ENGLAND: THE OTHER WITHIN
Analysing the English Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum
Gender and Donations: Change over Time
Chris Wingfield
Researcher 'The Other Within' project
While working on analysing the acquisition events that make up the Pitt Rivers Museum's English collections it became clear that in the mid-twentieth century an increasingly large number of the donors were women. This coincided approximately with the period around the second world war, when an increase in activity can be detected in relation to acquisition events relating to English material.
Graph 8: Acquisition Events involving English objects grouped by Gender
It has been possible to compare donations and acquisition events relating to men and women, and this makes it clear that things began to change considerably at around the time of the second world war.
Revised correct graph for gender section CW
The reasons that may lie behind this change and the social networks that connected the female donors is the subject of ongoing research.
Graph 10: Proportions of Male and Female Acquisition events for each year