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.
People’s History Museum houses the world’s largest collection of trade union and political banners. In this month’s blog, our Conservator, Kloe Rumsey shines a light on the conservation work she undertook to prepare a previously unseen banner for our 2020 Banner Exhibition.
#OnThisDay in 1909 suffragette Marion Wallace Dunlop went on hunger strike whilst imprisoned for militancy. She became one of the first and most well known to do so and her tactics were to inspire the likes of Ghandi.
We asked Lynne Blackburn, Director & Project Manager at Participation Works NW to share a recent project which saw a group of girls from Burnley inspired for their futures by struggles that women in the past faced.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’ve invited our former colleague and the National Trust’s new Programme Curator of National Public Programmes Helen Antrobus to blog for us.
Helen is a specialist in the history and collections relating to 20th century radical women; from the women who marched at Peterloo, to the female Chartists; those involved with the women’s suffrage movement, to the first female MPs, and shares with us her insight into the women at Peterloo.
To complement the public display of a suffragette tea set designed by Sylvia Pankhurst we asked Dr Alexandra Hughes-Johnson, suffrage historian and Women in the Humanities Research Co-ordinator at the University of Oxford, for the story of its former owner, suffragette Rose Lamartine Yates (1875-1954).
Until recently Rose Lamartine Yates has remained a relatively unknown figure in the history of the women’s suffrage movement and despite attempts by historians Elizabeth Crawford, Gillian Hawtin and Gail Cameron to shed light onto Rose’s suffrage career, she is often still remembered for her friendship with the Emily Wilding Davison and her role as the first guard of honour to her coffin at Emily’s funeral on the 14 June 1913.
On Friday 14 December 2018 a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst will be unveiled in her home city of Manchester. Designed by sculptor Hazel Reeves, this will be the highlight of a campaign to celebrate the significant contribution of women to the city and will take place on the day that exactly 100 years ago the first women voted in a UK general election for the first time.
We asked Hazel to tell us about the commission in her own words.