IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 106 8SUF
Held at: Women's Library
Title: Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews
Date(s): 1974-1981
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 13 boxes
Name of creator(s): Harrison | Sir | Brian | b 1937 | Knight | historian
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Between 1974-1981 Brian Harrison, then of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, undertook an oral history project financed by Social Science Research Council (he later extensively used these interviews in his book Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars Oxford University Press 1987). The original aim of the project was to provide material to supplement documentary sources on the Edwardian women's suffrage movement in Britain and to make these interviews available to scholars subsequently working in the field. Interviews were conducted with surviving Edwardian women's movement campaigners, their sons, daughters, relatives and employees. During the course of the project the chronological scope was widened to include those active in the women's movement after women's enfranchisement. Thematically the scope was also widened to encompass those who were active in various women's organisations, including international and religious organisations, and to cover themes including women's employment and birth control. 205 interviews with 183 individuals were completed.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
The collection consists of 205 interviews available in digital audio file format and one folder of contextual material relating to the interviews, including essays and reports by Brian Harrison. The digital files are copies of the original oral history interview recordings that are held on reel-to-reel cassette.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: England
System of arrangement:
Conditions governing access:
This collection is available for research if advance notice is given. Available on dvd only. Readers will need a laptop computer with a dvd drive, and headphones, which can be supplied by TWL Reading Room if requested. Readers are advised to contact The Women's Library 5 full working days in advance of their visit.
In accordance with the Data Protection Act, some individual interviews are either closed or subject to access restrictions. Originally the interviews were obtained on the condition that the permission of the interviewee would be sought before access was granted. Subsequently permission for general research use was sought by The Women's Library from the interviewees and granted in the majority of cases. The contents of the interviews were widely published and disseminated by Brian Harrison and the collection proved highly popular with researchers. The Women's Library took advice from the Oral History Society and several sector specialists and a decision was made in 2008 to release the majority of the interviews. Interviews were only closed if a consent form was never signed and the contents could clearly be identified as 'sensitive' as defined by the Data Protection Act. If any interviewees are unhappy that their interview has been released they should contact The Women's Library Archivist. Two interviews (with Phoebe Pole 8SUF/B/191-192) are unavailable as the original cassette (Tape 74) was noted as missing in 1995. Readers must contact The Women's Library to arrange access to the collection in advance of their visit.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Physical characteristics:
The interviews are available as digital audio MP3 files stored on dvd.
Finding aids:
Summaries of the interviews prepared by Brian Harrison are available in The Women's Library Reading Room
Catalogue Enhancement:
A team of 16 volunteers listened to the interviews and created summaries of content, broken down into 15 minute segments, to enhance research access. They also created brief biographies of each interviewee. These summaries and biographies were edited by the project archivist Anna Kisby and added to the online catalogue. Where volunteers and the project archivist identified 'sensitive' subject matter in interviews for which we do not hold documented permission for access (as established during the 1982 project) then these interviews were closed under the Data Protection Act. After seeking advice from the Oral History Society and several sector specialists a decision was made to open all other interviews. Please note that as at Autumn 2008 volunteers are still working on summaries and biographies, which will continue to be added as enhancements to the online catalogue throughout 2008.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The recordings (on open reel quarter-inch format cassette) were donated to The Women's Library (then the Fawcett Library) by Harrison in 1981.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
1995-1996 Conversion to VHS Tape Project
The original reel-to-reel cassettes were made available to researchers in the library until the mid-1980s when the library started the process of creating cassette copies. This project was not fully completed by 1994 when a decision was made to find an alternative surrogate format for the long-term preservation of the recordings. Following advice from the Head of Television Services at London Guildhall University, copies of the original cassettes were made on Hifi VHS, completed c. 1996.
After 2002 the collection was withdrawn from access due to the fragility of the VHS tapes. It was recognised that the recordings needed to be converted to a new digital format to ensure their long-term preservation and facility of access.
2007-2008 Digitisation and Catalogue Enhancement Project A 30-day project 'Keep Their Voices Alive' was funded by the Friends of The Women's Library to create digital surrogates of the recordings, to enhance the catalogue descriptions of the interview content, and to provide biographical information about interviewees.
Digitisation: The VHS surrogate copies of the original recordings (and 10 of the original reel-to-reel cassettes) were digitised as WAV files by London Metropolitan University Media Services between 2007- 2008. These WAV surrogate versions of the tapes were edited at The Women's Library by the project archivist to create a single WAV file and single MP3 file for each individual interview. The digital WAV surrogates of the tapes are held on dvd in the archive vaults. The digital WAV and MP3 versions of each interview are held on a server. Digital MP3 versions of the interviews are also held on dvd for production in The Women's Library Reading Room.
Related material:
The Women's Library holds a wealth of related material on the women's suffrage movement. See Archives Strand 2 - Suffrage Organisations, Strand 7 Personal Papers and Strand 9 Autograph Letters. Other oral and life history collections are held in Strand 8. Interviewees whose personal papers are held at The Women's Library include Winifred Adair-Roberts (7WAR), Margery Corbett Ashby (7MCA), Fiona Billington Greig (7FBG) and Agnes Muriel Pierotti (7AMP), Charles Price (husband of Millicent Browne) (7MPR). The book by Brian Harrison 'Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars' (Oxford University Press, 1987) is held in The Women's Library Printed Collections.
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Th's document was generated by Javascript from an HTML form which structured the input according to the elements of ISAD(G) Version 2. Collection description by Jennifer Haynes, Head of Special Collections, The Women's Library. Edited by Anna Kisby, Assistant Archivist, Oct 2008. Edited for AIM25 by Sarah Drewery.
Date(s) of descriptions: Dec 2008