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Ruth Davidson

@ruthdav.bsky.social

Historian of women, welfare and activism. Currently researching working class women’s welfare campaign’s in twentieth century Britain. IHR Fellow 2024/25

2,977 Followers  |  564 Following  |  67 Posts  |  Joined: 25.10.2023
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Posts by Ruth Davidson (@ruthdav.bsky.social)

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Happy publication day to @uobrishistory.bsky.social’s Professor Sumita Mukherjee!

26.02.2026 15:51 — 👍 75    🔁 33    💬 1    📌 0
Library History Essay Award 2025
Winner: Sophie Coulombeau, 'Reading with the Burneys: Patronage, Paratext and Performance', Cambridge Elements Series: Eighteenth-Century Connections, (Cambridge: University Press, 2024).

Library History Essay Award 2025 Winner: Sophie Coulombeau, 'Reading with the Burneys: Patronage, Paratext and Performance', Cambridge Elements Series: Eighteenth-Century Connections, (Cambridge: University Press, 2024).

Library History Essay Award 2026
The Library History Essay Award is an annual prize for the best article or chapter on library history published in, or pertaining to, the British Isles, within the previous calendar year (i.e. 2025 ).  Introduced in 1996, the award is organized and sponsored by the LIHG and aims to support the publication of research into library history in the British Isles.

The prize is £350.

Submissions should contain original historical research and be based on original source materials if possible. Evidence of methodological and historiographical innovation is particularly welcome.

Library History Essay Award 2026 The Library History Essay Award is an annual prize for the best article or chapter on library history published in, or pertaining to, the British Isles, within the previous calendar year (i.e. 2025 ). Introduced in 1996, the award is organized and sponsored by the LIHG and aims to support the publication of research into library history in the British Isles. The prize is £350. Submissions should contain original historical research and be based on original source materials if possible. Evidence of methodological and historiographical innovation is particularly welcome.

You might like to see some of the judges' comments:

'The Coulombeau piece has outstanding analysis that moves book and reading history forward in interesting ways'.

'She is an excellent "story-teller" and a "literary detective"  ... Her approach is novel - truly interdisciplinary'.

You might like to see some of the judges' comments: 'The Coulombeau piece has outstanding analysis that moves book and reading history forward in interesting ways'. 'She is an excellent "story-teller" and a "literary detective" ... Her approach is novel - truly interdisciplinary'.

Cover of Reading With The Burneys

Cover of Reading With The Burneys

Reading With The Burneys won a prize!! I’m absolutely made up to have been awarded the Library History Essay Prize by @cilip.bsky.social, the Library & Information Association. Guess i’m
not beating those ‘historian in literary scholar’s clothing’ allegations anytime soon…😃

20.02.2026 21:15 — 👍 71    🔁 4    💬 12    📌 1

Congratulations!

19.02.2026 21:17 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Charity After Empire Cambridge Core - Twentieth Century British History - Charity After Empire

Use 20% discount code CAE2026 to purchase here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

19.02.2026 09:17 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 10th March

13.02.2026 20:36 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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“All of London Started With Her”: Vivienne Westwood’s Punk and Britishness

Tomorrow at the IHR, we welcome Margot Rashba for a paper on Viviennne Westwood.

Booking link below.

www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

10.02.2026 18:49 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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History: Serious about Play: Childhood, Play and Policymaking in Wales, 1945 to the present (RS936) - Swansea University We offer a wide range of funded and fully funded research scholarships in all subject areas. Explore your options and apply now.

Please do share this doctoral opportunity with MA/MSt students - four years of AHRC funding to work on the history of children's play in Wales, supervised by me and the lovely and brilliant Dr Jacky Tyrie. Any questions get in touch! www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...

09.02.2026 12:46 — 👍 52    🔁 69    💬 0    📌 1
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Cultural and Social History Researching Student Lives: Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives. Volume 23, Issue 1 of Cultural and Social History

The special issue of Cultural and Social History on “Researching Student Lives: Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives” (co-ed. w Georgina Brewis & Jodi Burkett) is live - yay! Several articles are OA :) Huge thanks to our contributors & the journal editors!
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfcs20/2...

09.02.2026 09:27 — 👍 23    🔁 21    💬 0    📌 0

This was such a great, quietly radical keynote.

05.02.2026 12:54 — 👍 6    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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Finally time to present at the @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social conference 😊

05.02.2026 15:58 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Thank you @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social for an amazing two days exploring the politics of motherhood! So many interesting papers and connections between them, left me with lots to think about.

06.02.2026 16:54 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0
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Look what's arrived! It seems crass to be talking about it after everything that's happened this week, but I think my new book on the Blair years is fair, balanced and judicious. Available at all good bookshops: www.amazon.co.uk/New-Labour-B...

06.02.2026 12:49 — 👍 65    🔁 9    💬 6    📌 2

Really enjoying the @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social conference - brilliant range of topics and methods. Looking forward to speaking this afternoon on the politization of motherhood in British and Irish women's anti-communist activism in 1920s and early 1930s

06.02.2026 11:48 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
‘The Politics of Motherhood: Maternalism, Maternity and Mothering’ Conference Programme – Voices of Motherhood

Thank you to everyone who shared their research with us yesterday! We enjoyed a brilliant first day of papers and a fantastic keynote from @sarahcrook.bsky.social. Looking forward to starting Day 2 shortly - look at this wonderful line up: 😊 voicesofmotherhood.wp.worc.ac.uk/index.php/20...

06.02.2026 08:12 — 👍 13    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 1

Looking forward to chairing Panel 2A: Deviant or
demonised? shortly at the @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social exciting online conference on 'The Politics of Motherhood: Maternalism, Maternity and Mothering' 😀

05.02.2026 12:27 — 👍 7    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Thank you so much to the wonderful organisers of @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social for the opportunity to talk a bit about activism and mothering in modern Britain during my keynote today! Such a superb range of papers coming up too!

05.02.2026 12:35 — 👍 12    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 1
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Enjoyed chairing this fascinating panel for @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social conference on #politicsofmotherhood today with four great papers that shift & extend understandings of motherhood in important & significant ways. 👏 to all. @womenshistnet.bsky.social @whaireland.bsky.social #skystorians

05.02.2026 14:37 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award studentships The AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award is a major new funding scheme from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Its aim is to grow the UK’s capacity for doctoral research in the arts and humanit...

Full time AHRC doctoral studentships now available in Arts & Humanities at University of Hertfordshire for October 2026 start - please do share widely!! This includes both History & Heritage Studies among other subjects 🌟😀 www.herts.ac.uk/research/res...

03.02.2026 10:14 — 👍 26    🔁 35    💬 0    📌 1
Jacob Price Fellowship in British Studies (18 month FTC):London Senate House - Hybrid The University of London is both the UK’s largest provider of international distance and online learning and the convenor of a federation of 17 renowned higher education institutions.

For anyone interested in our 18-month post in British Studies please follow the link below. @ihr.bsky.social

www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

04.02.2026 18:59 — 👍 43    🔁 65    💬 1    📌 3
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FindAPhD : PhD Studentships to support doctoral research in the Arthur Scargill Archive at the University of Sheffield at University of Sheffield Apply for a PhD: PhD Studentships to support doctoral research in the Arthur Scargill Archive at the University of Sheffield at University of Sheffield

Three scholarships for PhD in Arthur Scargill Archive - quite the opportunity. Believe me when I say that I am sure that some of the stuff in here will be quite the eye-opener! (if the good stuff hasn't been already shredded or slapped with an embargo)

03.02.2026 11:46 — 👍 25    🔁 42    💬 2    📌 0
Jacob Price Fellowship in British Studies (18 month FTC):London Senate House - Hybrid The University of London is both the UK’s largest provider of international distance and online learning and the convenor of a federation of 17 renowned higher education institutions.

18 month postdoc at the lovely IHR in London, $41,740. Deadline 7 March. 'The Fellow will play a key role within the IHR team responsible for hosting the 2027 North American Conference in British Studies (NACBS)' in London 2027.

Repost to spread the word. #Skystorians

03.02.2026 09:07 — 👍 37    🔁 67    💬 0    📌 0
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Here's me speaking about the Blair era at the University of Bristol today... Coming to York, Oxford and London for New Labour book launches soon!

29.01.2026 14:58 — 👍 22    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0

Presenting tomorrow on secret policies for 'Old Commonwealth' mobility during 1960s, when UK govt declared its migration policy was 'colour blind'. Developing a paper I presented at @qmcbs.bsky.social last year. Pls do come along if in Oxford and free at 2pm

28.01.2026 12:51 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

Amy Longmuir @amyloulongmuir.bsky.social will be speaking on socialist-feminism and work at our IHR Contemporary British History seminar tomorrow.

In person. Registration link below!

27.01.2026 09:02 — 👍 1    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
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Topic Collection: Race, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Histories, Inequalities, Futures | Medical Humanities

We are delighted to share our call for papers for Medical Humanities. @georgesevers.bsky.social, Naomi Samake-Bäckert and I are guest editing a topic collection titled “Race, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Histories, Inequalities, Futures. Deadline: 31 October 2026

mh.bmj.com/pages/topic-...

26.01.2026 12:40 — 👍 21    🔁 25    💬 0    📌 0
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Charity After Empire Cambridge Core - Global History - Charity After Empire

I'm really looking forward to reading Matthew Hilton's timely new @universitypress.cambridge.org book Charity after Empire: British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation, and Development.

www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

26.01.2026 10:26 — 👍 16    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 1
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Are you around in Bristol on Thursday? Do you want to hear me talk about my new book on the Blair years? Well you're in luck, because I'll be giving a lecture and taking a Q&A at the university at 1pm! Come along...
www.bristol.ac.uk/arts-law-soc...

26.01.2026 12:12 — 👍 14    🔁 3    💬 1    📌 0
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New year, new job! 💫 Thrilled to share that I’ve started a new role at The National Archives as a Modern Parliament Records Specialist.

I’ll be working with Parliament’s archive collections that have been relocated to TNA. Looking forward to engaging audiences with this fascinating collection!

26.01.2026 09:06 — 👍 33    🔁 3    💬 4    📌 0
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‘All the Kids Wanna Sniff Some Glue’: glue-sniffing, deindustrialization, and moral panic in 1980s Britain Abstract. This article analyses anxieties surrounding glue-sniffing in 1980s Britain and their entanglement with the era’s accelerated deindustrialization.

Brilliant new article by @malcolmrussell73.bsky.social on glue-sniffing panics, youth boredom and deindustrialising towns c. 1970s-80s, published in @mbhjournal.bsky.social

This began life as an exceptional MA dissertation at @uclhistory.bsky.social

Congrats Malcolm!

doi.org/10.1093/tcbh...

12.01.2026 19:04 — 👍 29    🔁 19    💬 2    📌 2
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📣New publication out today from @uolpress.bsky.social: 'Law and Justice in the 1950s: Case Studies From a Neglected Decade'.

Edited by Fiona Cownie and Rosemary Auchmuty.

Published in association with the @ials.bsky.social.

📕Available now for purchase or via open access: https://bit.ly/3NwA1BK

22.01.2026 15:07 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 2