It was lovely to talk to Hattie from Sheffield Feminist Archive this morning.
The Sheffield Feminist Archive project is working with Sheffield Archives to ensure that documents relating to Sheffield’s feminist past and present are collected and preserved for future generations. Hattie was a great interviewer and she has published a blog post about our conversation.
We talked about a huge range of things, from my childhood, early education and influences to the importance of intersectional feminism now, especially in light of the recent rise in misogyny, xenophobia and racism. We also talked about my poems, including my Women of Steel poem commissioned by the BBC, and I lodged some materials relating to Verse Matters and my poetry in the Archive.
I know how important it is to record and collect materials relating to women from my Leverhulme research in the archives at the Brotherton Library (University of Leeds). Although I have been finding extensive links between poets in Leeds and Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s, it is much harder to find material on female poets, dramatists and intellectuals during this period than their male counterparts. If you have any information relating to transnational links between women writers in this period please get in touch with me!
And if you have any material relating to feminist activism in Sheffield or Sheffield’s women’s lib movement, or if you’re involved in feminist activism today please get in touch with Sheffield Feminist Archive or email the Archivist at Sheffield Archives: archives@sheffield.gov.uk.
All items donated to Sheffield Archives will be added to the growing collection of material documenting feminism and the fight for women’s rights in Sheffield.
@rachelebower @ShefFemArchive
Rachel Bower 