This week at The Archive we have reached another fantastic milestone – we now have over 54 million newspaper pages available to search. Meanwhile, we have added 111,378 brand new pages over the past seven days, with the addition of five brand new titles, three of which cover the town of Bromley. Furthermore, we’ve added two more intriguing titles, one of which was tied to the Spiritualist movement in the Victorian era, whilst the other is a wonderfully illustrated title that was founded in the 1890s. In …
Women’s History
Reading like a tabloid’s dream, or the script of a film noir, the shooting death of racing car driver David Blakely at the hands of his model girlfriend Ruth Ellis revealed the seedy underbelly of 1950s society. From the smoky, dim-lit cocktail bars of West London, to extramarital affairs and illicit weapons, this is the story of a young woman and what drove her to shoot her lover in broad daylight on Easter Sunday, 1955, as told by our newspapers. …
Tags
Women last week made history in the youngest Service, for the first delivery flights of aeroplanes from factory to storage depot, ‘somewhere in Great Britain,’ were carried out by the Women’s Transport Section of the Air Transport Auxiliary. There are nine members of this body. So reported The Sketch on 17 January 1940. Four months into the Second World War, and women were making history, and in particular, the nine women who belonged to the Air Transport Auxiliary. These women, along with …
Tags
The 1930s were a decade of aviation records. Airmen and airwomen from across the globe pushed their aircrafts to the limit, travelling thousands of miles in pursuit of world firsts and fastest travelling times. And these men and women became the superstars of their day, bona fide celebrities alongside the stars of stage and screen. Chief amongst the royalty of the air was Amy Johnson, Britain’s answer to Amelia Earhart. In this special blog, as part of aviation April on …
Tags
To celebrate International Women’s Day this year, and as part of our look at the history of football this March, in this very special blog we will be taking a look at pioneering early women footballers. Register now and explore the Archive From those who took to the pitch in the eighteenth century Bath, to those who played in the first international match in 1881, we will look at the women who disrupted the status quo in order to play …
Tags
This week at The Archive we are celebrating another milestone, as we have now reached over 47 million pages in our collection, with the addition of 194,166 brand new pages over the last week alone. Meanwhile, joining us this week are five brand new newspapers, which comprise of two Irish titles (including a special ‘entertainment journal’), a local Somerset newspaper, a title dedicated to the factory industry in Yorkshire, and an ‘agricultural, commercial and family gazette.’ We have also updated 72 of our existing titles, with updates to …
Tags
In November 1846, the ‘Friends of a respectable young Woman’ placed this advertisement in the ‘Wants‘ column of Saunders’s News-Letter: The Friends of a respectable young Woman wish to procure for her a Situation either as Attendant on a Lady or in a Nursery, or as a Shop Girl; she is adequate to any of the above capacities, and is willing to make herself generally useful, being of an humble, quiet and obliging disposition; she is a good needleworker, and can teach …
Tags
This week at The Archive has been another incredibly busy one, as we have added 116,740 brand new pages, with eight brand new titles in all joining us. And all of our eight new titles of the week hail from Wales, and include two Welsh language newspapers, a specialist political title, and a shipping gazette. Meanwhile, we have updated 26 of our existing titles. So read on to discover more about our eight brand new titles of the week, as well as to find out …
Tags
We are taking a deep dive into the work of Una Marson. Marson was one of Jamaica’s most influential poets, broadcasters, and activists. She was a feminist pioneer and the first Black woman employed by the BBC. She was also the first Black woman to have her play performed in the West End and the first Black woman to attend the League of Nations. One blog post cannot do justice to her incredible career, but we hope to use The …
Tags
When the miniskirt first burst onto the fashion scene in the early 1960s, its presence was divisive. Immediately, many women took to it, but others were not so sure, wondering whether it was just a passing fad. But the miniskirt was to become a symbol of the 1960s, from embodying ‘Swinging London’ to representing the greater emancipation it afforded to women – sexual, social and moral. And so, in this special blog, using newspapers taken from The Archive, we will …