The History Woman
Joan Thirsk (1922-2013)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4494133 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pamela Sharpe (University of Tasmania, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 80 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 335-341 |
| Publication date | 2015-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbv033 |
| OpenAlex | W2098875379 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
It should not surprise us that the passing of Joan Thirsk in October 2013 resulted not only in many obituaries but also in workshops and conference sessions that took inspiration from her work. Thirsk was a pioneer female historian working in a male-dominated institution (Oxford University) and a male-orientated field (economic history). According to a recent Royal Historical Society report on gender equality in history, the members and participants in the Economic History Society which it analyzed after its first twenty-five years, in 2014, routinely divide at seventy-five percent male and twenty-five percent female.1 Joan was the doctoral supervisor of many of those who are engaged in agrarian history today.2 The contribution of her working life did not receive the recognition it deserved. She went out of her way to be encouraging to more junior female historians. I was never a Thirsk student but perhaps because of my interest in the history of the English lace industry I received appreciative notes from Joan for years. But in the keenness to commemorate Joan I believe there is more at stake. I speculate that reflection on Joan’s work involves a sense of mourning for the particular type of contribution that she and others made to economic history, now increasingly difficult to carry out.
Agrarian society · Agriculture · Art history · Institution · Social science · Sociology · Surprise · Classics · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |