Pit and factory papers
For those interested in the activities of small Communist Party cells from the time after the betrayal of the General Strike in 1926 to the end of the Wall Street Crash in 1933, pit and factory papers give a unique insight into local activism.
Many were duplicated items, so were ephemeral by nature - few have survived. The viewpoint expressed gives a clear view of the working lives of people in these mines and factories. The often uncompromising opinions were at times at variance with the Communist Party line given out by the executive, especially the policy transition in the 1930s from class war to Popular Front. The hostility of the Labour Party and TUC along with the support of local left-wing Labour Party branches and trades councils provide a complexity that the national picture often ignores.
The Library's holdings include a representative sample of the publications with a focus on the North West of England. At present these are uncatalogued - though many of them are listed in Ruth and Eddie Frow's publication Pit and factory papers. They wrote, for the WCML Bulletin, a detailed history of the genesis of pit and factory papers.
Jimmy Miller (Ewan MacColl) started out writing squibs (brief satirical or witty pieces) for local Salford papers and sold papers at factory gates in Manchester and Salford - He wrote of his involvement in his autobiography Journeyman