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.
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 symbol 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.
In celebration of International Women’s Day 2023, People’s History Museum’s Collections Officer Shivaya Prasad selects campaign materials for women’s rights from our collection of almost three thousand posters. These distinctive posters use bold slogans and illustrations to campaign for issues such as female liberation and bodily autonomy.