stitch Through Time’: making a history of Worcester’s women’, at the Tudor House Museum in the City on Saturday, November 9, 10am-1pm.
This event, aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at 16 to 25-year-olds, explores ‘ordinary’ women’s lives in Worcester during the Tudor and Victorian periods, and the Second World War.
Dr Muggeridge said: “We hope that people will learn about the lives of ordinary girls and women who lived in Worcester at different points in the past, particularly the ‘ordinary’, every day aspects of their homelife which might reflect some of the activities people undertake in their homes today. We also want to give people an opportunity to have a go at some of these activities.”
Participants will take part in an interactive session where they will hear about women’s lives with opportunities to explore objects from the museum’s handling collection, followed by a chance to have a go at some of the heritage crafts that they would have done. These include weaving on a replica sixteenth century loom, rag rugging (making a rug from scraps of material) and ‘make do and mend’ activities that were common during the Second World War.
“It can be hard to find histories of women’s lives in the past, particularly women from working-class or ordinary backgrounds because they tended not to leave ‘public’ records behind in an archive in the same way that more prominent men did,” added Dr Muggeridge. “So, as historians, we need to use other kinds of records to reconstruct their lives, particularly day-to-day life. One way to do so is to look at domestic objects and clothes, which can tell us much about the people who made these objects, as well as how they used them – which we’ll be exploring in the workshop.”
The workshop is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, the theme of which this year is ‘landmarks’.
“We wanted to take three particular ‘landmark’ years in British history which saw major historical events, and which can sometimes be recognised as the beginning or end of a particular historical era,” said Dr Muggeridge. “In our case, it’s 1603 (when Queen Elizabeth I died and the Elizabethan era ended); 1837 (when Queen Victoria acceded to the throne and the Victorian era began) and 1939 (when the Second World War broke out). But rather than focus on these landmark national or even international events, we wanted to ask: what were the lives of ordinary people like at these key historical moments? How did life carry on in the home, for ordinary women and girls in cities like Worcester? What changed – and what stayed the same?
“Our focus is really on domestic life in the home. Across this time period, while technologies might change, things like cooking, cleaning and crafting remained a mainstay of women’s lives. Craft activities in particular are interesting as they could be a means or working and earning a living, a means of saving money by reusing materials or as a leisure activity.”
The event is free but booking is essential as places are limited. To book email info@tudorhouse.org.uk. or visit the website.
The Festival is led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.
For further information on the Being Human Festival visit the website.