Siân Evans

Siân Evans traces overlooked lives through social and cultural history. In Maiden Voyages, she follows women who crossed the Atlantic aboard great passenger liners during the interwar years, moving between first-class cabins, working quarters, and steerage. The book connects those journeys with changing expectations around employment, independence, migration, and leisure. Its full published title, Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel, makes that focus explicit. Evans has also written histories associated with British houses and institutions, drawing on work for organisations including the National Trust, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Design Museum. Her account of ocean travel is therefore concerned not only with famous passengers, but also with the women whose labour kept the ships running and those whose crossings opened new chapters in their lives.