Laura Beers
Biographic Data
| ID | 957442 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laura Beers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laura |
| FAMILY NAME | Beers |
| SIGNATURE | BEERS L |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9262-8908 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 31 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
‘The right to choose? Facing infertility’
Scholars of the Women’s Liberation Movement have documented the gradual shift within WLM scholarship and broader feminist culture towards a more empathetic approach to infertile women, and a more open-minded attitude towards the potential offered by assisted reproductive technology in the 1980s. This article seeks to illustrate how one community of feminists—the contributors to and readers of the British WLM periodical Spare Rib—came to shift the…
Labour Pains
British left-wing politics does not know what to think about mothers. In left-wing women’s movements, motherhood has been recognised as essential and difficult; necessary for future revolutions, not least in raising future revolutionaries. In less radical circles, it has been understood as a crucial contribution to the functioning of society, often forming the basis of women’s claims to citizenship and maternalist forms of politics. On the other …
Round Table
The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any rate, this was how the new Prime Minister represented his party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Starmer made two short speeches that day, the first to supporters outside London’s Tate Modern art gallery, the second to the wider public outside 10 Downing Street. Similar i…
Forum
This is the revised transcript of a roundtable on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, presented at the North American Conference on British Studies in Chicago in November 2022. It includes an account of the many meanings of Queen Elizabeth II for her subjects and discussion of why so many at home and in the Commonwealth were devoted to her. The panel also touches on the significance for the monarchy of Elizabeth's passing, the meaning of queenship, …
Not a Priority
This article considers the early debates over state funding for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment following the birth of Louise Brown in 1978 as a lens through which to re‐evaluate attitudes towards womanhood, maternity and sexuality in 1980s Britain. The state's reluctance to devote resources to IVF reflected, in no small part, the financial imperatives on an overstretched National Health Service. Beyond financial considerations, the questi…
Both Feminist and Practical Politics
In the mid-twentieth century, the Family Planning Association emerged in Britain as one of the largest providers of infertility diagnosis for men and women. In the early years of the century, women were coming to birth control centers seeking cures for their childlessness, well before those centers began officially offering infertility investigation and treatment. What changed by mid-century was the emergence of a determination not only to welcom…
M ona L. S iegel . Peace on Our Terms
Mona L. Siegel’s Peace on Our Terms would be an excellent book to assign to students alongside Erez Manela’s The Wilsonian Moment. Manela’s 2007 book charts how nationalist activists across the non-Western world were emboldened by US president Woodrow Wilson’s rhetoric of national self-determination to demand an end to colonial rule, even after they discovered that neither Wilson nor his colleagues around the negotiating table at Versailles were …
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite. Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England, 1968–2000
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite is both the author and the protagonist of her first monograph. Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England, 1968–2000 is, on one level, an impressive effort at reading sociological sources on class against the grain. The result is a persuasive demonstration that deference to one’s social betters was in decline throughout the post–World War II period, as an increased discomfort with class categories and …
Alice in Westminster
Before reading Alice in Westminster, I could have told you all of two things about Alice Bacon—that she had been an MP, and that she was Labour. The possession of those two facts likely made me more knowledgeable about Bacon than most modern British historians, excepting perhaps those working in the history of education. When Rachel Reeves was elected MP for Leeds West in 2010, making her only the second woman to serve as an MP for the city, she …
The role of the music therapist in training caregivers of people who have advanced dementia
Music therapy is an evidence-based, non-pharmacological treatment for dementia and the accompanying symptoms of agitation, anxiety, and behavioral issues. Administrators of health care organizations find the modality appealing for its benefits and also for the growing evidence that music therapy is a cost-effective intervention. Music therapists are recognized to be qualified clinicians of a research-supported practice which is particularly effec…
Red Ellen
In 1908 Ellen Wilkinson, a fiery adolescent from a working-class family in Manchester, was "the only girl who talks in school debates." By midcentury, Wilkinson had helped found Britain's Communist Party, earned a seat in Parliament, and become a renowned advocate for the poor and dispossessed at home and abroad. She was one of the first female delegates to the United Nations, and she played a central role in Britain's postwar Labour government. …
Red Ellen
Behind the Wireless
If I had not been 7 months pregnant when I read this book, the most salient fact to stick with me from Behind the Wireless would probably not have been that the BBC granted Mary Somerville, the head of schools broadcasting, 3 months’ maternity leave on full pay followed by an additional 3 months on half pay in 1929. (In the event, she returned to work before the full 6-month paid leave had expired—a testament to the dedication to their careers sh…
The Rise of Women's Transnational Activism
Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children
Journal Article Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. Get access Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xi, 292. $99.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Th…
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson is today best remembered for her role in the October 1936 march of unemployed shipwrights from her constituency of Jarrow to the Palace of Westminster. The Jarrow march and her role in it highlighted many of the key features of ‘Red Ellen’s’ three-decade long political career. As a self-professed Marxist, Wilkinson had little time for the National Government’s protestations that the soaring levels of unemployment in the Tyneside p…
A Model MP
In the interwar period, women formed an ever-growing share of the press market. They were an increasingly important target for advertisers, and newspapers were intent on securing the maximum number of women readers. The press turned its spotlight on female politicians in an attempt to attract women readers. Some politicians, such as the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, collaborated with the press to increase their media exposure and promote an image of…
Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire
Journal Article Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present. Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present. (Studies in Imperialism.) New York: Manchester University Press. 2011. Pp. xiv, 319. $105.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume …
Laura Beers, Your Britain
Mark Hampton begins his review by distinguishing Your Britain from what James Curran has termed ‘media-centric’ approaches to media history. It is true that Your Britain was conceived primarily as
Classes, Cultures & Politics
Journal Article Classes, Cultures & Politics: Essays on British History for Ross McKibbin. Edited by Clare V. Griffiths, James J. Nott, and William Whyte. Get access Classes, Cultures & Politics: Essays on British History for Ross McKibbin. Edited by Clare V. Griffiths, James J. Nott, and William Whyte. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011. xii + 320 pp. IBSN 0199579881, £65. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University, Washington DC Search for …
Feminism and Sexuality in Ellen Wilkinson's Fiction
The Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson is remembered for numerous achievements, chief of which is her leadership of the Jarrow Crusade in October 1936. Wilkinson was the only woman to march in the 280-mile protest against unemployment, and her compatriots were said to have looked upon her as one of them. But Wilkinson remained in many ways an outsider, both in politics and in industrial relations. Wilkinson's fiction provided her with a forum to discuss t…
Punting on the Thames
Punters have been betting on election outcomes for as long as there have been competitive elections. Electoral spread betting is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. This article explores the development of this practice in early twentieth-century Britain, charting the markets in election ‘Majorities’ in the period between 1910 and 1931. Unlike modern Internet-based spread betting, which has proved remarkably accurate in predicting election …
"Is This Man an Anarchist?" Industrial Action and the Battle for Public Opinion in Interwar Britain
Education or Manipulation? Labour, Democracy, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Aftershocks
Journal Article Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918–1931. By Susan Kingsley Kent. Get access Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918–1931. By Susan Kingsley Kent. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009. xi + 232 pp. ISBN 978-1-4039-9333-5, £50.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 426–428, https:…
Whose Opinion
Feminism and Sexuality in Ellen Wilkinson's Fiction
The Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson is remembered for numerous achievements, chief of which is her leadership of the Jarrow Crusade in October 1936. Wilkinson was the only woman to march in the 280-mile protest against unemployment, and her compatriots were said to have looked upon her as one of them. But Wilkinson remained in many ways an outsider, both in politics and in industrial relations. Wilkinson's fiction provided her with a forum to discuss t…
A Model MP
In the interwar period, women formed an ever-growing share of the press market. They were an increasingly important target for advertisers, and newspapers were intent on securing the maximum number of women readers. The press turned its spotlight on female politicians in an attempt to attract women readers. Some politicians, such as the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, collaborated with the press to increase their media exposure and promote an image of…
Labour's Britain, Fight for It Now
This article argues for the central role of publicity and propaganda in the Labour party's 1945 landslide election victory. While the 'swing to the left' in the first years of the war provided an opportunity for Labour, popular radicalism did not automatically translate into support for the party. The following discussion shows how the national party leadership made use of the BBC, print media, and visual propaganda to associate itself in the pop…
Round Table
The election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party on 5 July 2024 after fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule may represent an important turning point in British political history. At any rate, this was how the new Prime Minister represented his party’s ‘landslide’ victory. Starmer made two short speeches that day, the first to supporters outside London’s Tate Modern art gallery, the second to the wider public outside 10 Downing Street. Similar i…
Forum
This is the revised transcript of a roundtable on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, presented at the North American Conference on British Studies in Chicago in November 2022. It includes an account of the many meanings of Queen Elizabeth II for her subjects and discussion of why so many at home and in the Commonwealth were devoted to her. The panel also touches on the significance for the monarchy of Elizabeth's passing, the meaning of queenship, …
The role of the music therapist in training caregivers of people who have advanced dementia
Music therapy is an evidence-based, non-pharmacological treatment for dementia and the accompanying symptoms of agitation, anxiety, and behavioral issues. Administrators of health care organizations find the modality appealing for its benefits and also for the growing evidence that music therapy is a cost-effective intervention. Music therapists are recognized to be qualified clinicians of a research-supported practice which is particularly effec…
Not a Priority
This article considers the early debates over state funding for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment following the birth of Louise Brown in 1978 as a lens through which to re‐evaluate attitudes towards womanhood, maternity and sexuality in 1980s Britain. The state's reluctance to devote resources to IVF reflected, in no small part, the financial imperatives on an overstretched National Health Service. Beyond financial considerations, the questi…
Both Feminist and Practical Politics
In the mid-twentieth century, the Family Planning Association emerged in Britain as one of the largest providers of infertility diagnosis for men and women. In the early years of the century, women were coming to birth control centers seeking cures for their childlessness, well before those centers began officially offering infertility investigation and treatment. What changed by mid-century was the emergence of a determination not only to welcom…
Punting on the Thames
Punters have been betting on election outcomes for as long as there have been competitive elections. Electoral spread betting is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. This article explores the development of this practice in early twentieth-century Britain, charting the markets in election ‘Majorities’ in the period between 1910 and 1931. Unlike modern Internet-based spread betting, which has proved remarkably accurate in predicting election …
Whose Opinion
The Origins of Modern Spin
Moore traces the origins of ‘modern spin’ to the inauguration of the postwar Labour government in 1945, which he identifies as ‘the moment at which the government recognised the need for communication within a democracy’ (p. 5). But while 1945 was a ‘critical turning point in the history of government communications’ (p. 5), the incoming Labour government did not automatically set about institutionalizing the mechanisms of information control and…
Equality and the British Left
Psychological socialism
Education or Manipulation? Labour, Democracy, and the Popular Press in Interwar Britain
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Aftershocks
Journal Article Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918–1931. By Susan Kingsley Kent. Get access Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918–1931. By Susan Kingsley Kent. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009. xi + 232 pp. ISBN 978-1-4039-9333-5, £50.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 426–428, https:…
Parties at War
Labour's Britain, Fight for It Now
This article argues for the central role of publicity and propaganda in the Labour party's 1945 landslide election victory. While the 'swing to the left' in the first years of the war provided an opportunity for Labour, popular radicalism did not automatically translate into support for the party. The following discussion shows how the national party leadership made use of the BBC, print media, and visual propaganda to associate itself in the pop…
Punting on the Thames
Punters have been betting on election outcomes for as long as there have been competitive elections. Electoral spread betting is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon. This article explores the development of this practice in early twentieth-century Britain, charting the markets in election ‘Majorities’ in the period between 1910 and 1931. Unlike modern Internet-based spread betting, which has proved remarkably accurate in predicting election …
"Is This Man an Anarchist?" Industrial Action and the Battle for Public Opinion in Interwar Britain
Laura Beers, Your Britain
Mark Hampton begins his review by distinguishing Your Britain from what James Curran has termed ‘media-centric’ approaches to media history. It is true that Your Britain was conceived primarily as
Classes, Cultures & Politics
Journal Article Classes, Cultures & Politics: Essays on British History for Ross McKibbin. Edited by Clare V. Griffiths, James J. Nott, and William Whyte. Get access Classes, Cultures & Politics: Essays on British History for Ross McKibbin. Edited by Clare V. Griffiths, James J. Nott, and William Whyte. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011. xii + 320 pp. IBSN 0199579881, £65. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University, Washington DC Search for …
Feminism and Sexuality in Ellen Wilkinson's Fiction
The Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson is remembered for numerous achievements, chief of which is her leadership of the Jarrow Crusade in October 1936. Wilkinson was the only woman to march in the 280-mile protest against unemployment, and her compatriots were said to have looked upon her as one of them. But Wilkinson remained in many ways an outsider, both in politics and in industrial relations. Wilkinson's fiction provided her with a forum to discuss t…
A Model MP
In the interwar period, women formed an ever-growing share of the press market. They were an increasingly important target for advertisers, and newspapers were intent on securing the maximum number of women readers. The press turned its spotlight on female politicians in an attempt to attract women readers. Some politicians, such as the Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, collaborated with the press to increase their media exposure and promote an image of…
Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire
Journal Article Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present. Neville Kirk. Labour and the Politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the Present. (Studies in Imperialism.) New York: Manchester University Press. 2011. Pp. xiv, 319. $105.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume …
Ellen Wilkinson
Ellen Wilkinson is today best remembered for her role in the October 1936 march of unemployed shipwrights from her constituency of Jarrow to the Palace of Westminster. The Jarrow march and her role in it highlighted many of the key features of ‘Red Ellen’s’ three-decade long political career. As a self-professed Marxist, Wilkinson had little time for the National Government’s protestations that the soaring levels of unemployment in the Tyneside p…
Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children
Journal Article Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. Get access Ellen Boucher. Empire's Children: Child Emigration, Welfare, and the Decline of the British World, 1869–1967. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xi, 292. $99.00. Laura Beers Laura Beers American University [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Th…
Red Ellen
In 1908 Ellen Wilkinson, a fiery adolescent from a working-class family in Manchester, was "the only girl who talks in school debates." By midcentury, Wilkinson had helped found Britain's Communist Party, earned a seat in Parliament, and become a renowned advocate for the poor and dispossessed at home and abroad. She was one of the first female delegates to the United Nations, and she played a central role in Britain's postwar Labour government. …
Red Ellen
Behind the Wireless
If I had not been 7 months pregnant when I read this book, the most salient fact to stick with me from Behind the Wireless would probably not have been that the BBC granted Mary Somerville, the head of schools broadcasting, 3 months’ maternity leave on full pay followed by an additional 3 months on half pay in 1929. (In the event, she returned to work before the full 6-month paid leave had expired—a testament to the dedication to their careers sh…
The Rise of Women's Transnational Activism
Alice in Westminster
Before reading Alice in Westminster, I could have told you all of two things about Alice Bacon—that she had been an MP, and that she was Labour. The possession of those two facts likely made me more knowledgeable about Bacon than most modern British historians, excepting perhaps those working in the history of education. When Rachel Reeves was elected MP for Leeds West in 2010, making her only the second woman to serve as an MP for the city, she …
The role of the music therapist in training caregivers of people who have advanced dementia
Music therapy is an evidence-based, non-pharmacological treatment for dementia and the accompanying symptoms of agitation, anxiety, and behavioral issues. Administrators of health care organizations find the modality appealing for its benefits and also for the growing evidence that music therapy is a cost-effective intervention. Music therapists are recognized to be qualified clinicians of a research-supported practice which is particularly effec…
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite. Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England, 1968–2000
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite is both the author and the protagonist of her first monograph. Class, Politics, and the Decline of Deference in England, 1968–2000 is, on one level, an impressive effort at reading sociological sources on class against the grain. The result is a persuasive demonstration that deference to one’s social betters was in decline throughout the post–World War II period, as an increased discomfort with class categories and …
Both Feminist and Practical Politics
In the mid-twentieth century, the Family Planning Association emerged in Britain as one of the largest providers of infertility diagnosis for men and women. In the early years of the century, women were coming to birth control centers seeking cures for their childlessness, well before those centers began officially offering infertility investigation and treatment. What changed by mid-century was the emergence of a determination not only to welcom…
Political science (26 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Politics (20 works) · Law (16 works) · Law (16 works) · History (12 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (9 works) · History (9 works) · Art (6 works)