Huge archive of northern English women’s history goes online
Summary of story from the Guardian Northerner Blog, October 7, 2011.
“History to Herstory” is a new website archive was launched today, October 7, in an initiative from the West Yorkshire archive and Huddersfield University in northern England.
It features free digital versions of more than 80,000 documents relating to Yorkshire women in the 19th and 20th centuries.
This includes well-known stars of the northern English countryside such as the Bronte sisters and Amy Johnson as well as thousands of women who currently have no memorial but led fascinating and illuminating lives.
The site links every online document to the whereabouts of the original. Most are at the West Yorkshire Archive, but with substantial contributions from Huddersfield and Hull universities and the Bronte Society.
Katy Goodrum of West Yorkshire Archives Service said:
“We certainly don’t want to deprive people of the ability to see the originals, but the website means you don’t have to travel from half way around the world to use the material.
“The main thing for me is a huge amount of it is in women’s own words, which is quite rare.”
The site includes ‘learning packages’ for the fledgling herstorian on themes such as women and politics, women at work, women at war and women’s letters and photographs.
Thank you for flagging up this excellent new resource for women’s history – for any of those would want to take a closer look, here is a link – http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/
Keep up the good work WVoN