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Great excitement: new home for museum

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est end women's museum, new home, 2018 programmeA new museum of women’s history is set to open in a permanent home at the end of 2019.

The East End Women’s Museum was established in 2015 in response to the Ripper Museum which opened on Cable Street, but it has since operated – without a building – by organising events, workshops, and pop up exhibitions with local partners.

As well as highlighting pioneering women with links to East London such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Sylvia Pankhurst, Mala Sen, Annie Brewster, Mary Driscoll and Hannah Billig, the new museum will explore everyday local history from women’s perspectives.

The museum aims to challenge gender stereotypes and offer new local role models for girls and young women, creating a resource for schools, community groups, and historians.

The venue for the museum has been made available through the support of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and housing developer Be Living as part of the new Barking Wharf development.

The East End Women’s Museum will be working with experienced local partner Eastside Community Heritage and local women and girls will be invited to help shape the museum’s collection.

Throughout 2018 the East End Women’s Museum will be in residence in Barking and Dagenham, delivering a Heritage Lottery-funded project, ‘Working for Equality’, in partnership with Eastside Community Heritage.

This year marks several important anniversaries, including 100 years since some women won the vote and 90 years since all women did.

A mobile exhibition, a series of events and volunteering programmes will explore women’s fight for equal rights in the workplace, from suffragette equal pay campaigns to the strike at Ford Dagenham which took place 50 years ago this year and inspired the Equal Pay Act.

The East End Women’s Museum’s 2018 programme will also include an exhibition at Hackney Museum celebrating 100 years of women’s activism in the borough, and a programme of exhibitions and events exploring the women’s suffrage movement and the First World War in Tower Hamlets.

It also wants to use the anniversary to talk about what happened next. Not only about the women who didn’t get the vote in 1918, but the story of women’s struggle for equality in the decades that followed, and today.

The 2018 programme links 1918 and 2018, and focuses on the experiences of working class women in East London.

Making Her Mark, Hackney Museum: 6 February – 19 May 2018

The Making Her Mark exhibition was created in collaboration with Hackney Museum and takes 1918 as the starting point in a look back at 100 years of women-led activism in the borough, on issues ranging from education, workers’ rights and healthcare to domestic violence, the peace movement and police relations.

Making Her Mark explores how local women have brought about change in their community and in wider society through political campaigns, industrial action, peaceful protest, direct action, and the arts.

Working For Equality, Barking and Dagenham: April – November 2018

The Working For Equality project with Eastside Community Heritage takes 1918 as the starting point in the story of 50 critical years in the struggle for working women’s rights, and connects the dots between the suffragettes’ equal pay campaigns during WWI and the Ford Dagenham strikers.

Women factory workers in Barking and Dagenham are at the heart of the story. Their histories will be collected and shared them through a mobile exhibition and a series of free, fun events, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In July there will be a Votes for Women Garden Party. Marking 90 years since women won the vote at the age of 21, this free event will celebrate the ‘munitionettes’ who missed out on the vote in 1918 and the ‘flappers’ who voted for the first time in 1929.

Visitors will be able to enjoy some refreshments, try dancing the Charleston, make a suffragette sash, and visit the Working For Equality exhibition.

September: Strong Women Family Day. In 1926 boxer Annie Newton challenged people who said women shouldn’t box by asking if it was “half as hard work as scrubbing floors? Is it any more risky than in a munitions factory?” An event celebrating strong women and girls past and present with exhibitions, games, activities, and sports demonstrations.

October: Girls Do Science Family Day. Inspired by women engineers and scientists during the First World War this family event celebrates women’s contribution to science, technology, and engineering, highlighting role models and exciting innovations along the way.

Visitors will be able to enjoy inspiring talks, games, activities and demonstrations, find out about studying and working in STEM – and visit the Working for Equality exhibition.

October: Women of colour in labour history. There will be a screening of a documentary about the Grunwick Strike in 1976/77 and a panel discussion about the often overlooked contribution of black and Asian women in labour history.

Throughout the project there will be a series of free film screenings about women who challenged discrimination and exploitation in the workplace, including ‘Made In Dagenham’, ‘Hidden Figures’, and ‘Norma Rae’.

Sara Huws, co-founder of the East End Women’s Museum, said: “Women make history too. But without their voices and experiences the history books are only telling half the story.

“We want to put women back in the picture, and share new perspectives on east London’s rich history.

“We believe Barking and Dagenham is the right base for the museum and we’re excited to start working in the borough this year.

“Everyone we’ve spoken to has had a story to share: about a woman from their family, their street, or their community, and we know there are many more still to be told.”

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