Remembering Sandra Trudgen Dawson

I met Sandra in 2008 when she responded to a call for papers that I put out for participants on a panel at the Western Conference on British Studies in San Antonio, Texas.  We were both PhD students at the time, with Sandra being an ABD under the supervision of Erika Rappaport at the University of California, Santa Barbara, while I was working on my PhD at the University of London under the supervision of Pat Thane.  Her topic, which focused on holiday camps in Britain - an idea pioneered by Billy Butlin and Jack Warner - was grounded in a distinctly “working-class experience” of leisure. I was fascinated by Sandra’s topic, having holidayed with my family in these camps in the late 1980s.  These venues were provided as both an affordable holiday experience for Britain’s blue-collar workers, and a “thank you” gift from a husband to the wife and mother for their contribution in bringing up the children – an approach that served to solidify in the national consciousness the gendered roles in working-class families. Her research illuminated not only distinct working-class experiences and consumption of leisure, but also the perception of women within this space.  The significance of her work was such that it was awarded the Duncan Tanner prize in the journal Twentieth Century British History (now Modern History) for the best article submitted by a graduate student.  The transition from a thesis into a book came within two years of the PhD being awarded: Holiday Camps in Twentieth Century Britain: Packaging Pleasure (Manchester University Press, 2011).  The volume demonstrated Sandra’s drive, determination, and enthusiasm to contribute cutting-edge research to the field.

Sandra came to graduate school after having had an established career in midwifery in both the UK and the USA. This experience became the subject of what would be her last book: Mothers, Midwives, and Reproductive Labor in Interwar and Wartime Britain (Lexington Books, 2024).  In examining women’s experiences of childbirth—together with the life of those who cared for them—Sandra’s research demonstrates how a lack of funding left women, both as midwives and expectant mothers, with a raw deal.  The country expected so much from them, but was seemingly giving very little in return, often justifying the lack of maternity care with strains on public finances during war.  As Sandra notes, the midwives were the nurses that suffered disproportionately from a lack of resources, oftentimes needing to re-use items normally only permitted for single use, such as latex gloves.  The low pay received by midwives, together with the dangerous conditions and lack of resources, was further evidence of women’s poor treatment in the labor market while undertaking essential work (albeit not classified as such by the government in wartime).  Furthermore, pregnant women’s access to healthcare was often also constrained by a lack of midwives and, among the working class in particular, an inability to pay for these services.  This situation added further thrust to the debate for a publicly funded health system, which became a reality in Britain after the Second World War following the recommendations of the Beveridge Report during the war, and the reforms introduced by the postwar Attlee Labour Government.  The uniqueness of this work is how women’s voices are brought to the forefront.  Primary sources provide first-hand testimonies of women in this period, both as nurses and expectant mothers, to reveal the nature of the struggles experienced by both the workers in the sector, and the women bringing children into the world during wartime.

Our mutual interest in the Second World War, in particular women’s experiences on the home front during the conflict, led to multiple co-authored publications over the years. The first was an edited volume entitled Consuming Behaviours: Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth Century Britain (Bloomsbury, 2015), co-edited with Erika Rappaport.  This book examined consumer culture in Britain in the twentieth century, revealing how numerous dynamics were at play in influencing the products that people consumed, and how and why these were consumed.  The difficulties brought about by both the First and Second World wars led to direct appeals being made to women to consume and spend wisely (a situation that was, in many cases, enforced by rationing and controlled by the British government). The aftermath of the war led to changes in attitudes towards spending and opened British consumer culture to the influence of America, as exemplified by music and coffee culture.

Sandra and I would edit another two books together.  Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939-45 (Boydell and Brewer, 2017) was an examination of the contribution made by citizens on the home front in the Second World War in Britain and its empire territories. It revealed how countries experienced war in different ways, but that they were all united by one common experience: sacrifice.  Drawing on experts in their respective fields, this book focused on the experiences of citizens, placing their voices at the forefront and demonstrating how respective government policies, together with the expectations of a dominant imperial power, affected not only the prosecution of the war but also the human experience of the war.  Women’s Wartime Experience: Exile, Survival and Everyday Life, 1939-45 (Boydell and Brewer, 2021) examined the war from a global perspective but focusing on women’s experiences both on the home and military fronts.  Numerous topics were examined, including their work as missionaries, experiences of inter-racial marriage in occupied Japan, Jewish women in occupied Paris, together with their work as Army Nurses and members of the armed forces, and in so doing, increases our understanding of women’s vital contribution to the Second World War.

In addition to these editorial collaborations, I was also honored to be part of Sandra’s final edited collection (with Nupur Chaudhuri) Women, Children, and the Collective Face of Conflict in Europe, 1900-1950 (Vernon Press, 2023). This volume is a collection of essays examining the war from a global perspective that places women and children front and center.  From efforts made to provide financial assistance to women and children displaced by the war, to overt propaganda targeting women and children on the home front, this volume covers women and children’s experiences of war from numerous angles, and areas that have, until now, received less attention in the historiography.  While copious studies exist on the history of the Second World War, studies such as these reveal that while we already have learned a lot about the conflict, there is still a lot left to examine.

These books come in addition to numerous others in which Sandra was deeply involved, including a co-edited collection with Eileen Boris and Barbara Molony, Engendering Transnational Transgressions: From the Intimate to the Global (Routledge, 2020). This book tackled major issues such as discrimination in the realms of race, gender, patriarchy, and marriage, through the lens of transnational history.  By doing so, it revealed the depth and breadth of discrimination against women, and the different forms in which it took place across the world.  It also revealed how women, and the international feminist movement more broadly, were united in helping women exposed to such discrimination and treatment, and how a distinctly global women’s movement had emerged in the twentieth century.

At the time of Sandra’s death, we were planning another volume on women and charitable organizations during the Second World War, which would take the research in Engendering Transnational Transgressions further to explore how women united during the Second World War to help those disproportionately affected by occupations and bombings.  This research was to focus on how women not only worked to keep the home front functioning in their respective countries, but also to help fellow women in other countries experiencing the worst effect of enemy bombings – an initiative that would also help children, many of whom were displaced and/or orphaned by the war.  While demonstrating that women still performed a caregiving role in the war, this research would also show that they played a pivotal role in cooperative movements, charities, and fundraising – aspects that have received less attention in the historiography, and have often been credited to male politicians at the time (who, in the case of Britain at least, were heavily assisted by their wives and female colleagues in these ventures).  I feel that I owe it to Sandra to finish this work in the form of a collection of essays and implore anyone interested in contributing to this project to contact me.

Meeting Sandra proved fortuitous for me both as a researcher and a person.  I quickly realized that she would be not only a colleague or a co-author, but also a mentor whom I could trust.  It was for this reason that I asked her to be the proofreader for my forthcoming monograph.   Every time we spoke, I was struck by both her depth and breadth of knowledge, by her strong sense of justice and fairness, and by her selflessness and willingness to give her time to others.  Her generosity, both professionally and personally, certainly catapulted my career and visibility on the academic stage in the USA – a boost after spending over eight years working at a Chinese university.  She opened doors for me to scholarly societies that I would otherwise have assumed would be shut to a male scholar actively researching in the field of women’s history.  I know that I was not the only recipient of her generosity and warmth.  It was through Sandra I was introduced to, and became friends with, many outstanding scholars in the North American Conference on British Studies, the Coordinating Council for Women in History, the Berkshire Society of Women Historians, and the Western Association of Women Historians.  When introducing me to some of the world-leading scholars in the field of women’s history, Sandra called me “her Feminist friend Mark” – an identity I have treasured ever since, and one that was accompanied by her giving me a rosette to wear at the Big Berks conference at Hofstra University.   It is through Sandra I met the powerhouses in the field, including (but not limited to) Eileen Boris, Nupur Chaudhuri, Barbara Molony, Karen Offen, Erika Rappaport, Michelle Tusan and Ilaria Scaglia.  I know I am lucky to be able to call these scholars not only colleagues, but also my friends. 

Sandra’s impact on numerous people’s lives has been transformative. When I was given sabbatical leave in 2018 from my former employers in China to work at Harvard for a year, Sandra sent me several packages of essentials—including pots, pans, plates, and a toaster—to my apartment in Cambridge.  When I called her to thank her, she told me she hoped this would be the start of the rest of my life in the US and subsequently planned a grand networking tour for me in my sabbatical year, which included presenting at the women’s history conferences mentioned above.  While I never made it a secret that my sabbatical year was primarily aimed at getting me into the US university system, Sandra was also rooting for me and told me I needed to achieve it since it would be easier to meet up and collaborate with her!  With her belief and enthusiasm behind me, I landed a job at the University of Utah in 2019.  It is thanks to the work I published with Sandra that I was promoted to full professor in 2024. I know very few people who would put so much energy into helping others.  Sandra enabled others to be active and thrive within our often-unforgiving profession, and our research and learning landscape is therefore more diverse and richer as a result. 

Mark J Crowley

University of Utah

November 2025