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Treasure 101: Advice to Women
322 In recognition of International Women's Day (March 8th), we offer a selection of books for this month's treasure which highlight the role of women in society, and how attitudes and approaches have changed over time. One of our Treasures this month includes a work entitled "The Five Talents of Woman" in which the author (a male) proposes the five main talents as:
- Pleasing people
- Feeding them in dainty ways
- Clothing them
- Keeping them orderly
- Teaching them
With the exception of the final "talent", the author proposes a rather limited view of a woman's capabilities! However, this is from the same author who writes that "Shakespeare's mother could not have written Hamlet, but she - perhaps she alone - could and did produce Shakespeare".
Offered as a contrasting view for our Treasures, is another work: "Pearls for Young Ladies", in which the author (female) rightly comments that "we scarcely ever, in our study of education, ask this most essential of all questions about a man - What patience had his mother or sister with him?" Regardless of the viewpoints proposed, the truth remains that even at the close of the Victorian period, one key symbol of equality - that of the parliamentary franchise - was still denied to women. All later developments towards equality - including the Suffragette movement, and the right to vote - can trace their origins to the early Victorian writers who began to propose, argue and question how society should treat women. While it may be claimed that these writers did very little to progress the situation, it can also be proposed that the conversation they started is one that remains with us today.
Find out more about Victorian attitudes towards women in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition on the touchscreen. Treasure 102: Newhills Convalescent Home and Sanatorium
323 Aberdeen City Libraries has a large and significant collection of historic photographs. This month we are highlighting a collection of images of Newhills Convalescent Home and Sanatorium in the 1930s.
The album contains 58 photographs of the home's buildings, grounds, staff and patients. The institution is shown at different times of the year and celebrating special occasions. The majority of the images are delightful portraits. We do not have names for the individuals shown but the pictures convey a sense of the life and community of the home. If you are able to identify any of those photographed, we would be pleased to hear from you. The Newhills Convalescent Home was founded by Christian Catherine Smith in 1874. She was the wife of Rev. James Smith, the minister of Newhills Parish Church. It was shortly after arriving in the parish that she recognised the potential for a place for ill people to come to rest and regain their health. Annual newspaper reports on the home described its purpose as being for "the benefit of respectable persons in humble life who appear to be failing into dishealth, or are convalescing after non-infectious ailments."
The convalescent home was started at Dykeside Cottage in Newhills. It was a great success and operated at this location for 7 years. In 1882 a new building just north of the parish church was constructed to meet the rising demand for treatment. By 1900 patients with tuberculosis were admitted, with the home operating a sanatorium department from 1902.
Learn more about this Home's history in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition on the touchscreen. Treasure 103: Royal Wedding Posters
324 The 21st March marks the 146th wedding anniversary of Queen Victoria's sixth child, Princess Louise, and the 9th Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorne. Aberdeenshire has always held the Royal family in high regard, largely due to their associations with the county and their Balmoral residence. As a result, the wedding of Princess Louise and the Scottish Marquis of Lorne in 1871 was cause for great celebrations in Aberdeen. In Aberdeen City Libraries' collection we hold three posters that testify to these celebrations, and serve as a perfect example of Victorian poster design. The Aberdeen Journal of 22 March 1871 described the union thus:
"The happy union hailed with so much satisfaction throughout the realm and especially in Scotland, was celebrated in Aberdeen with feelings of as great loyalty as in any part of Her Majesty's wide dominions. The attachment which Her Royal Highness the Princess Louise has shewn to her home in the Highlands has endeared her in an especial manner to those whom her Royal mother is pleased to call her neighbours; while her high artistic accomplishments and well-known kindliness of heart have, not less than her royal station, made her alliance with one of our most promising young Scottish nobles, an event of more than usual interest."
View our Treasures exhibition on the interactive screen to find out more about this royal couple and how their marriage unfolded in the following years. Treasure 104: Suffragette Newsletters
325 We celebrate International Women's Day in March and it is a chance to remember the monumental struggle of the women who fought for suffrage or the right to vote.
A featured treasure this month is the Handbook of the Conference of the National Union of Women Workers which was held in Aberdeen on the 13th, 14th and 15th of October 1908. Women began to demand the vote around the middle of the nineteenth century and suffragist groups sprang up all over Great Britain. In 1897 Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies - this organisation campaigned peacefully for the right to vote for women. Also In our collection we hold a copy of a newsletter named Jus Suffragii Alumnae from Jan 1909. It was the magazine of the Queen Margaret College Suffrage Society (Glasgow) and the society was a member of the Scottish University's Women's Suffrage Union.
Queen Margaret College was a women only establishment and became part of Glasgow University in 1892. Also featured this month, The Suffragette magazine was the organ of the Aberdeen University Woman Suffrage Association and this particular issue was published in 1908. The front cover features an eye-catching design which is typical of the kind of symbolism used by suffragettes to promote their cause. The colours we associate with the Woman's Social and Political Union - one of the major suffragette groups - are green, purple and white and they appeared on badges, jewellery and banners. Purple stood for freedom and dignity; green for hope and white for purity.
Want to learn about a shocking incident involving a famous suffragette at Aberdeen Railway Station? - Check out our interactive exhibition on the touchscreen! Treasure 105: Sir John Anderson Library Medal
326 The story of Sir John Anderson and his Woodside Library is told in "The Admirable Mechanic by Moira Anderson", published by Aberdeen City Libraries in 1983.
On the back cover is a photograph of the Anderson Library Medal given to every pupil at Woodside School to mark the inauguration of the Woodside Library and the Scholar's Library in 1881, both of which were housed temporarily in the Headmaster's Room at the school until a purpose-built library could be constructed.
The medal was presented to the Library in August 1983 and now forms part of the Anderson Library Archive held in Local Studies. We can take a look at the history of Woodside Library through some of the other items held in the collection.
Woodside Library opened on 15 October 1883 and was described By Patrick Morgan in The Annals of Woodside as "the most beautiful and valuable institution in the Burgh of Woodside, containing a wealth of literature, which is difficult to estimate". The library was a gift to the people of Woodside by the noted engineer, Sir John Anderson.
Over the years there was a noticeable decline in the use of the library with lack of funds to purchase new stock, no room for expansion and no separate Reading Room. Eventually, ownership of Woodside Library was transferred to the City Council and The Sir John Anderson Branch Library Woodside comprising a Lending Library, Reading Room with games tables, Juvenile Library and Reading Room was opened by Lord Provost Rust on 19 January 1932 and regarded as the largest and most complete Branch in the System.
To learn more about the interesting history of this unique library, have a browse in the Treasures from our Collections interactive exhibition. |