Category: Labour history news

News and information of interest to labour historians.

Labour history news

Peterloo: digitised sources available

Working in partnership with the School of Social Sciences’ sociology department, The University of Manchester Library has digitised a unique collection of documents reflecting the events, and aftermath, of the Peterloo Massacre. This set of material provides a range of perspectives on that day’s tragic events and its legacy.‌ It includes a full run of the radical newspaper, the Manchester Observer (1818-1822), whose editor, James Wroe, was … Continue reading Peterloo: digitised sources available

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Labour history news

Jules Durand, unsung human rights hero

Jules Durand (1880-1926) was a French longshoreman who led a strike of coal-porters in Le Havre in 1910, and was condemned to death after a frame-up organized by the Compagnie générale transatlantique, the leading shipper. June 15 2018 will be the one hundredth anniversary of his judicial rehabilitation and the association – Amis de Jules Durand – is planning a series of events to commemorate the … Continue reading Jules Durand, unsung human rights hero

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Labour history news

Victorian Blogging – The Pamphleteers Who Dared to Dream of a Better World

Conway Hall, once the home of an eighteenth-century dissident congregation at historic Red Lion Square, has been awarded £88,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a new digitisation project. As Conway Hall states:Victorian Blogging – The Pamphleteers Who Dared to Dream of a Better World will digitise and open online access to over 1,300 19th century pamphlets, many extremely rare. Victorian radicals used this cheap … Continue reading Victorian Blogging – The Pamphleteers Who Dared to Dream of a Better World

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Labour history news

Britain and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1928

The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, has completed a project to digitise some of its archive holdings on the relationship between Britain and Russia / the Soviet Union in the decade after the Russian Revolution. The digital collection contains just over 650 documents (with full text transcriptions) – reports, correspondence, photographs, memoranda, ephemera and more – including documents from the archives of the Trades … Continue reading Britain and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1928

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Labour history news

Save 1888 Matchgirl Strike leader Sarah Chapman’s grave

The family of Sarah Chapman, one of the leaders of the 1888 Matchgirls Strike in East London, have devised a petition to save her grave and install a fitting memorial. Graham Johnson, the husband of Chapman’s great-granddaughter, Sam, told the SSLH:‘[Chapman] was a leader in the Matchgirls Strike of 1888 in East London. After a few weeks on strike, 129 years ago on 17th July, she … Continue reading Save 1888 Matchgirl Strike leader Sarah Chapman’s grave

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Labour history news

HLF funding for Working Together

Working Together: recording and preserving the heritage of the workers’ co-operative movement Working Together, aims to identify and make accessible for the first time records from some of the major workers’ co-operatives of the time, together with co-operative support organisations. A trained archivist will be employed for a twelve month period to undertake the work of finding the material, and then in ensuring that where … Continue reading HLF funding for Working Together

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Labour history news

Mapping the 1926 General Strike

Staff at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, have digitised more than 450 documents on Britain’s only General Strike of May 1926. The digitised documents include internal reports from the Trades Union Congress (the strike’s co-ordinator), bulletins issued by newspapers and strike committees, and the TUC’s transcripts of BBC radio broadcasts. As well as presenting the sources as a database of digitised documents, the team has been … Continue reading Mapping the 1926 General Strike

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Documents & objects, Labour history news

Skelmanthorpe Banner 1819

This cotton flag or banner is a rare survivor of thousands of banners carried at meetings calling for electoral reform and suffrage. It has a remarkable story. It was designed and made in 1819, to honour the victims of the Peterloo massacre in Manchester. It was mounted on poles and taken to meetings throughout the 19th Century, starting with a reform meeting at Almondbury Bank … Continue reading Skelmanthorpe Banner 1819

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Labour history news

Imagining a Communist Britain

Can you imagine what a Communist Britain would look like? An exciting new project between the People’s History Museum and the University of Manchester is uncovering previously inaccessible archive collections on leading figures in the Communist Party of Great Britain. The project, which includes two exhibitions, a day school and an international conference, will be setting out to challenge familiar concepts of communism. The archive collections … Continue reading Imagining a Communist Britain

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Labour history news

The revolution has been digitized: explore the oldest archive of radical posters

The Joseph A. Labadie collection, the oldest public collection of radical history has been used to create a digital archive of more than 2,000 posters. The University of Michigan Library announced this month that its posters on anarchism, civil liberties, feminism, labor, and other political movements are online for the first time. The collection’s strongest holdings are in anarchism, and go back to founder Joseph … Continue reading The revolution has been digitized: explore the oldest archive of radical posters

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