Dr Victoria Dawson
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vsdawson.bsky.social
Dr Victoria Dawson
@vsdawson.bsky.social
1.2K followers 250 following 240 posts
Freelance historian and interdisciplinary researcher for hire. Working class. Radical feminist. Socialist. Anti-fascist. Northern powerhouse. Learning German. PhD: Women and Rugby League: Gender, Class and Community 1880-1970.
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vsdawson.bsky.social
Every so often I am reminded of how out of touch academia is with the world outside of academia. Today is one of those days.
November 23, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
workingclasshistory.com
#OtD 22 Nov 1980 Leeds Women Against Violence Against Women protested police inaction concerning the Yorkshire Ripper murders and the city’s proposed curfew for women. 100s of demonstrators fought police and journalists as they marched through Leeds stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9515...
November 22, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
hulldockster.bsky.social
The good people of Hull turned out today to demonstrate that our streets don’t belong to the far-right racists.
They belong to the vast majority of decent people who welcome refugees and asylum seekers.
Hull is, and will always be, a City of Sanctuary.
November 22, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
groomb.bsky.social
Queue for bread in Wigan as bakeries and supermarkets rationed loaves during the bakers' strikes of 1974 (Wigan Today).
November 22, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
booksofm.com
If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.
November 20, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
wiganmuseum.bsky.social
We are inviting applications from local artists for three #freelance commissions as part of 'Wigan’s Voice' - an exciting new exhibition here at the #museum. All the information & how to apply is at the link below.

#ArtJobs #Wigan #LocalArtists

www.theturnpikegallery.org.uk/About-us/Opp...
Poster advertising the three art commission vacancies. It has a dark green background with the text Freelance artist commissions - Wigan Museum. Deadline 5pm Wednesday 3rd December 2025.
November 19, 2025 at 2:40 PM
vsdawson.bsky.social
Of course Phoebe is going to give birth in a stable. #TheArchers #SecondComing
November 18, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
This is a 52-pound 9000+ page accordion-bound artist’s book of Donald Trump’s lies, conceived, printed, and bound by Jill and Ray Nichols of @leadgraffiti.bsky.social in Delaware. Each of the 9000 pages has the text (per the Washington Post) of one or more of Trump’s lies; none are repeated.
The 9000-page 52-pound book, entitled LIAR, LIAR, on display today at the University of Maryland. Sample interior page. Front of a postcard describing the project. Photo of postcard describing project: “9,296 pages document 3o,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump from his first day in office, 2017, to his final day on January 20, 2020, when Joe Biden was sworn in as the country's next president. All that verbiage is s3" thick, weighs 52 pounds, and it started like this. The disolution of the Delaware College of Art & Design, to whom Lead Graffti had donated 1oos of design books over the past decade, brought an invitation to redaim them. We found a few, which brought us another interesting find — a blank Coppic-stitched book with a spine about 36 inches wide bound by Ema Ishii Holdredge for her BEA show at the Corcoran School of Art in 2008. That book haunted us for several weeks, and we decided it was too audacious not to give ita Lead Graffiti shot. For a while, we pondered how to fill a several thousand-page book with content that made a serious point. The notion of the presidential untruths came to mind, so maybe there was some documentation we could "borrow?" Sure enough, in a few Safari minutes, we found a downloadable PDE from The Washington Post that we could massage into a typographic form we could use. We were off. Ray undertook the ink-jet printing of the pages, folding and inserting the red cover-weight sheets for structural support, and gathering and punching the folds for sewing. Jill did 99.8% of the sewing. At a 3o2 United gathering, we encouraged attendees to give the book a stroke. Shown at right is the head of the Delaware ACLU, who has excellent technique. LEAD GRAFFITI | NEWARK, DELAWARE| LEADGRAFFITI.COM|RAY@LEADGRAIETTI.COM”
November 15, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
sportinhistorypod.bsky.social
Our latest episode with @collinstony.bsky.social of @icshc.bsky.social & @lborouniversity.bsky.social discussing his book on rugby league legend Roy Francis earlier this year is now LIVE!

Well worth a listen for lovers of rugby league and/or Black British history!

shows.acast.com/sport-in-his...
November 12, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
kenburnside.bsky.social
Free Sarah Kendzior.
November 11, 2025 at 5:47 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
#OTD 1917 the 'October' Revolution took place in Russia

Our archives include significant primary sources on the relationship between Britain and Russia in the decade following the 1917 revolutions

650+ documents have been digitised and are freely available online at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
Colourised lantern slide showing soldiers dressed in grey uniforms, rifles raised.
November 7, 2025 at 3:00 PM
vsdawson.bsky.social
Posting because the scales of retail job losses goes unnoticed by most.

brc.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Retail down by over 360,000 jobs in a decade
brc.org.uk
November 6, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
thevicsoc.bsky.social
📣 There's a new petition to Stop the Closure of Walsall Leather Museum. The building is the last example there of an early Victorian leatherworks in situ. The leather-working process is showcased, it's a much-loved local attraction. The Council has announced it will close in 2026.
c.org/PKm6B7svFN
November 6, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
spiesoutoflives.bsky.social
✍️✍️✍️SIGN, SIGN, SIGN.

BAN UNDERCOVER COPS FROM SLEEPING WITH MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC.

We shouldn't even have to be campaigning about this.
PLEASE SHARE WIDELY.

#spycops #police #undercover #misogyny #liars #deceit #assault #violation #HumanRights

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...
October 29, 2025 at 4:33 PM
vsdawson.bsky.social
Anyone else feel like this holiday is some kind of test before a big will reveal? If they manage to achieve full attendance they unlock the rest of the money they expected to be there in the first place? #TheArchers
October 27, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
seeshespeak.bsky.social
The future of the humanities / social sciences research is listening to economists lecture to us about our own ideas
October 26, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
hellohistoria.bsky.social
#OTD 1966 • Aberfan Disaster 🥀

On Friday the 21st of October 1966, a wave of coal waste slid down the Aberfan Valley, taking the lives of 116 children and 28 adults with it.

#Wales #History
October 21, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
collinstony.bsky.social
The Countdown to the rugby league Ashes begins - and to kick it off here's a 'Rugby Reloaded' classic episode charting the incredible story of the 1946 'Indomitables' and the first post-war Ashes series: on.soundcloud.com/EMF3GoRrQUuD...
127. The 1946 Indomitables' rugby league tour
Less than a year after the end of World War 2 rugby league’s Lions toured Australia and New Zealand - a tour made possible thanks to an aircraft carrier, a military train & the President of the Genera
soundcloud.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
sarahkendzior.bsky.social
"I've told the story of Akromiya for 20 years. I’m telling it again now, because today is No King’s Day, and I am afraid that 'Antifa' is the American Akromiya: a fabricated entity made by state propagandists to persecute anyone who opposes the government."
sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/inventing-...
Inventing Antifa
In 2005, the Uzbek government invented a group called “Akromiya” to justify massacring protesters. Now I worry the US government will do the same.
sarahkendzior.substack.com
October 18, 2025 at 10:07 PM
vsdawson.bsky.social
The cultural significance of Hull Fair for Hullensians cannot be overstated, especially for working-class people. Going without parents for the first time is a huge rite of passage. And yes, the Hell-blazers are still the best waltzers. With a combined age of 108 my mum and I were on them on Thurs!
October 18, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
lewisgoodall.com
New figures from Shelter show that the number of children homeless or in temporary accommodation in England has reached its highest level since records began.

172,420 kids without a permanent home of their own- an 8% increase in a single year.
October 16, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
collinstony.bsky.social
With the rugby league Ashes' series almost here, 'Rugby Reloaded' resumes its look at the cultural and social history of Anglo-Australian league, exploring how Australia turned the tables on England to become the game's dominant world power. Listen now via: on.soundcloud.com/qkAQwcAbifus...
204. A Cultural History of the Ashes (part two)
With rugby league's Ashes series imminent, part two of Rugby Reloaded's look at the cultural history of Anglo-Australian rugby league moves onto the post-World War 2 period. It was an era when the b
soundcloud.com
October 15, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
Wrote a thing. www.thenation.com/article/acti...
The CSIS report declares, “Radicals will argue that peaceful politics will inevitably fail and that only violence will make a difference,” but I have no idea who these radicals are because in my 40 years around direct action organizing, I’ve only encountered theoretical enthusiasm for violence from the sidelines and the occasional young hothead (almost always white and male) in movements whose vast majority and leadership are committed to nonviolence. I do know someone who was part of a violent group in the early ’70s and then became wanted fugitive; he’s since become an ardent advocate of nonviolence. What too often gets described as left-wing violence at protests is property destruction, which can be dangerous and intimidating and is usually opposed by protest organizers, but should be regarded as distinct from harming human life. For example, at the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, the Black Bloc, a small cadre among the 50,000 protesters smashed a lot of shop windows quite spectacularly. But there are no reports of activists harming human beings. Police, on the other hand, used tear gas; pepper spray; rubber, plastic, and wooden bullets; concussion grenades; and armored vehicles against protesters bystanders resulting in many injuries. Nonetheless, for years afterward, mainstream media outlets portrayed this event as an occasion of shocking activist violence.
October 16, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Dr Victoria Dawson
tom-clark.bsky.social
In one crisp para — & the 2 charts he highlights — @chrisgiles.ft.com bursts a huge number of “welfare” myths www.ft.com/content/ee67...
October 15, 2025 at 4:39 PM
vsdawson.bsky.social
Any #RugbyLeague people out there with RL tats?
iheartfatapollo.bsky.social Dr. Suzanne Scott @iheartfatapollo.bsky.social · Oct 13
Are you 18 or older with a fandom-related tattoo (or know someone who has one)? Please take 10 min to fill out this survey for my new book project on embodied fan identities and practices. Share widely! utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Contact info: suzanne.scott@utexas.edu.
October 15, 2025 at 6:23 AM