Women at Oxford 1878-1920: Digital Archive Collection
The University of Oxford was one of the first universities to admit women to lectures and is therefore of particular interest to scholars as its history is unique and important. Prior to the formation of this digitisation project, the relevant records were patchy, undigitised, distributed unevenly between the women’s colleges and the Bodleian, and were therefore difficult to locate, consult and compare. Admissions records for women before 1920, for instance, were kept in individual college archives rather than centrally and this has hampered research in what is a crucial and understudied aspect of the history of education and reform in the University.
Through the digitisation of more than 7,000 archival images, which include admissions records, annual reports, calendars, photographs, scrapbooks, minutes and letters, this projects seeks to change the way that we understand and research the history of higher education in Oxford, the United Kingdom and beyond. The project also hopes to facilitate scholars in developing a better understanding of the overall history of women’s education and activism, as well as the experiences of individual women, campaign groups and institutions.
