26 Feb A fascinating new display entitled ‘And what came of it?’ heads to Colchester’s Hollytrees Museum
A fascinating new display entitled ‘And what came of it?’ is now open at Hollytrees Museum in Colchester and runs until Saturday 14 September.
Items on display depict the story of women’s equality and how attitudes towards women in the workplace have changed over time.
Who would have thought one of the Victorian’s greatest fears was policewomen?
One of the items on display includes an extraordinary handkerchief printed in 1881 that betrays the Victorian man’s terror at the idea of women in the world of work.
The handkerchief, which is on display for the first time, depicts what the response was to the early days of the campaign for equality and shows how much it was entrenched in Victorian values that a woman’s place was in the home.
It imagines women caricatured as lawyers, sailors, soldiers and scientists whilst men are ‘frozen out’ to be left idle or engaged in ‘women’s work’ of laundry, house cleaning and childcare.
