Barbara's Daughters: Women's Boxing and Social Memory in Britain

Abstract A pioneer of post‐war boxing, Barbara Buttrick fought in fairgrounds and on music‐hall stages in Britain and France before making a career in the United States during the 1950s. She fought against practical obstacles, prejudice and discrimination to become the Women's World Flyweight and Bantamweight Champion in 1957. This article examines her boxing career in light of the idea of social memory. It argues that though she was largely marginalized and forgotten in mainstream sporting culture, Buttrick carefully preserved and curated her story through contacts and letters to journalists, biographical sketches in the publications of the governing body she ran during the 1990s and through her archive, now held at the University of Sheffield. Around the time of the first women's boxing competition at the London Olympics in 2012, the mainstream media and sporting commentators changed tack, foregrounding Buttrick as a pioneer of the sport at a time when it had gained legitimacy. She became a symbol of its heritage: her story stretched backwards to incorporate her own inspirations in childhood as well as her troubled career, and pulled forwards to provide context and meaning for the achievements of gold medallists Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields and, in particular, fellow Briton Nicola Adams.