Modern Records Centre » News (tag [Digitisation])

Coal Not Dole: The 1984/5 Miners' Strike 40 years on

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:54:20 GMT

New collection of digitised sources online to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1984/5 Miners' Strike.

Young Women's Christian Association magazines online!

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 13:57:17 GMT

The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) grew out of 'missions' to help working women founded in the 1850s. As the name of the organisation suggests, there was a strong religious grounding to much of the YWCA's welfare work, but the organisation was also involved in campaigns relating to education, physical wellbeing and other social issues.

The Modern Records Centre has a large but incomplete series of magazines and journals published by the YWCA between 1884-1970. Editions of the journals for 1884, 1887, 1892-1898, 1900, 1906-1920, have been digitised and are available to read through our online catalogue.

The journals include a mix of religious study and advice, serialised stories (often melodramatic), news of YWCA work at home and abroad (including missionary work), and articles on a range of social and political issues relating to women, including employment, education, fashion, suffrage and the First World War.

New digitised collection!

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 12:21:29 GMT

We're finally ready to share our lockdown digitisation project with you!

Dame Eileen Younghusband (1902-1981) was a key figure in the development of social work during the 20th century. Her archives are held at the Modern Records Centre and include a wealth of sources relating to both her professional and personal life.

Eileen Younghusband’s diaries, written between 1917-1930, cover a transitional period in her life, beginning with her wartime childhood in an upper middle class home at Wimbledon and ending as she started her career as a tutor at the London School of Economics. They cover her ambivalent relationship with post-war ‘High Society’, growing interest in politics and issues of social justice, first steps towards social work (through the Whitechapel Care Committee and Bermondsey Princess Club) and education at the LSE, as well as the routine of daily life (particularly with regard to shopping, socialising and travelling).

All twenty two volumes of the diaries have been digitised and transcribed in full. A selection of other sources, including photograph albums from the First World War and immediate post-First World War period, have also been digitised.

National Asylum Workers Union: sources online!

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 15:21:43 GMT

All issues of the National Asylum Workers Union magazine between 1912-1929 have now been scanned and are available online through the Modern Records Centre's catalogue.

The journal includes information about the activities of the union, conditions for employees and some patients within asylums, and attitudes towards mental health during the early 20th century.

If there are out of copyright documents at the Modern Records Centre that you would like to see online, get in contact with us and help us to prioritise our digitisation programme.

Shirtmaking and the 'sweated trades'

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 12:56:00 GMT

The quintessential 'sweated trade', sources on early 20th century shirtmaking have now been added to our ongoing digitisation project on 'The Sweated Trades: Working life in the early 20th century'.

The digitised sources include information about pay, working conditions and the effects of the First World War, including protests over women's wartime 'invasion' of cutting rooms and a string of strikes.

History of Human Rights in Latin America: new module resources

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 16:59:59 GMT

Digitised sources relating to human rights, politics and the labour movement in Latin America during the first half of the 20th century have been added to the MRC's online resources for University of Warwick modules.

Subjects covered by the resource include: Mexico after the revolution, Argentina before and after Peron, and the establishment of the Confederation of Latin American Workers.

Tailors & tailoring - new online resource

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 16:02:00 GMT

Our 'Sweated Trades' digitisation project continues to grow, with the addition of a new section which focuses on the work of tailors (male and female) in the first decades of the 20th century.

Explore sources on pay, working conditions, women home and factory workers, disabled workers and more.