Departmental news

As preparations for the 2012 London Olympics reach their final stages, the Modern Records Centre celebrates the XXX Olympiad with an online exhibition on the Summer Games and their sometimes fraught relationship to the world of international politics.

The exhibition includes documents about the 1936 Berlin Games, the Workers' and Peoples' Olympiads of the 1930s, the 1948 London Games and the 1980 Moscow Games.

The Modern Records Centre has a new online exhibition to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the War for the Falkland Islands.

On 2 April 1982, Argentine troops landed on the British colony of the Falkland Islands and captured them after a short battle with the small garrison. Within three days a British task force had set sail for the South Atlantic. combat operations began on 1 May and fighting continued until 14 June, when the Argentine garrison surrendered. The war cost over 900 lives.

To find out more, visit the exhibitions section of our website. The exhibition of actual documents may also be visited at the Modern Records Centre (except for 9-20 July).

The Modern Records Centre has a new online exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Cradley Heath Chainmakers' Strike - then an international cause célèbre and still a key dispute for women workers.

The strike of poorly paid, "sweated" women homeworkers gained massive public support - with nearly £4,000 being donated to the strike fund during the 10 week dispute - and led to the establishment of a legally binding minimum wage (nearly 100 years before the first national minimum wage in Britain).

To find out more, visit the exhibitions section of our website.

Slideshows of images from the Modern Records Centre's archive collections are now available in our on-line Showcase.

The slideshows feature historic photographs on five different subjects - the 1911 transport strike, Russia in 1924, the 1926 General Strike, Nazi Germany in 1936, and North Stoneham Camp for Basque Children in 1937.

To mark the start of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Modern Records Centre's new exhibition focuses on football. From the dawn of professionalism to the era of big business, the exhibition covers nearly 125 years and includes an account of the first 'Old Firm' derby, images of early players, and documents regarding controversial international matches, footballers' low pay, and proposals for fan ownership of clubs.

The exhibition is currently in the searchroom of the Modern Records Centre - an online version is available on our website.

Images and information about archives relating to the 1926 General Strike are now available on the Modern Records Centre website.

'A General Strike photograph album' has been added to our 'image gallery'. This contains copies of 25 press photographs taken during the General Strike in May 1926. The majority show scenes in London, including of strike-breaking work by volunteers on the transport system and in the docks, food distribution (including the great food convoy), and the aftermath of riots in the capital.

An online subject guide on the General Strike has also been produced. This highlights key collections for researchers studying this turbulent period.

The rise of "talkies" from the late 1920s onwards led to a radical shake-up of the entertainment industry. Live entertainment went into decline and variety theatres became movie palaces, where eager cinema-goers could see exactly the same entertainment as their fellows in Los Angeles, Berlin or Bombay. The belief that films could influence behaviour was seen by some as an opportunity to get their message across to a mass audience, others feared that the next generation of children would be damaged by the immorality of gangster flicks and movie violence. In Britain, the dominance of Hollywood at the box office led to concerns about a loss of national identity and the "Americanisation" of British culture.

The documents in the new exhibition (at the Modern Records Centre and online) reflect these concerns and show the growing influence of film as both a method of communication and form of entertainment. They are all taken from the archive of the Trades Union Congress.

To coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, archives about the division of Germany and the progress of the Cold War have gone on display at the Modern Records Centre.

The documents cover key events on both sides of the Iron Curtain - including the Korean War, fear of McCarthyism, the Hungarian uprising and the Cuban missile crisis.

To coincide with the start of the 2009/10 academic year, we have considerably expanded the 'Resources for Warwick Modules: Documents Online' section of our website, which now provides online resources for a total of 12 undergraduate modules in 3 university departments (History, Politics and International Studies, and Sociology).

New resources have been created for the History modules 'Britain in the 20th Century', 'Politics and Society in Eastern Africa' and 'The Victorian City', and for the Sociology modules 'Birth of Feminisms' and ''Race', Difference and the Inclusive Society'. These each contain images of documents chosen (in consultation with the lecturers) from the Modern Records Centre's extensive archive collections for their relevance to the module. In addition, 'ready-made searches' of our online catalogue have been created for 10 History modules, allowing students to easily identify material relevant to their studies.

If you think that we could provide similar resources for modules which you teach, please contact us.