The Working Class Movement Library is an extraordinary nationally - and internationally - important resource based in Salford: a reference library that's open to everyone, and free to use. It started life as the personal collection of two activists - Eddie and Ruth Frow.
From the 1950s Eddie, a trade unionist, and Ruth, also a teacher, amassed books, pamphlets, leaflets, flyers, badges, banners, song sheets, and a myriad of other materials about how working people have banded together since the 1830s to fight for better working conditions, better pay and an end to poverty, rights to the vote, equality in its many forms, and peace amongst other issues - campaigns that continue today. Alongside they collected - and received donations of - material about the way people sought to improve leisure and home life, from ramblers' and cyclists' clubs, to independent and radical theatre: the 'bread and roses' of life.
The Frows were determined that working people should have access to their own history. Today the library is a registered charity and is used by academics, students, interest groups, filmmakers, writers, artists, and anyone else with an interest in how working people banding together can help change the world, now as in the past. wcml.org.uk