Small Steps, Loud Voices: The Fight for Equal Education in the late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

My current research has led me to several different archives, most notably the ones held by Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. I discovered the diary of Mary Jean Wilson the eldest child of George Washington Wilson whose photographic firm was once the largest supplier of topographical views in Britain. This diary was written between January-November 1897 and provides a unique insight into the mind and consciousness of a middle-class Victorian woman; not only through Jeanie’s entries but also in the newspaper clippings she pasted into its pages. I was also able to draw upon other sources such as the Reminiscences of Old Aberdeen by Katherine Trail to build a broader picture of what it was like for women who wanted to expand their horizons in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.