Researching Working-Class Women's Memoirs for @Writing__Lives www.writinglives.org

Bethany Lacey, Billie-Gina Thomason & Helen Rogers Liverpool John Moores University

Keynote: Women’s Lives & Women’s Writing Conference, Bath Spa University, 25 May 2015

Bethany Lacey, Billie-Gina Thomason and Helen Rogers Liverpool John Moores University

Collaborative research & public engagement to create digital archive & community resource:

• digitized memoirs• searchable database • submission platform for new life writing• biographical entries for the database• transcribing memoirs• online resources for family and community history• links to community writing groups• open community blog• teaching and learning resources for schools and universities• life writing, oral history and skills-sharing workshops

Writing Lives Project: Digital Archive of Working-Class Autobiography

Create online archive with searchable database by extending and updating:

John Burnett, David Vincent and David Mayall (eds) The Autobiography of the Working Class: An Annotated, Critical Bibliography 1790-1945, 3 vols. (Brighton: Harvester, 1984, 1987, 1989)

Project TeamDavid Vincent (Open University)David Mayall (Sheffield Hallam University)Helen Rogers (Liverpool John Moores University)John Herson (Liverpool John Moores University)Claire Lynch (Brunel University)Brunel University Special Collections Library

Bibliography was a pioneering resource for scholarship on working-class autobiography

but most studies still focus on published memoirs

How will including unpublished memoirs re-shape our understanding of working-class life-writing?

‘Memoirists are not entirely representative of their class (whatever that class may be), if only because they were unusually articulate. Autobiographies were produced in every one of the several British working classes, ranging down to tramps and petty criminals, but a disproportionate number were written by skilled workers and especially the self-employed. Only one in ten nineteenth-century workers' memoirs were written by women, and the whole sample is skewed to the political left: the twentieth-century volume of the Burnett-Vincent-Mayall bibliography lists many more Communists than Conservatives.’Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2001), p. 51

.

Pilot Database (John Herson & Helen Rogers, LJMU)based on Burnett Archive of Working Class Autobiographies

• c. 221 autobiographies collected by John Burnett – some published, many in manuscript form (typed or handwritten)

• held at Brunel University

• Online searchable database using entries on 221 memoirs from Autobiography of the Working Class (Burnett, Vincent, Mayall)

Example of one of the shorter entriesAlice May Collis, b. 1894

3:0230 COLLIS, Alice M., ‘My First Strike. 1909’ and ‘From Paper Blankets to Central Heating’, TS, pp.6 (c.1,500 words). Brunel University Library. Brief fragments of an autobiography describing the author’s participation in her first strike in 1909 over wages, which took place shortly after she commenced work on envelope folding machines in a London printing firm and which acted as a spur to her becoming an active member of the National Federation of Women Workers. The poverty of her childhood years forms the theme of the second short piece. The author died in 1973 (aged 78) and attempts to locate the full work have proved unsuccessful.

Pilot database using entries for Brunel memoirsby John Herson & Helen Rogers

Sample search Female Domestic Servants in Brunel CollectionSurname Forenames Birthdate Birth county Title Ref

Westall Lilian 1893 London The good old days 1:0746

Passiful Annie Elizabeth 1895 Sussex 'Memories of Aunt Bess'

3:0132

Morris Bronwen 1896 Glamorgan Untitled 2:0541

Pidgeon Alice 1898 Lancs Looking over my shoulder to childhood days and after

2:0619

Lord Annie 1900 My Life 2:0486

Jones Mrs. N. 1900 Cheshire Untitled 2:0444

Phillips Irene 1901 Beds Untitled 2:0612

Bell Rosa 1902 Cumberland R.M. Remembers 2:0059

Martin Grace 1903 Berks From 1906 2:0515

Woolland Mrs. H 1907 Worcs Untitled 2:0853

Ould Louie Emmeline 1907 Cornwall Memories 2:0574

Henderson Katherine 1908 Kent Had I But Known 2:0384

Relph Winifred 1912 Kent Through Rough Ways

2:0657

Rise in women’s life writing?Birthdates/gender of Brunel Authors

<1870 1871-1900 1901+0

10

20

30

40

50

60

18

50

32

0

48 48

Males (n=100)Females (n=96)

Burnett Collection: overwhelmingly unpublished memoirs

How do these differ from published works?

Manuscript Typescript/WP Printed0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

26

74

9

37

62

6

MalesFemales

Titled/Untitled

Males Females0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

89

70

21

36

With TitleUntitled

Birthplaces(Chart may reflect nature of collection rather than geographic spread of working-class autobiography)

London; 35; 20%

Lancs; 24; 14%

Durham; 11; 6%

Yorks; 8; 5%

Herts; 6; 3%Sussex; 5; 3%Gloucs; 5; 3%Glamorgan; 5; 3%Hants; 5; 3%

Devon; 4; 2%Kent; 4; 2%

Derbys; 4; 2%

35 other places; 57; 33%

Occupational status of authorsbased on ‘main occupation’

Skille

d

Semi-s

killed

Unskille

d

Clerica

l

Entre

preneu

r

Manag

erial

Professio

nal

Varied

0

5

10

15

20

25

21

9

22

14

67

13

1

14

10

19

9

10

12

0

Males % (n=93)Females% (n=65)

Authors’ interests

Litera

ture & ar

t

Music &

drama

Outdoor/gard

ening/a

llotm

ents

Voluntary w

orkSp

ort

Scien

ce

Tempera

nce

Religio

n

Socia

l clubs

Youth as

socia

tions

Popular en

tertai

nment

0

5

10

15

20

25

1722

11

18

9

3 4

22

85

1

11 11

2

9

2 1

813

2

11

0

MalesFemales

Education

No form

al ed

ucation

Elemen

tary/S

unday Sc

hool ...

Plus sec

ondary ed

ucation

Plus high

er ed

ucation

Plus adult e

ducation

Plus voca

tional ad

ucation

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1

54

13 10 12 110

56

25

7 412

MalesFemales

Life CoverageAre unpublished memoirs more likely to focus on early life?

(Childhood/Young Adulthood/Adulthood/Whole Life)

Ch YA AD WL0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

7461

52

33

93

4633

15

MalesFemales

PoliticsUnpublished memoirs: first-hand accounts of

‘unorganised’ working class

None known

Tory

Libera

l

Radica

lCoop

Trade U

nion

Socia

list

Labour

Feminist

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

73

3 4 3 423

12 120

103

0 0 0 2 3 1 2 1

MalesFemales

Autobiographers known to have produced other kinds of writing

Books etc

: non-ficti

on

Books etc

: ficti

on

Diaries

Journali

smPoetr

y

Political

writi

ng

Trade m

anuals

etc

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

5 5

3

5 5 5

22

0

1 1

5

0 0

MalesFemales

Student Collaboration3rd year undergraduate English module, LJMU

Creating Online Presence, Resources & Author Blogs@Writing__Lives www.writinglives.org

Building readers & users: Summarising, contextualising, interpreting manuscripts Skargon, Charles V. From Boy to Man the Hard Way (c. 100,000 words) 2:712

Dale, Elisabeth Untitled (c. 18,000 words) 2:199

‘Storying’ ordinary writing& making accessible

Norah’s diaries. . . are ordinary diaries, private diaries, not written to be read, presented in a style which is disjointed and telegraphic. . . . [T]hey are written like Tweets. 1st September 1939. Hitler declared war on Poland. Had to dye curtains. Everyone got wind-up. Ma went to help evacuation kids in. Not many came. Balloon barrage over Derby. Went to Helen’s with Pop. Everyone must have dark curtains. Sunny, cold.. . .To draw on Jennifer Sinor’s wonderful book, The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing, the diaries have needed storying.Alison Twells, ‘Storying Norah’s Diaries’, 6 June 2013http://norahsdiaries.wordpress.com/

Nora Isabel Adnams (B: 1901)MY MEMOIRS OF DR. BARNARDO’S HOME, BARKINGSIDE, ESSEX

1904 to June 1911

Researched by Bethany Laceyhttp://www.writinglives.org/category/noraisabeladnams

Nora’s Family Nora’s separation

from her parents

Family reliant on father for income

Sisters are sent to wash house aged 14

Nora’s Childhood Time at

Barnardo’s

House ‘Mothers’ and Teachers

Girls’ friendship and solidarity

Canada

Nora’s Writing Style Written for her

own children and husband

Humorous and honest

Political and reflective

Nora Today Importance of

sharing these stories

Finding Nora’s relatives

Discovering my own family history

Minnie Frisby, born 1877

http://www.writinglives.org/category/minnie-frisby

researched by Billie-Gina Thomason

Frisby, Minnie. ‘Memories’, Burnett Archive of Working Class Autobiography, University of Brunel Library, Special Collection, 1:250

War and Memory

Politics Work Habits and Culture

Reading and Writing

Education Family Purpose

Introduction

I have been bedridden now nearly 5 years and although crippled with arthritis and limbs and arms practically useless, my mind is very active and by musing and living in the happy past, I am able to forget much of the very painful present.

Bromsgrove

Dressmaker

Sunday School Teacher

Christianity

Music Country living

Educated

Married

Self-employed family

Circus

Fashionable

Death

Minnie’s Will

Reaching out on Social Media

Evaluation

For collaborative student research & social media seewww.bloggingbeyondtheclassroom.org

@blogging_beyond