Hilda Kean

Hilda Kean
BornAugust 1949 (age 77)
Academic work
DisciplineHistory
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Notable works
Websitehildakean.com

Hilda Kean (born August 1949) is a British historian specialising in public history, cultural history and the history of human–animal relationships. Her books include Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800 (1998) and The Great Cat and Dog Massacre (2017).

Kean was Dean and Director of Public History at Ruskin College, Oxford, where she was also an honorary research fellow. She is a visiting professor of history at the University of Greenwich and an adjunct professor at the Centre for Australian Public History at the University of Technology Sydney. She is also an honorary senior research associate at University College London.

Research and writing

Kean's research has covered public history, the history of animal advocacy, women's suffrage, education and the labour movement. In Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800 (1998), she examined the cultural and social position of animals in Britain and the development of animal protection campaigns from the nineteenth century onwards. The book considers the relationship between animal advocacy and movements for political and social reform, including feminism, socialism and political radicalism.

Her book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two's Unknown Tragedy (2017) examines the killing of hundreds of thousands of companion animals in Britain following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Drawing on diaries, letters, archival records and contemporary accounts, Kean investigated the circumstances of the killings and the changing relationships between people and their animals during the war. Reviewing the book in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Colin Dickey discussed Kean's use of sources documenting the experiences of animals that had received little attention in conventional histories of the war.

Kean has also written about the representation of animals in public history, including monuments commemorating Greyfriars Bobby and the Brown Dog affair. Her research in public history has addressed historical memory, heritage, commemoration and the participation of the public in producing historical knowledge.

Selected works

Books

Selected articles and book chapters

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Hilda KEAN personal appointments". Companies House. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Hilda Kean". University of Greenwich. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  3. ↑ "Animal Rights". Reaktion Books. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  4. ↑ "The Great Cat and Dog Massacre". University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  5. ↑ "Dr Hilda Kean". Ruskin College. Archived from the original on 9 March 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  6. ↑ "Hilda Kean". University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  7. ↑ Kean, Hilda (1998). Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-014-6.
  8. ↑ Kean, Hilda (2017). The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two's Unknown Tragedy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-31832-5.
  9. ↑ Dickey, Colin (30 April 2017). "The Pets' War: On Hilda Kean's "The Great Cat and Dog Massacre"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 13 October 2026.
  10. ↑ Smith, Hilda L. (1992). "Deeds Not Words: The Lives of Suffragette Teachers". History of Education Quarterly. 32 (4): 551. doi:10.2307/368975. ISSN 0018-2680. JSTOR 368975.