Due to a fantastic response to the call for participants for the archivist shadowing workshops, all the places are now full!
Thanks to all who have booked a place and expressed interest – its really encouraging to know that there is an audience and need for these activities, it helps us for future funding bids.
Big apologies though to anyone who has missed out – we promise to run similar programmes in the future.
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….
Sunday 9 June 2013 @ MShed 1-5pm. All welcome.
Bristol: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement facilitated by June Hannam and Kath Holden from the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network.
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).
Sarah Cuthill, the project archivist, is sharing the process of cataloguing Ellen’s archives for this blog. This is her first report….
The first month, about half of which was spent at Ellen’s house, where the papers were in much better order than anticipated! Originally covering the floor and tables of the first floor lounge, the archive comprises journals, business files, research papers, conference papers, badges, correspondence and ephemera such as fliers and posters for relevant events. Most of the papers were in folders or in homemade magazine files made by Ellen out of washing powder boxes. Eventually I boxed the collection up into cardboard grocery boxes from our local organic shop.
Ellen quietly added extra piles of papers over the days. It was a boon, and a novelty, to have the owner of the papers there with me to explain how various organisations grew out of each other and where she was involved. As well as Ellen’s own research, there are important runs of papers relating to Women’s Aid and the Women’s Centre. We spent one morning with Ellen giving me a potted history of her life since coming to Bristol. My primary mission in these first weeks has been to survey the papers and make a quick list of what is there I did this with pencil and paper which I then typed up at home.
Two and half weeks in, we transferred the papers to my house in 18 cardboard boxes. The next step is to arrange the papers into logical categories, and to rebox them. This is to be done with the help of archive shadowers who will join in and learn about the archive as well as the archive process.
In 1973 and 1974 Helen Taylor and Brenda Jacques decided to embark on an innovative way of information sharing amongst feminist groups in Bristol. They stated: ‘it seems that the small weekly groups and specific campaign groups within Bristol Women’s Liberation don’t really know what the others are doing. Our only means of communication is through the newsletter which, though informative, can only give an outline of each group’s activities, and can suggest little of the feelings and experiences of the women involved.’
Their answer to this problem was to create a tape-slide and audio presentation that would be used in groups and on Radio Bristol’s ‘Access’ programme. They took photos of the Bristol Women’s Liberation activities and asked women the following question: ‘What difference has the Women’s Liberation Movement made to you in your daily life, in your relationships, your day-to-day routine, & your feelings about yourself as a woman, as well as your political awareness and activism?
One of the women they interviewed was Monica Sjöö, who died in 2005. In the extract below she talks about being a woman artist and the difference that women’s liberation makes.
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The Feminist Archive South have funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to create a pamphlet that explores how feminist, women’s and other radical histories shape lives, understandings of social change, collective dreams, hopes, disappointments and imaginations.
The pamphlet will be published for the end of the Ellen Malos’ Archives project in September 2013. It will be distributed to schools, further education colleges and libraries in Bristol, the South West and further afield on request (we have limited budget for distribution but can provide free copies should you want some).
We invite people to explore these questions in whatever way they wish, but please do think about the question of what history can do, what it means to individuals and what it can possibly mean to communities, collectives or whatever other way you want to envision/ interrogate/ reconfigure/ think about ‘us.’
Contributions should be written in a non-specialist language as it is envisaged that a wide range of ages and backgrounds will read the pamphlet.
We want to use the pamphlet as a space to explore the practicalities of history making – for example running discussion and memory groups, oral history projects, grassroots archives (on and offline), exhibitions and other ways individuals and communities explore, recover and use history to understand their identities, where they live or the cultures they belong to.
If you work for a feminist or women’s archives, please consider a contribution that tells us about your collection – we plan to have a directory at the back which lists archives and libraries where people can find out about history.
You may also want to consider if digital media has had an impact on the question of what history can do, and how it is shaping individuals and communities right now.
Other contributions can be in the form of
All written contributions must not exceed 1500 words
All images must be sent as JPEGs 300 DPI
Deadline for contributions
15 July 2013
Please send contributions to [email protected] and contact us for further information
Ever wanted to know how an archivist catalogues a large collection?
The Feminist Archive South is offering a unique opportunity for people to shadow the project archivist as she catalogues Ellen Malos’ collection.
Ellen Malos was a key figure in the Bristol Women’s Liberation Movement. The first Women’s Centre opened in the basement of her house in 1973, and her work supporting vulnerable women has been recognised through an Honoury Doctorate at Bristol University (2006), and in the naming of the Next Link Women’s Safe House, ‘Ellen Malos House’ (12 June 2007). Ellen’s archive comprises rare historical material, including documents that have shaped some of the most significant legal and policy transformations within British history relating to gender quality.
You can attend up to four sessions with the archivist, and they will take place during weekdays in the day-time. You do not have to attend all sessions – although if you want to, this is also fine!
This is a great chance to informally learn the skills, practices and knowledge required to do archival work. You also get the chance to look at a load of interesting material about feminist history!
Even if you do not want to pursue archiving as a career, these activities will be relevant to people interested in the history of gender equality, in particular activism relating to women’s aid and violence against women.
Sessions will take place from April-June 2013. Please contact us to arrange a session.
Participation bursaries are available to cover things like childcare, travel and accommodation costs (if coming from outside of Bristol). Please let us know about this when you make an enquiry.
In the next Feminist Archive South workshop which is taking place on Sunday 12 May at MShed from 1-5pm, we will be exploring and making feminist media.
The representation of women in the media remains a hot topic for feminists today. From 2008-2011 the Bristol Feminist Network undertook major research which can be accessed here.
As well as critiquing existing representations, feminists have a long history of making their own media. From Sylvia Pankhurst’s Women’s Dreadnought, to the multitude of contemporary feminist blogs, women have always made their own media to communicate political ideas and create community.
In the workshop on the 12 May we will be focusing on printed media holdings of the Feminist Archive, which include numerous magazines and pamphlets from the Women’s Liberation Movement, examples of which are included below.
As well as learning about the aesthetics, practices and ideas discussed in WLM media, we will also make our own zines and pamphlets in the second part of the workshop.
So come prepared to write, draw, cut, paste and discuss the history of feminist media making!
All welcome!
This women’s history walk pamphlet was produced by the Bristol Women’s History Group in 1989.
Anyone interested in taking a trot round town to explore these sites? Get in touch and we can arrange an outing.
Within the booklet was an ‘errors and omissions’ slip:
The first sentence in line 8 should read:
‘The first guild in Bristol was formed in the winter of 1889-90′
Bottom of the back page should have:
‘Published by the Bristol Women’s History Group, 1989.’
This week is the beginning of the Feminist Archive South’s workshop programme. The first workshop is taking place this Tuesday 16 April 7-9.30 pm at MShed. All welcome but please contact us to let us know you are coming!
Program for Women’s Liberation first read at the Ruskin Conference in 1970 – one of the items we will be looking at in the workshop
We’ve also updated information about the workshop sessions taking place later in the year…..
This week the work to catalogue Ellen’s archives have begun in earnest. Here a few photos from the very early stages. As you can see, Ellen is already fairly organised, and has over the years cannily used washing powder boxes as a file storage solution.
Ellen was also showing off some of the banners for campaigns and groups she was involved in, including this rather fetching sash.
If you want to get involved and help the project archivist organise the material, please contact us. Its a great opportunity to learn how a collection is catalogued, and you get some hands on experience doing the work. We are particularly looking for people to get stuck in now, so don’t hesitate if you are interested!
