Just a quick reminder that this term’s series of seminars on ‘Women and the countryside’ begins at 4.30 today in the MERL Conference Room.

Prof. Karen Sayer (Leeds Trinity University) has interests which range from science fiction to the Victorian countryside. She has served as Treasurer of the British Association for Victorian Studies and the Women’s History Network. Today her talk looks at the impact of electricity on women’s work in the countryside.

“The promotion of electricity during the 1920s began to stimulate demand for such power in the countryside. Advice was issued and texts produced that began to demonstrate how it might be used both on the farm and in the farmhouse. However, this activity occurred against a backdrop of limited availability and questionable reliabi

lity. In many areas electrical supply remained rare or non-existent until long after the Second World War. Set against this complex history, this talk will explore the degree to which this modern convenience came to impact on the lives of rural women during the early twentieth century”

http://www.reading.ac.uk/merl/whatson/merl-womenandcountrysideseminars13.aspx

We hope to see you there.