Women in milling
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | Milling & Grain |
| Year of publication | 2023 March |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | This month contains an annual event close to my heart: International Women’s Day. And so it feels timely to celebrate the contributions of women to milling, past and present. The history of women in milling has in some ways been a hidden one. And yet women have played important and interesting roles in the processing of grain and the production of flour over the course of history. At the Mills Archive Trust, we care for 3 million photographs, drawings, letters, reports, books, journals and small artefacts revealing global stories of milling and the people who have been responsible for feeding the world. Our records include snapshots and memoirs of some of the women who have been millers or have been connected to milling in some way. It is not usually easy to find this information, since the recorders of history have not always captured the full accounts of women. However, the threads are there, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to share some of their stories with you. Some stories of specific women can be found going back hundreds of years, such as to the medieval mystic Margery Kempe, who lived in England during the 1300s. She sought a variety of business ventures, including running a donkey powered mill, though it doesn’t sound like it was a very successful project! A Canadian agronomist and journalist, Dr Cora Hind made a name for herself during the first half of the 20th century due to her uncanny ability to accurately predict future grain harvests. There is a group of women about whom I would like to know more. In one of our collections are photographs and written notes about women living in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains during the 1980s…Read more. |
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