Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Paris for the Alcohol and Drugs History Society’s biennial conference.

At the cocktail event, my thesis was chosen as a joint winner for the society’s biennial Dissertation Prize – a huge honour, and one shared with Dr. Taylor Elizabeth Dysart for her thesis The Scientist and the Jaguar: Enchanting Plants and the Politics of Knowledge in North Western Amazon, 1849-1943.

Of my thesis (“His wyfe the chiefe doer of it”: women who sold ale in south west England, 1550-1700, readable here), Professor Alex Mold had these kind words to say:

“The thesis challenged long-held assumptions about who was involved in the ale business in early modern England. Through careful examination of sources, she asserts that the key role played by women has been overlooked. As the title of her thesis indicates, it was women that did all of the work! I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we were really impressed with the methodological innovation and how this allowed you to make a novel argument and we were particularly struck with how difficult the sources of early modern history are to… find and how hard they are to work with, and your approach really enabled you to overcome that. And we greatly enjoyed reading the thesis and are sure that it will make a strong and engaging monograph. Congratulations.”

Below, you can see Taylor and I with Erika Dyck of the University of Saskatchewan, the President of the ADHS. For someone a few months into maternity leave, the whole evening was a lovely break from nappies and bottles!