Issue 70 Autumn 2012 Issn 1476-6760 Laura Hamer on Negating gender politics and challenging the establishment: women and the prix de Rome in musical composition Lesley Hall on Articulating abortion in interwar Britain John Thomas McGuire on Women’s progressive activism in New York State and feminist citizenship, 1917-1919 Anne Logan on Knowledge transfer project on Kentish women’s history Plus Nine book reviews 2012 Conference reports Carol Adams Prize: winning essay Prize reports www.womenshistorynetwork.org CALL FOR PAPERS Women’s Histories: the Local and the Global In 2013 the Women’s History Network is combining its 22nd Annual Conference with the international conference of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History. This will be a wonderful opportunity for us to make connections with scholars of women’s history from around the world. Our conference will explore the history of women worldwide, from archaic to contemporary periods. Engaging with the recent global and transnational turns in historical scholarship, it will examine the ways in which histories of women can draw on and reshape these approaches to understanding the past. It will explore the interplay between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ in histories of women, and discuss the relationship between nation-based traditions of women’s history writing and transnational approaches which highlight connections and comparisons between women’s lives in different localities. Key questions the conference will address are: • How can women’s histories reshape our understanding of the relationship between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’? • What implications does a transnational framework of analysis have for nation-based traditions of writing women’s history? Please note that your own research does not have to be transnational in approach: we have included a comparative history strand to enable us to group together papers on similar themes relating to different localities. For details of strand themes and online submission of paper proposals see the conference website: www.ifrwh2013conf.org.uk Note early deadline for first call for proposals: 31st OCTOBER 2012 Editorial elcome to the Autumn 2012 issue of the Women’s History Network. As well as remaining a home for work WHistory Magazine. Those of us who were fortunate on women’s history from academics at all stages of their enough to attend the annual conference in Cardiff enjoyed careers who recognise that our audience is the largest one of the few sunny weekends in a miserable summer. collection of women’s historians in the United Kingdom, We bring you reports on the conference, the AGM of the we publish three important types of article: by early career Network and the award of three of the WHN prizes. The researchers, by academics with English as a second Carol Adams Prize for the best essay on women’s history language, and finally and significantly, by those outside by a final year school pupil has been awarded for the last the academy. The main reason that we receive and can time but there are plans to introduce a new Community publish such articles lies in our committed team of editors, History prize next year. Special congratulations are due to who go beyond the normal editorial expectations to help Katie Barclay, the leader of our editorial team, on winning authors edit their articles and respond to peer review this year’s WHN Book Prize. We have a bumper collection feedback. Because we are willing to spend time offering of book reviews by members and a bumper list of titles advice, correcting English and supporting our authors, we seeking reviewers. There is also a news item on the launch ensure that women’s history that might not be published of an important project on the history of Kentish women elsewhere makes it into print. We feel that, in this way, and an introduction to Clare Midgley, who is organising we embody the commitment of the Network to promoting next summer’s joint conference on behalf of the IFRWH. and nourishing women’s history and historians of women. Our three main articles cover a short span of time, Moreover, we believe that we manage to produce a the years between the two world wars, but deal with the publication that is informative, interesting and makes a widely varying experiences of women in three different valuable contribution to the field. countries. Laura Hamer assesses the achievements of As we move into a consultation over the next few women competitors for the prestigious French musical months on how to ensure the future financial viability of prize, the prix de Rome, during the interwar years. She the Network, we feel that the Magazine remains good shows how success in the competition symbolised the value for money and a central way that the Network greater access to professional status women were, with achieves its aims. A reduction in the number of issues difficulty, attaining at this period. The second article also might save money, but it would also limit the opportunity covers the interwar years and deals with the topic of for speedy publication, at a time when the number of abortion, to which we plan to devote a forthcoming issue submissions remains healthy. While the final decision is of the Magazine. In an article that ranges over medical, one for the membership, we hope that you share our belief legal and literary sources, Lesley Hall establishes the part that the Magazine remains an interesting and informative played by feminist campaigners in the 1930s in creating a read. Remember also that new submissions are always public debate on abortion which was to lead ultimately to welcome! legislative reform in the UK. Finally, John McGuire argues Editorial team: Katie Barclay, Sue Hawkins, Ann Kettle, that the years between 1917 and 1919 saw significant Anne Logan, Kate Murphy and Emma Robertson. developments in progressive women’s activism in New York State, which led Democratic women to become active Contents agents in partisan politics by the late 1920s. He also shows Negating gender politics and challenging the how the dispute over women’s labour legislation between establishment: women and the prix de Rome social justice feminists and their women opponents was in musical composition, 1919-1939 ...................... 4 an important factor in defining feminist citizenship in the Articulating abortion in interwar Britain .................... 13 United States. By a happy coincidence the essay that Membership Announcements .................................. 21 won the last Carol Adams prize is on a similar subject – A complex process: women’s progressive the effect on women’s civil rights in the USA of the 19th activism in New York State and feminist Amendment. We publish the essay below, with a brief citizenship, 1917-1919 ....................................... 22 biography of the young winner and wish her well with her Knowledge transfer project on Kentish women’s historical studies. history ................................................................. 28 As people and institutions tighten their belts and Book Reviews .......................................................... 29 postage rates soar, the thorny question of the cost of Books Received & Call for Reviewers ..................... 37 the Magazine rears its head, as the Network considers Carol Adams Prize: winning essay .......................... 40 whether it brings value for money and how to pay for it. Carol Adams Prize: winner ...................................... 41 In this context, we thought it would be worth reflecting on WHN Book Prize Awarded ....................................... 42 what the Magazine does well. In some ways, the Magazine Clare Evans Essay Prize awarded .......................... 42 has an identity problem: alongside fully peer-reviewed The twenty-first annual conference of the articles, it publishes news items, short discussion pieces Women’s History Network .................................. 43 and information for and about our membership. It is not Getting to Know Each Other .................................... 45 quite an academic journal, but neither is it a popular Annual General Meeting .......................................... 46 history magazine. Yet, although something of a hybrid, we feel that we have found a niche in the market that Cover: Marion Dickerman (far right) with Eleanor also corresponds well with the aims of the Women’s Roosevelt, Nancy Cook and Caroline O’Day in 1929. (With the kind permission of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum) Editorial 3 Negating gender politics and challenging the establishment: women and the prix de Rome in musical composition, 1919-19391 Laura Hamer Liverpool Hope University rom its inauguration in 1803, until it was discontinued the Villa Médicis. They were also given the right to the Fin 1968, the prix de Rome (Rome Prize) was France’s title ‘Premier Grand Prix de Rome’, which could be written most important award in musical composition. It brought after the name of the recipient in the space traditionally financial reward, official recognition, and critical exposure. reserved for honours and degrees.5 Winning the prix de Rome could represent the first step in a The competition opened each year in May with successful career; the prize was won by many of France’s an eliminatory first round, the concours d’essai (trial top composers, including Hector Berlioz (1830), Charles competition). This was judged by a specialist music jury, Gounod (1839), Georges Bizet (1857), Jules Massenet which consisted of the six musician members of the (1863), Claude Debussy (1884), and Henri Dutilleux Académie des Beaux-Arts and three adjunct members (1936). Women composers were allowed to enter the prix (who were well-known composers). Candidates were de Rome competition for the first time in 1903, and Lili required to compose a vocal fugue plus a work for chorus Boulanger became the first woman to win in 1913.2 and orchestra, based on a poem chosen by the jury. Women composers’ entry into the competition The competitors wrote the required works under strict marked a significant step forward in their struggle to examination conditions, over a period of several days, achieve professional status.