Oxford University Geography Department and women

An interesting lecture on video which features many former GA Presidents and also Fanny Herbertson along the way as it tells the story of the department's changing relationship with women students (and tutors). The Herbertsons established summer schools and there are some useful insights into this time, when a great many graduates were introduced to new ways of thinking and working. Even today, maleness is still a major factor, such as the names of the Chair and prizes.

This event forms part of the University’s celebrations marking 100 years since women were first permitted to take degrees in Oxford. Dr Elizabeth Baigent, Reader in the History of Geography at the University of Oxford and former Research Director of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, uncovers the contribution of women to Oxford’s School of Geography – an institution whose history is generally told in terms of historic male endeavour. By uncovering the lives of women staff and students from the establishment of the School at the end of the nineteenth century, Liz explores the varied contributions of the School’s women and their connections with wider movements such as women’s suffrage – as well as asking why we have until now regarded them as marginal and unimportant.