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This symposium brings together new research on lone motherhood in Britain and Europe. It is being held in conjunction with the exhibition Sinners, Scroungers, Saints at The Women’s Library. Historically, the vast majority of lone parents have been mothers and it remains true today; 91% of lone parent families are headed by a woman. The symposium will offer new perspectives on historical and contemporary concerns and explore the changing meanings of the family and motherhood, why some lone mothers have been more stigmatised than others, why there has been no linearity in attitudes towards lone mothers and why the challenges that lone mothers face, when combining work with childcare have changed little since the eighteenth century.
10-11am Professor Pat Thane, Leverhulme Professor of Contemporary British History, Institute of Historical Research:The changing experience of lone motherhood in Britain since 1918
11.15-11.30 am Coffee
11.30-1pm Dr Ginger Frost, Samford University:Unintended Consequences: Limitations and Complications of
the Legitimacy Act of 1926
Dr Tanya Evans Institute of Historical Research, curator of Sinners, Scroungers, Saints:The Other Woman and her Child: Extra-marital Affairs and Illegitimacy in Twentieth Century England
Dr Janet Fink, Open University:What's the Story, Who's the Problem? Unmarried Mothers in mid-20th century British Film and TV
1-1.45pm Lunch
1.45-2.45pm Professor Hilary Land, Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol:Lone mothers must work: More of the Same or Different?
2.45-3.45pm Dr Thomas Nutt, University of Cambridge:Unmarried mothers as scroungers? Assessing the tax burden of illegitimacy and the payment of maintenance by fathers in eighteenth and nineteenth century England
Peter Harris, University of Oxford:The Making of the Children and Child Support Acts: Lessons in Legislating
3.45-4pm Coffee
4-5pm Dr Vanessa May, University of Manchester:Changing notions of lone motherhood in Finland
Professor Maria Luddy, University of Warwick:The Problem of Unmarried Motherhood in Ireland, 1880-1973
Tickets cost £30/£18 concessions including refreshments and lunch
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