-
Cultivating research skills: artificial flowers and the process of making
By Zara Kesterton. On Sunday 15 May, I hurried out of the Garden Museum in Lambeth clutching a precious parcel. In a paper bag, covered with a raincoat to avoid a heavy spring downpour, were two delicate blush-pink dog roses, a bud about to open, and a sprig of leaves. I did not pick these…
-
13. The Story of a Worldly Southeast Asian Female Informant
By Jess Winstanley John Anderson’s Mission to the East Coast of Sumatra in 1823 reports his voyage to the Pacific commissioned by the British East India Company. Sent out with economic and political briefings, Anderson was not expected to make any commentary on the people he encountered on his travels. However, grounded in the racialised…
-
Pearly Queens: Eleonora di Toledo vs. Elizabeth I
By Ellie Doran (@Elena_Doran) Figure 1 (left): Agnolo Bronzino, Ritratto di Eleonora di Toledo con il figlio Giovanni, (c.1544-45), oil on panel, 115 x 96cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, 1890 n.748. Available here: https://www.uffizi.it/opere/%2Feleonora-di-toledo Figure 2 (right): Unknown English artist, The Armada Portrait, (c. 1588), oil on panel, 97.8 x 72.4 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 541. Available here: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02077/Queen-Elizabeth-I Elizabeth I,…
-
13. Lady Harriet Acland, the American War of Independence, and Tales of Female Heroism
By Molly Groarke This 1784 painting by Robert Pollard depicts a scene from the American War of Independence, shortly after the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. The British forces had been defeated and one of their officers, Colonel John Dyke Acland, had been wounded and captured. In the painting, his wife Lady Harriet Acland, who…
-
Bored Bluestockings and Frivolous Flirts: The Necessary Adaptations of Early Female University Students in Ireland
By Aoife O’Leary McNeice (@aolmcn) Female students were admitted to Queen’s College Cork (QCC) – now University College Cork – Ireland in 1886. One might imagine that these women were innovative and progressive, as they challenged the boundaries placed upon their gender by entering the predominantly male space of the University. But despite their pursuit of higher…
doinghistoryinpublic.org 