‘An Awfully Nice Job’. Kathleen Kenyon as Secretary and Acting Director of the University of London Institute of Archaeology, 1935–1948

Katie Meheux

doi:10.5334/ai-379

Abstract

This article presents an assessment of the administrative career of Kathleen Kenyon. It examines her involvement in the new Institute and wider British archaeological community as well as assessing her working life within the context of the increasing professionalisation of archaeological organisations between the wars, and the role played in this by female administrators. The behaviours and actions of Kenyon and those around her are also evaluated within the context of wider contemporary attitudes to and about women. Finally, Kenyon’s role in women’s archaeological practice and women’s contributions to archaeological culture between the wars is considered.

Highlights

Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978), one of the most influential women archaeologists of the 20th century, enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the University of London Institute of Archaeology, which she Meheux: ‘An Awfully Nice Job’
The study will provide a gendercritical perspective of her career within the British archaeological community and in the process, reveal the vital work done by female administrators, who took advantage of expanding opportunities in the interwar period to carve out professional spaces for themselves
Women played a vital role in rescue excavations and began to find their voice; at the Conference on Future of Archaeology, only 3 out of 29 papers were given by women, but in the discussions 42% of the contributions were by women (Diaz-Andreu and Stig Sorensen 1998: 18)

Summary

Katie Meheux

This article presents an assessment of the administrative career of Kathleen Kenyon. It examines her involvement in the new Institute and wider British archaeological community as well as assessing her working life within the context of the increasing professionalisation of archaeological organisations between the wars, and the role played in this by female administrators. Its holder would have the making not merely of the job, but to a large extent of the Institute. He or she will start from nothing and will build up something which ought to be pretty good. We need someone with an academic training and with imagination and a heap of commonsense’.1

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Conclusion