We are delighted to announce that this year’s Mary Eliza Root Prize winner is: Jessica Cox, Brunel University London
Jessica Cox is currently researching her next project provisionally entitled The Dodging Time: (Peri-)Menopause in Nineteenth-Century Britain – a sequel to her previous book, Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain (The History Press, 2023). Through an examination of life-writing, medical and advice literature, asylum records, and popular fiction, this work will shed light on this important, neglected topic. It will explore women’s own experiences of (peri-) menopause in nineteenth-century Britain, as well as medical responses to this ‘critical time’ and cultural depictions of women of ‘a certain age’.
At Gladstone’s Library she will examine letters written by Catherine Gladstone in the 1850s and 1860s, with a view to documenting her experiences of ageing and health. Research into women’s lived experiences of (peri-)menopause will enable me to offer comparisons with cultural representations of women at this age in a range of Victorian popular fiction.