Digitising the Mixed Economy of Welfare in Britain

In an earlier blog post I talked about my visits to wild archives and some of the problems inherent in using these kinds of sources. At the time I was aware of the Campaign for Voluntary Sector Archives and the work Georgina Brewis had been doing, for example her blog for NCVO Eight reasons charities…

Child Poverty Action Group Witness Seminar

On 6th January 2015 I attended a Witness Seminar at the Institute for Contemporary British History on the history of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in the 70s and 80s, as part of their forthcoming 50th Birthday celebrations. Not only was I interested to hear about how such a high-profile organisation had handled the…

Archives in the wild: researching local youth clubs in London and Liverpool

Early in my PhD I had a conversation with my supervisors about locating the relevant sources for my research. We knew it would be a challenge and it was a significant factor in how I chose my case studies. While the main youth associations in London and Liverpool had both deposited significant amounts of material in…