The Project
The North East Labour History Society, in conjunction with the WEA, has made a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a project entitled 'Mapping popular politics in north east England through communities, archives, libraries and museums'.
Follow the discussion of the Project on our Forum page - or read all past posts about the Project on their own page.
These are the primary objectives of the project:
- To map the incidence of popular political events (drawn widely) and persons in the region's communities, archives, libraries and museums.
- To find, record and transcribe the personal narratives of living participants in political parties, movements and campaigns.
- To find relevant material in private hands and encourage its owners to donate it to the appropriate archive.
- To collect the material and package and display it to make it widely available to the community.
- To involve the maximum number and variety of volunteers possible to undertake the work.
The project now has two co-ordinators, Sean Creighton (Archive searching) and Elizabeth O’Donnell (Oral History). News of their plans will be carried on the Discussion page.
Volunteers welcome!
The project has a number of supplementary & supporting activities:
- A lecture programme
- A regular research seminar to help 'new' writers
- Training sessions for volunteers
- A travelling exhibition
- Collaboration with a youth theatre
- A concert
This is the first enquiry of its type in Britain and may act as a model for future regional projects. These are ways in which you might help:
- Sign up as an archive researcher and/or oral history interviewer
- Assist in helping in any of the supplementary activities
- Make a financial donation from your trade union, local history society or business
- Additional funds will enable us to extend the research data bank (especially to digitise records).
Questions and Answers about the role of volunteers (click to open this PDF document in a new window)
Supporting Organisations
Durham County Record Office, North Riding of Yorks Archives, Northumberland Collections (Berwick & Woodhorn), Teesside Archives, Tyne & Wear Archives.
Darlington Borough Library, Durham Clayport Library, Hartlepool Central Library, invited, Middlesbrough Central Library (Local Studies), Newcastle Central Library (Local Studies), North Tyneside Central Library (Local Studies, invited) South Shields Central Library (Local Studies), Sunderland Central Library (Local Studies).
Durham University Special Collections, Robinson Library Special Collections Newcastle University, Sunderland University Library and Teesside University Library.
Supported by the north east area committees of the Co-operative Movement and by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund
