Since 2016, Natalie and Florence have been researching women’s experiences in the miners’ strike of 1984-5. They received funding from the AHRC from 2018-20 to work with Dr Victoria Dawson to conduct a major new oral history project, speaking to women from coalfield communities who experienced the strike. They undertook oral histories with approximately 100 women, as well as undertaking archival research, and will be writing a monograph about their findings. They also curated a special exhibition at the National Coal Mining Museum for England; an online version of the exhibition, including clips from many of the interviews, can be found here: [ Ссылка ]
As part of this project, they created, with Will Bailey-Watson, Lecturer in Education at the University of Reading, a series of 3 Key Stage 3 lesson plans and resources for students to research the miners’ strike, using oral history as a method.
Dr Natalie Thomlinson is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Reading. She is a historian of feminism and gender in modern Britain, and her research focused on how these categories are mediated through race and class. Her first book, Race and ethnicity in the women's movement in England, 1968-1993 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) examined debates between white and ethnic minority women about the place of race in the feminist movement in England during this period.
Dr Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at UCL. She is a historian of twentieth-century Britain, particularly focusing on class and politics in the late twentieth century. Her first book, Class, politics, and the decline of deference in England, 1968-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2018) examined political and popular ideas about class in England in the period of Thatcher and New Labour.
