Celebrating International Women’s Day with the launch of our new digital archive

As International Women’s Day pledges to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women; Anita Corbin’s “First Women” project launches a new digital archive which allows the community to contribute its own recollections, images and documentary material via our Archive Portal.

The new digital archive has been designed to allow everyone to make their mark on the First Women project by raiding their cupboards, drawers and attics to find their own forgotten historic images and documents that demonstrate the progress of women over the past 100 years. Anita says, “We would love to see images that chart the progress of women throughout the twentieth century – perhaps you have a picture of your grandmother working as a land girl in the Second World War, or maybe your mother campaigned to get equal pay in the sixties or you have a particularly vivid memory of tales told by a great aunt about expectations of girl’s career options in the fifties.

“We want to create a historical timeline and archive that will run alongside the achievements of our 100 First Women portraits and show the lives and achievement of women from 1918 when they first became enfranchised right up to 2018, the centenary of that enfranchisement. To do this we need the help of the general public.”

The archive is being created with the help of Devon digital agency Cosmic which is developing the use of “Historypin” so those wishing to contribute to the First Women archive can share their own collections of photographs, documents, sounds and moving images to start conversations and trigger memories.

Helen Botrill, Social Media Specialist at Cosmic, commented, “Cosmic is proud to support the First Women project as a fantastic way of showcasing the significant work that women contribute to the technology sector. Through our LOVE Digital training project we have trained many women who are running businesses to utilise digital technology better. The First Women archive is another way we can nurture that development. By encouraging women to collaborate we can build up a true picture of the achievements made by ordinary women over the past 100 years.”

Visit the First Women Archive to see how you can get involved.