About the project
Funded by The Leverhulme Trust, £20,730, 2022–2024.
This ongoing research project aims to chronicle a vibrant period of feminist activism using oral history interviews as the core method. It will record the working lives of women involved, the policies they influenced and the building work they completed, documenting their contribution to the history of the twentieth-century built environment in the UK.
The research project is part of ProBE’s commitment to documenting the role of women in the built environment. Despite the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, and the establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), women routinely encountered obstruction when attempting to access training and employment in construction. Feminists organised in response to this, setting up the campaigning and support group Women and Manual Trades (WAMT), which by the end of the decade had established national conferences, a newsletter, film, and tradeswomen’s register and supported women involved in workplace sexual harassment cases. Debates were not limited to campaigning strategies for more women in construction but encompassed wider issues of race, class and the nature of the construction industry. In the words of one woman quoted in an article in Peace News in 1979: "Our environment is basically man-made. And what a mess it is. We, as women, need to understand our environment and take an active role in building it, in changing it."
This statement is still relevant. In the 1980s, when Labour controlled the Greater London Council (GLC) along with other inner-city councils, a brief period of municipal socialism appeared. Women’s Committees formulated new policies focussed on childcare, training and employment for women and funding became available for campaign groups. As well as WAMT, the GLC funded: the Women in Construction Advisory Group (WICAG) who liaised with employers to improve conditions for tradeswomen; the Women’s Design Service (WDS), which provided an advisory service to women’s community groups, writing feasibility studies and assisting with funding applications; and the feminist architects’ collective Matrix. Women’s limited access to industrial trade training resulted in the setting up of women-only training workshops providing full-time, six-month courses, equivalent in content to government training courses, but with childcare provision and taught by women trainers. Supported by trade unions and funded by local councils, with matched funding from the European Social Fund (ESF), many women progressed from these courses into further training and employment with the Direct Labour Organisations (DLOs) of local councils.
The research project aims to chronicle this vibrant period of feminist activism using oral history interviews as the core method, contextualised with archived drawings and documents. Oral history is key to revealing not only personal stories but the interconnections between activists and feminist networks which bypassed the traditional, rigid, professional and class boundaries of the construction industry. It will record the working lives of many women who were involved, the policies they influenced, the building work they completed and document their contribution to the history of the twentieth century, built environment in the UK.
Investigators
Principal Investigator: Professor Christine Wall
Contact
For further information, email Professor Christine Wall at [email protected].