Feminism Between the Waves: A Political and Cultural History of the Six Point Group

Lead Research Organisation: Nottingham Trent University
Department Name: Sch of Arts and Humanities

Abstract

The Six Point Group (SPG) was Britain's leading gender equality organisation in the interwar years. This project will reconstruct the history of the SPG from its archive at the Women's Library at London School of Economics and enrich our understanding of feminist campaigning between feminism's so-called 'first' and 'second' waves.

The Women's Library at LSE (TWL@LSE) is the oldest and most extensive collection of women's history in Europe. Developed from the women's suffrage movement, it now includes over 60,000 books and pamphlets, 3,000 pamphlets, over 500 archives, and 5,000 museum objects including photographs, posters, badges, banners, textiles, and ceramics. Following the hugely successful 'Vote 100' celebrations in 2018, TWL@LSE is now preparing for the centenary in 2028 of the Equal Franchise Act (which gave women voting rights on the same terms as men) and has identified its interwar feminism collections as a priority area for catalogue enhancement, digitisation, and profile-raising through, for example, online resources and exhibition.

This research project will result in the first comprehensive study of the SPG (1921-1982) across its 61-year history and restore to view a continuous history of feminist campaigning in a period during which feminism is conventionally believed to have 'collapsed' or 'subsided' prior to its 're-emergence' in the 1970s with the Women's Liberation Movement. Working for substantial periods of time at TWL@LSE the award-holder will reconstruct the history of the SPG from the SPG archive and the archives of other feminist organisations the SPG interacted with (e.g. the British Federation of University Women and the National Federation of Women Civil Servants) also held by TWL@LSE. They will also consult archives outside TWL@LSE, for example the National Council of Women (London Metropolitan Archives) and the British Newspaper Archive. Dale Spender famously stated in 1983 that: 'There's always been a women's movement this century'. This project will give credence to Spender's claim and complicate the dominant 'wave' narrative that continues to shape our ideas of women's history.

The award-holder will have previous experience and skills in historical and archival research and an active interest in contemporary feminisms and women's history. They will have the chance to shape the research agenda as the project evolves, but indicative research questions identified at this stage include:

What were the goals and achievements of the SPG, and how did these evolve over its 61 years' existence?
What connections can be identified between the SPG and other feminist and women's organisations?
What strategies did the SPG use, to advance its aims and to negotiate competing positions within the women's movement?
Does the history of the SPG provide critical and political tools useful for feminist thinking and practice today?

In addition to the PhD thesis, key outputs of this project will be:
Contributing to the events and exhibition programme at LSE Library (e.g. by giving a talk on their research; organising an event on interwar feminism; curating on online exhibition on the SPG);
Contributing to the digitisation programme at TWL@LSE (e.g. by curating a selection of materials about the SPG for inclusion in its digital collection on interwar feminism);
Assisting in TWL@LSE's preparations for the Equal Franchise Act centenary in 2028.

Student Support and Output:

The supervisory team (Clay; Thomas; Murphy) will meet with the student regularly at NTU, UoB or TWL@LSE. Clay will ensure that the award holder is integrated into NTU's research culture in Arts & Humanities and through the Doctoral School (including enrolment on the Doctorate Plus programme of professional developmental courses), as well as M4C processes and training, and support their participation in germane conferences, impact activities, and events. These may include, but are not limited to, activities or

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