Research Spotlight: Dr Eve Pennington

The School of History is delighted to welcome a new postdoctoral research fellow.

Dr Eve Pennington will be working on her project, ‘Gender, Urban Development, and Women's Lives in the New Towns in North-West England, c.1960s–1990s’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. 

What is your research background?

I am a historian of modern Britain with particular interests in gender history, urban history, and oral history.

My PhD in History was based at the University of Manchester and funded by an ESRC studentship and a Royal Historical Society Centenary Fellowship. Through a combined analysis of planning and policy documents and oral history interviews, my thesis examined the relationship between gender and urban development in three ‘new towns’ established in north-west England during the latter half of the twentieth century.

Before joining Leeds, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Worcester, working on the UKRI ‘Voices of Motherhood’ project exploring the politicisation of motherhood and maternal activism in the UK from 1918 to the present.

What are your research plans while you are at Leeds?

As an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, I will further develop and disseminate my doctoral research on gender, urban development, and women’s lives in the new towns in north-west England. As well as producing an academic journal article and a monograph proposal, I plan to engage national and local government policymakers in order to help them better understand the history of the post-war new towns and draw lessons for the future. I also plan to engage local communities through running public workshops on the histories of the new towns in Skelmersdale and Runcorn, working in collaboration with local heritage groups.

What else are you looking forward to about your fellowship?

I am a big fan of twentieth-century architecture and for several years I've been obsessed with the Roger Stevens Building at Leeds. It’s been shut when I’ve visited in the past so I can’t wait to explore the inside now that I work at the university, although I’ve heard that it’s a bit of a maze…

Aside from that, I'm looking forward to making new connections with colleagues at Leeds, particularly through the Women, Gender, and Sexuality and GLAM research groups. I'm also really excited to work with heritage groups and local communities to research and share the histories of the new towns and hopefully learn something from each other!