Challenging Domesticity in Britain, 1890-1990

Housing and the mass provision of homes were central to social reform and cultural change in Britain, 1890-1990. Yet programmes of house building and 'slum' clearance marked cycles of destruction and regeneration in which the notion of 'home' was continually contested by planners, seemingly with minimal input from residents. This has led scholars of the home to focus on the design of new houses, their amenities, living standards, and the implications of slum clearance. Subsequently, much research on the nineteenth and twentieth-century in Britain and beyond emphasises the links between domesticity and the rise of the nuclear family and the idealisation of housewifery. By the mid-twentieth century a domestic ideal dominated western culture wherein the home remained associated with privacy and as a refuge from the dangers and risks of the external world. This Network will challenge these associations and discuss how the home could mask or enable a range of behaviours and activities that seem, on first sight, to be incongruous with the domestic ideal.
The purpose of the Research Network is to organise three workshops, through which we will innovate approaches to analysing the home and domesticity. The first examines how the home may have facilitated criminal enterprise; the second addresses the home within the history of activism; and the third discusses how ideas about domesticity contributed to the idea of 'home' as curative, especially as moral treatment for those considered 'deviant' or the poor. The Network will produce a new research methodology that will revitalise the way historians think about the home and domesticity. Research questions include: How far were meanings of 'home' shaped by intersections of class, gender, race, and region? To what extent could individuals subvert the language or materials of domesticity to facilitate a range of behaviours and activities? To what extent did 'home' become a form of treatment for the offenders and the poor? How does looking at different types of domestic spaces, including older types of housing, transform our interpretations? We suggest that the Network's emphasis on employing new sources and methodological frameworks challenges current historiography on domesticity by showing that cultures of domesticity could be subverted and fostered the very kinds of behaviours and activities that 'modern' homes aimed to act as refuges from or treatments against.
The Network will forge a new partnership between the University of Manchester and the Pankhurst Centre. The framework of the criminal home, radical home, and curative home will add to our understanding of the importance of the Pankhurst Centre at 60-62 Nelson Street. The house was the setting for the first meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union in 1903, and is central to the history of the militant suffragette movement and women's activism. It might also be understood as a criminal home, being the residence of Christabel Pankhurst who, along with other members of the WSPU, was jailed for violent militancy. It is also a curative home. Standing within the grounds of Saint Mary's NHS Hospital and sharing its premises with Women's Aid, the Centre facilitates a women's centre and provides a therapeutic garden for service users. The partnership will contribute to an exciting phase for the Centre as it embarks on an ambitious period of expansion, fundraising and redevelopment. The Network will assist in training guides and producing materials on the history of the Pankhurst home, public lectures and podcasts aim to attract new audiences and promote the museum, and the PI will contribute to three thematic training projects for volunteers. The shared research priorities indicate potential for a longer-term relationship between the Pankhurst Centre and the University of Manchester and one of the key Network aims is to develop relationships with the Centre and other non-HEI partners for future research collaborations.

Our impact strategy focuses on two aims. The first is to develop long-term strategies for knowledge exchange by forging a new partnership between the University of Manchester and the Pankhurst Centre. The second ensures the Network impacts on a wide range of beneficiaries, through training sessions for Early Career Researchers and developing new relationships with other non-HEIs.
The activities of the Network would therefore have the following non-academic beneficiaries:
1. The Network looks to make a timely and valuable impact to the Pankhurst Centre as it embarks on a particularly exciting period of fundraising, redevelopment and expansion. The Pankhurst Centre will benefit from the Network in several ways, particularly in shaping new storylines for interpretative possibilities. The Network will produce training material for volunteers and activities for young visitors, and the use of the Centre as the location for the second workshop, and the public lectures and subsequent 'Pankhurst Podcasts,' will support the Centre's strategies to enhance its provisions, increase visitor numbers, and help establish the Pankhurst Centre as a centre of research activity. The wider public will benefit from free to access material provided by the Network, based on cutting-edge research that the Centre would not ordinarily have access to. The Network's contribution to the Pankhurst Centre will enhance the experience of its visitors when it re-opens in 2023, by providing content for new tours to encourage repeat visitors and for specific activities to encourage attendance by younger audiences. The history of the Pankhursts and the Suffragettes remains a popular subject amongst a range of users and we look to communicating new knowledge about the Pankhurst home.
2. Museum and heritage sector. The workshops aim to encourage further collaborations between museums and heritage partners by fostering discussions about potential partnerships, knowledge exchange, and new ways to engage with academic research. The aim is to use these innovative conversations between researchers, practitioners and non-HEI partners, in conjunction with the Early Career training sessions, to create new collaborations and new types of impact activities, with a focus on engaging difficult-to-reach audiences and users, such as youth groups. Through this, the Network intends to foster a long-term impact in knowledge transfer activities.
3. Policy, public, and charity sectors. Since the Network engages with important issues such as homes, crime and poverty, it aims to use the research to benefit those working in or receiving the services of related charity and public sectors. It will do this by facilitating consultation meetings between charity and public sector workers and the Network Coordinator, PI and Co-I, focusing on exchanging ideas and asking how these potential partners would benefit from academic collaboration, discuss best practice, make links for future work, and get a greater understanding of how to maximise the benefits of collaboration with academics. The Network aims to engage with organisations such as Women's Aid, who merged with the Pankhurst Centre in 2014, and those who work with care-leavers and the probation system. These meetings will help to ensure that these sectors will benefit directly through the activities set out in the PI and Co-I's AHRC Research Grant application.
4. Dissemination. The Network will make use of social media, including a dedicated Twitter feed, the PI's research blog, the Pankhurst Centre's blog, and the dedicated website to promote and disseminate its activities. The Network will also make use of the support offered from the University of Manchester, particularly the Press Office, and Pankhurst Centre's own media support. The PI and Co-I have a strong track record in appearing in local and national broadcast media and will utilise their contacts and experience to promote the Network, particularly to popular audiences.