Reading the Local Area – History and Heritage: Women and Industry

Reader-in-Residence for Middlesbrough Libraries, Debbie Rolls, hosts a full day of discussion and discovery.

Entry is free and no booking is required.

Women of Teesside 10.30-11.45am

Women have always made an impact locally. One of the most important archaeological finds was the burial site of the ‘Saxon Princess.’ St Hilda set up a monastery in Hartlepool and later Whitby in the seventh century. Whilst Lucia de Thweng broke all social norms in the thirteenth century.

This session won’t just look at the famous. We will consider books that consider the lives of ordinary women from individual autobiographies to the novels of Pat Barker. In her 1980s trilogy she was one of the first authors to reflect the lives of ordinary northern women in print.

Pat Barker is just one of many well-known women authors to hail from our area. Others include Jane Gardam, Naomi Jacob, Gertrude Bell and Ellen Wilkinson. Whilst you might know Ellen Wilkinson as a politician, she was also the author of two popular novels. Mo Mowlem, another key political figure locally, also put pen to paper as well as being recognised in print by others. More recently Steph McGovern has become an author.

Come and explore writing, about and by, women from Teesside.

Teesside Industry: Not Just Iron and Steel 1.30 – 2.45pm

Some of the best documentation of the iron and Steel Industry has come from women (Florence Bell, Viva Talbot and Joan Heggie) and we won’t ignore the industry that made Middlesbrough and the wider area but there is a lot more to explore.

One of the oldest industries might be salt production. Archaeological finds suggest that Teesside was one of the first places to produce salt in quantity in Europe, if not the world. Salt production has continued to be important. Bolckow and Vaughan removed salt from underground as well as ironstone. Then ICI went on to use salt as a basis of the chemical industry.

The coastal area that produced the early salts went on to be the centre of the Alum Industry – an industry that inspired Stephen Chance’s book The Alum Makers Secret.

Textiles, pottery, and ship building are a few of the other important industries that have been part of the Teesside story. Come and explore a variety of documents relating to industrial heritage.