Explore the imagery and communication strategies of the Women’s Liberation Movement…
Using Archives to Teach Gender is an excellent resource that includes scans of images from the Feminist Archive North and the Marks & Spencer Company Archive which are both based at Special Collections, Leeds University. Also includes a handy links page to further resources.
Archiving contemporary feminist activism. Thursday, 27 June 7-9.30pm @ MShed.
Feminists and women’s rights activists have often made a strong connection between history and social change. Simply put, when women are written out of the history books, their culture, achievements and lives are seen as less important than men’s. Such a perspective was a motivating force in the creation of the Feminist Archive, and the Women’s (formerly Fawcett) Library in London.
Such facts beg the question: how do we archive the present? How do we ensure that online 21st century feminist activism is documented in a secure way? How do we collect records of a movement as it is happening now, what do we remember, and what do we forget?
As part of the evening we will create a timeline of 21st century Bristol feminist activism, hear from experienced archivists and conduct live oral histories.
If you have participated in feminist activism in Bristol in the 21st century and have fliers or ephemera that you would like to deposit in the Feminist Archive South, please bring it along.
Join us for this important conversation! If you want to be part of history, you gotta make it!!
On Saturday 6 July we are delighted to welcome folk legend Frankie Armstrong to Bristol to explore the history of women’s folk music.
Alongside Peggy Seeger, Sandra Kerr, Alison McMorland and Kathy Henderson, Frankie produced two albums of women’s folk music, The Female Frolic (1968) and My Song is My Own (1980). There is also the book My Song is My Own (1979), which documents 100 women’s songs.
The workshop will comprise of a live oral history that will explore how Frankie helped to research and collect the legacy of women’s folk traditions. This will be followed by a singing session led by Frankie. Not to be missed!
You can listen to Frankie talk about her influences here:
June is a busy month for Feminist Archive South workshops. We have three taking place, all of which are happening at MShed in Bristol. They are free to attend, all welcome and there are participation bursaries available if you need expenses covered to come along. Hope to see you there!
Most women took part in ‘second wave feminism’ at a grass roots, local level. How do we find out why they became involved and what they hoped to achieve? Can we recover their voices and, if we do, how can we interpret them?
This workshop will look at different ways that historians can try to recover women’s voices. The first part will look at documentary evidence, including newsletters, pamphlets and photographs. The second part will focus on oral testimony: participants will be invited to compare summaries, full transcripts and original recordings of interviews. The workshop will explore memory and the ways in which participants construct different stories of the movements in which they took part.
June Hannam is an emeritus professor and Kath Holden a visiting research fellow in history at the University of the West of England. They are co-chairs of the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network. They both have research interests in gender history. June Hannam specialises in labour and feminist history and Kath Holden in oral history and history of the family.
Recent publications include Katherine Holden: The Shadow of Marriage: Singleness in England, 1914-1960 (2007) and June Hannam, Feminism (2012).
Tuesday 18th June – 7 to 9.30pm
Film Showings & collective listening to songs by women inspired by anti-nuclear activism followed by discussion.
Carry Greenham Home (1983)
‘Director Beeban Kidron was so committed to making this 1983 film – she was attending the National Film and Television School at the time – that she lived at the site herself for more than seven months.
Shot almost entirely on video, Carry Greenham Home‘s depiction of the women involved in the peace movement contrasts greatly with media portraits of the time, and the subsequent collective memory.
The film gives a fuller picture of what life was like than the fragmented news reports. It covers the processes underlying the women’s decisions, the influence of outside forces, and the verve and style with which they developed their own brand of non-violent direct action.’ Notes by Charlotte Cooper.
Feminists and women’s rights activists have often made a strong connection between history and social change. Simply put, when women are written out of the history books, their culture, achievements and lives are seen as less important than men’s. Such a perspective was a motivating force in the creation of the Feminist Archive, and the Women’s (formerly Fawcett) Library in London.
Such facts beg the question: how do we archive the present? How do we ensure that online 21st century feminist activism is documented in a secure way? How do we collect records of a movement as it is happening now, what do we remember, and what do we forget?
As part of the evening we will create a timeline of 21st century Bristol feminist activism, hear from experienced archivists and conduct live oral histories.
Join us for this important conversation! If you want to be part of history, you gotta make it!!
While the next Feminist Archive South workshop is this Sunday, 11 May from 1-5pm at Mshed and will explore the history of feminist print media, we have details of another workshop below….
Most women took part in ‘second wave feminism’ at a grass roots, local level. How do we find out why they became involved and what they hoped to achieve? Can we recover their voices and, if we do, how can we interpret them?
This workshop will look at different ways that historians can try to recover women’s voices. The first part will look at documentary evidence, including newsletters, pamphlets and photographs. The second part will focus on oral testimony: participants will be invited to compare summaries, full transcripts and original recordings of interviews. The workshop will explore memory and the ways in which participants construct different stories of the movements in which they took part.
June Hannam is an emeritus professor and Kath Holden a visiting research fellow in history at the University of the West of England. They are co-chairs of the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network. They both have research interests in gender history. June Hannam specialises in labour and feminist history and Kath Holden in oral history and history of the family.
Recent publications include Katherine Holden: The Shadow of Marriage: Singleness in England, 1914-1960 (2007) and June Hannam, Feminism (2012).
This symposium will explore why and how oral history has been privileged as a methodology for capturing women activists’ experience in very different countries and contexts.
We will compare interviewing, archiving, interpretation and publicising methods and identify good practice that we can share. We will also identify strategies for future oral-historical research on transnational and cross-cultural feminism.
Featuring seven innovative feminist oral history projects
Unbecoming Men: Masculinities and the Women’s Liberation Movement, 1970–1985
Join us
Date Thursday 11 April 2013
Time 09:30-16:30
Venue University of Sussex, Silverstone Building, Room 309
Cost and registration The day is free but registration beforehand is essential. Please contact Margaretta Jolly at [email protected]
This event is co-sponsored by The University of Sussex (Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research) and The University of Brighton (Centre for Memory, Narrative, History). We also thank the British Academy for its generous contribution.
Further information http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/mnh
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/clhlwr/
This is a request from George Stevenson, a PhD candidate at Durham University. Can you help him or know someone who can?
Get in touch with George at the address stated below.
‘My name is George Stevenson and I am PhD student at the University of Durham researching the ways in which women’s socio-economic background and circumstances impacted on their relationship to the women’s liberation movement and other women within and outside of it. I am considering how ‘class’ was conceived of and treated within the movement and whether working-class women faced particular class-based oppressions that middle-class women did not, as well as how these were interpreted and responded to. My research will also detail the cultural, economic, political and social contributions made by working-class women to the women’s movement in whatever arena to illustrate the significant role they played within it.
I am looking to speak to any women who were involved in the women’s movement in this period, as well as women who may have been involved in parallel political movements, such as industrial disputes, about their experiences and feelings about the movement. If you are interested in being involved or have any questions then please feel free to contact me at [email protected].’
On the site you can listen to a range of women who were involved in the WLM. The testimonies are organised in categories such as family and children; bodies, minds and spirits; sex, love and friendship; race, place and nation; education; equality and work; activism; politics and legislation; changing culture and the arts; who we were, who were are.
Screenshot from the page ‘Race, Place and Nation’
As well as oral histories there are teacher notes for each of these themes, which again emphasises what a brilliant learning resource the site is.
Being able to listen to women and men who were active in the WLM perfectly complements the archival material that you can find in the Feminist Archive South. Should you wish to know more about this rich and complex part of history, you know where you need to go!
