PHM is the national museum of democracy, telling the story of its development in Britain: past, present, and future.
On this blog we share posts from the PHM team and other experts, with behind the scenes stories, coverage of PHM's exhibitions and events, and highlights from the museum's unique collection.
Dr Shirin Hirsch takes us back to the 1974 Miners’ Strike, and explains what took place and the legacy that this would create for the years that followed. Part of a series of three blogs, we’ll also hear about the events of the 1984 to 1985 Miners’ Strike with Dr Bob Dinn, Visitor Experience Supervisor for PHM and also from Amy Todd, a PhD student working for PHM, who will be writing about the women’s movement against pit closures during this year long strike.
After a year marked by ongoing strike action, People’s History Museum have uncovered strike related objects in the museum’s collection. These objects, collected from 40 years of picket lines, represent major UK strikes of the 1980s and 1990s, with more recent acquisitions illustrating contemporary strike action.
Art historian Simon Faulkner considers the history and meanings of the raised fist using examples that include posters and photographs from People’s History Museum’s collection.
Mark Ashton was an activist and campaigner in the 1980s, perhaps most known for co-founding Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners during the miners’ strike of 1984-85. He was a member the Communist Party of Great Britain and joined Red Wedge, a collective of musicians aiming to engage young people with the Labour movement. Mark died of AIDS related illness in 1987. The Mark Ashton Trust was set up by a group of friends to respond to the ongoing crisis.
Gill Crawshaw is a curator, based in Leeds, who draws on her experience of disability activism to organise art exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people. She is interested in the intersection of disabled people’s lives with textile heritage in the north of England, as well as with contemporary textile arts.
In March 2023, Gill took part in People’s History Museum’s (PHM) The Fabric of Protest workshop. She reflects on how disabled people have used textiles as a powerful tool of communication and on some of the objects on show in PHM’s current exhibition about disabled people’s activism, Nothing About Us Without Us.
Are you more independent or community-focused? Experimental or measured? Prefer work or play?
Take our quick quiz to find out which radical you are! At the end we’ll offer you access to our free e-newsletter which matches your interests to what’s on at PHM.
