My name is Ana Brown. I am a third year Modern History student at Royal Holloway University, hoping to go into a career in museums. Since August I have been volunteering at The Hockey Museum (THM) to gain some experience and insight into the field.
I have been assisting Dr Jo Halpin with her research into women’s hockey in the 1920s. This has involved going through The Hockey Field magazines for coverage of the United States Field Hockey Association’s (USFHA) women’s tour to the UK in 1924 – how the matches went, where they stayed, any dinners or sightseeing that they did, and so on. THM museum team have been a brilliant help guiding me in searching through the collections. The most exciting moment was the discovery of a collection of items from this 1924 tour previously belonging to one of the USFHA players, Marjorie Taylor. Her collection includes photographs, event tickets, dinner invitations and receipts giving a wonderful snapshot of the social side of the tour.
Having these items to look through has been a rewarding experience. After spending so long reading their names and the descriptions of the matches, I was able to put faces to names, see informal photos (alongside the official ones) and get more of a sense of the players’ personalities.
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Photographs from the Marjorie Taylor collection held at The Hockey Museum. Left: The USFHA touring team at Edinburgh Castle in 1924. | ||
I don’t have a hockey background and don’t know much about the sport, but I love social and cultural history and particularly its impact on women. Researching the tour was very enjoyable and rewarding. Seeing these pioneering women relaxing with friends or just seeing what they felt was worth photographing while sightseeing, increased the sense of connection I felt with them – a feeling of familiarity with a group of friends on a tour, having an exciting transatlantic trip and playing the sport they love. I felt so fond of them. Moreover, I don’t have much experience in research projects like this one, so to have tangible objects from the tour felt precious and exciting. Matching photographs to descriptions of the events was gratifying and I felt like a proper historian!
Especially rewarding is the fact that Marjorie Taylor wasn’t mentioned in The Hockey Field much, but suddenly her keepsakes became such a valuable part of the research and she became a significant figure. This is exactly why I enjoy studying history and why I love museums; every single person has stories worth telling, and it is wonderful to be playing a part in keeping that alive.
I loved the experience of putting this research together, and I’m looking forward to doing more.
Ana Brown
What Will Come From Ana’s Research?
The Hockey Museum is working with the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the United States Field Hockey Association (USFHA) to celebrate the centenary of the latter in February 2022. Research into the women’s tours in the 1920s – both the USA team to the UK and the UK Home Nations’ teams to the USA – is revealing connections between the nations that were clearly influential in the founding of the USFHA in 1922. We are working to deliver digital storytelling around this anniversary in 2022.
You can help by assisting us with tracking down copies of The Eagle magazine. Click here to find out more.
