Seminar: Sisterhood and After: The Women’s Liberation Oral History Project

In 2008, The Women’s Liberation Movement Research Network brought together archivists, scholars and activists keen to document the UK WLM as it has developed since the 1960s. The Women’s Library conceived of the project because, despite feminists’ long standing interest in recording their activism, there is still a need to coordinate accounts of the movement. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the project organized six recorded witness workshops exploring the history of the movement whilst also investigating key WLM materials in UK archives. Despite the wealth of information that the workshops provided, it pointed to the need for greater integration of existing feminist archival collections and for more in-depth oral and visual histories. To this end, members of the Network, in partnership with The British Library and the University of Sussex, developed Sisterhood and After: The Women’s Liberation Oral History Project. Margaretta Jolly will discuss the project to date, and some reflections on the challenges for any feminist wishing simultaneously to research and honor the movement while it is still within living memory.