Protest, politics and campaigning for change
Speaking out, identifying who has similar views and acting together are at the heart of campaigning for change.
Modern campaigners use email, Web sites and text messages to share information and encourage action as well as relying on older technology such as leaflets, posters and meetings.
Our collection captures the inside stories of attempts to challenge and change events in the last two hundred years.
We have information on:
Peterloo - the 1819 massacre of members of a peaceful crowd who had gathered in Manchester to demand political rights caused a national outcry.
Chartist movement - working people's drive for reform of Parliament in the 1830s and 1840s, at a time when they didn't even get a vote.
No Conscription Fellowship - pacifists believe that even during a war it is wrong to kill another human being. This organisation campaigned against the punishment and imprisonment of men who refused to fight in the First World War (1914-1918).
Fascist and anti-fascist material - the arguments for and against this political movement from its origins in Italy in the 1920s to the present day.
Pit and factory papers - in the 1920s and 30s Communist Party activists produced newspapers aimed at specific workers or workplaces. With titles such as The Salford Docker or The Crossley Motor, these papers reflect the conditions, concerns and politics of working people.
Unemployment - many stories of the hardship faced in the 1930a by those without jobs.
Liberation and its archives - the story of the campaign that started in 1954 to free British colonies from political and economic domination by Britain and the developed world.
Black and Asian struggles - organisations that have represented communities which have come to Britain since the Second World War
Grunwick - a major strike in the mid-1970s which was a key turning point in the industrial relations of the decade