Stories from Small Museums

In the second half of the twentieth century, new museums started appearing all over the UK. Typically small and independent, they covered subjects that ranged from fairgrounds to farming and watches to watermills. Above all, they concentrated on local history, war and transport. This book asks who founded them, how and why.
In order to find out more, Toby Butler, an expert oral historian, and Fiona Candlin, a professor in museology, travelled around the UK to meet the individuals, families, community groups and special interest societies who established the museums. The founders spoke about the villages and towns they lived in, the places they worked, their families and friendships and their feelings of belonging and not belonging. These rich oral testimonies provide a new account of recent local, national and international cultural history - one with ordinary people at its heart.
Combining academic rigour with a lively style, Stories from small museums shines a light on a remarkable array of grassroots organisations, dedicated to everything from military regiments to railways, from mining to music. At the same time, it teases out the connections between personal experience and national change