Eleanor Dawson

The academic study of the history of women’s sport has steadily grown over the past three decades. Historians have begun to highlight the diverse and complex experiences of sportswomen in the past in England. In contrast little has been written about the historic development of female sport in Scotland, exceptions being those which focus on limited time periods and sports.

This collaborative project will investigate and produce new knowledge on the representations of women in sport in Scotland between 1840-1940. The research will focus on a century of visual culture of women’s sport, and the period of the study will enable a pan-media investigation of the collections. The history of women’s sport has been under-researched, partly due to a perceived lack of source material. The project will regain and discover new insights from the rich heritage collections of NGS and NLS that will underpin a critical investigation of how women were depicted both by others and themselves while participating in a range of sports. This project will support the partners to raise the profile and interpretation of sport collections, encouraging further research and outreach activities related to women’s sport.

Combining visual culture and feminist approaches, using an interdisciplinary approach to sports history, the focus on women and gendered experience in Scotland will also have wider resonance in the fields of art history, gender history and Scottish cultural history.