The History Workshop movement
The main aim of the History Workshop movement was to promote the historiographical tradition known variously as history from below, social history, the history of everyday life, or simply people's history. Bill Schwarz wrote that the "History Workshop functioned in Britain as an effective alternative historical apparatus. It countered the intellectual and political conservatism of the dominant historical profession, setting up an alternative means for producing historical knowledge which had roots deep in the subordinate groups of British society". [4] Samuel defined the movement as being "the belief that history is or ought to be a collaborative enterprise, one in which the researcher, the archivist, the curator and the teacher, the 'do-it-yourself' enthusiast and the local historian, the family history societies and the individual archaeologist, should all be regarded as equally engaged." [5]
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the History Workshop movement grew in popularity, which saw the foundation of a number of local History Workshops and a series of pamphlets, books and journals, including the History Workshop Journal. The British movement also inspired several international History Workshops in Europe, South Africa and America. [6]
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