Community scrapbooks and archiving in 1960s England
1965 marked the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Women’s Institute (WI), which some members commemorated by making a scrapbook recording life in their village. In this paper, I argue that the competition inaugurated WI women into becoming community archivists, as they amassed volumes on everyday village life. I examine what these scrapbooks reveal about the process of building a community archive. After the competition, these community creations were dispersed amongst county record offices, scrapbookers’ homes, and individual WI branch archives. In the second half of the paper, I explore the enduring legacy of the competition, focusing on where these community archives are housed today and the ongoing role these scrapbooks play within rural communities. More broadly, I reflect on the challenges and opportunities of working with associational archives and the importance of engaging with local communities to uncover the meaning of these scrapbooks.
Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook has recently completed her PhD on histories of scrapbooking in Britain during the twentieth century at the University of Cambridge. She now works as an Archives Assistant at Churchill Archives Centre. In her free time, she founded and runs a national online archive on the work of the Women’s Land Army and Women’s Timber Corps: www.womenslandarmy.co.uk.
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