A History of Women's Lives on the Isle of Wight

Never-before-seen artwork depicting what the homes of Island women might have looked like over one hundred years ago.

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Ask somebody to give you the name of a woman from history and they'll probably give you a queen's. If not royalty, it'll be a famous courtesan, a noblewoman, a rogue. Some women manage to be all four things at once.

Take a look outside, however, and you'll see a diverse range of women, all with their own set of experiences, preferences, feelings and thoughts - their own stories. And every one of these women will have just one thing in common; they are completely and utterly ordinary.

Ordinary women don't make it into history books - until now.

A History of Women's Lives of the Isle of Wight focuses in on women who were living on the Island between 1850 and 1950. These ladies were not queens. They weren't courtesans, or rogues, or royalty. They were just like the women you see every single day. They thought their own thoughts; they felt their own feelings; and they have been lost to time. Because a woman must be more than ordinary to be remembered.

Except what is ordinary? Is it a single mother nursing her child through a deadly disease? Is it giving up on your own dreams to take on the role of mother when yours passes on? Is it becoming one of the greatest artists of the modern era, only to wind up with none of your paintings on display in any of the most prestigious museums?

We're not all queens. But in being ordinary, maybe we're really extraordinary.