The Everyday Austerity exhibition is the result of two years of research with families in Greater Manchester by Dr Sarah Marie Hall, which gathered first-hand, personal accounts of everyday life in austerity. These accounts have been turned into a series of original drawings by North West zine artist Stef Bradley, and...
March 2017 sees the 200th anniversary of the March of the Blanketeers, probably the first attempt at a protest march from a provincial city to Westminster. Now largely obscure, the precedent once established has been used ever since, and the organisers had devised a tactic which deserves to be...
Geoff Andrews has researched and published widely on the history of political ideas and movements. His latest book The Shadow Man: at the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle (I.B. Tauris, 2015), explores the political commitments of those attracted to communism in Britain in the 1930s, and through the...
Special showing of items from our extensive collection relating to women's fight for the vote. Drop in between 12 and 3pm to see original material from the Library and from the People's HIstory Museum. Some of the items have been acquired recently as part of our joint Heritage Lottery...
Robert Turnbull's Climbing Mount Sinai: Noah Ablett 1883-1935 is the first full-length biographical study of one of the most controversial personalities to emerge from the South Wales coalfield in the era preceding WW1, an era of unparalleled industrial militancy in which Ablett played a leading role. The book tells...
This talk explores how Margaret, an inspiring and visionary campaigner, led the Women's Co-operative Guild between 1889 and 1921 - a period in which it became an outstanding public voice for working-class women, and has also been described as the ‘left wing’ of the co-operative movement. This talk is...
The Woman Worker began on 1 September 1907 when it was published by the National Federation of Women Workers and edited by Mary R. Macarthur. Although intended by its founder, Robert Blatchford, as the first workers'/socialist publication specifically for women, from the very first issue there was clearly going to...
A short film and illustrated talk by Ali Ronan about the Women’s Peace Crusade in East Lancashire during 1917-1918. This talk is part of the Invisible Histories series - all welcome, admission free, light refreshments afterwards.
This talk, by Stephen Mustchin, Lecturer in Employment Studies, University of Manchester, focuses on engineering trade unionism, workplace conflict and strikes at the famous Eccles-based engine manufacturer L. Gardner and Sons. Strong workplace union organisation emerged following two long strikes in 1968 and late 1972, and in 1980 a...
In this talk, journalist Dean Kirby will take listeners on a journey through the gin palaces, alleyways and underground vaults of this nineteenth century Manchester slum, which was considered so diabolical it was re-christened 'hell upon earth' by Friedrich Engels. Dean is a national newspaper journalist who has been...
