Women Making History in West DunbartonshireAbout the project
The Histories of Womenin West Dunbartonshire
in the 1950s and 1960s
Explore the Memory Box
Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire
Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire is a year-long project that ran from August 2014 to August 2015. Previous to this, in 2009, a group of wonderful women met every Wednesday in a community centre in Clydebank and had invited Glasgow Women’s Library down to talk to their group about the library and women’s history. What became obvious during this meeting was that these women had a wealth of stories and life experiences rich with anecdote and humour that was its very own unique narrative, and that this narrative was often under-represented in the traditional view of West Dunbartonshire history. So the West Dunbartonshire Women’s History Group was born.
One of the first things the group discovered was that there were few materials and resources that told the story of women’s lives, and what did exist was difficult to find, scattered in archives and people’s living rooms and attics, or in the memories of individual women.
The group decided that it was time to create something lasting that was created by the women of West Dunbartonshire for the West Dunbartonshire community. The group successfully applied for funding from the Sharing Heritage Lottery Fund in spring 2014, then got down to work planning what they would do.
They created two unique memory boxes on the theme of women’s lives in the 1950s and 1960s, and they started gathering stories, including telling their own. It is these stories and artefacts which have been included in the boxes and in an accompanying booklet.
You can find images of some of these artefacts here, along with snippets of information about each one and where possible the story behind them. You’ll also find the individual stories of West Dunbartonshire women, writing about home life, Saturdays on the town, working life, and a wedding.
Other ways to explore the Memory Boxes
Download the Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire booklet here: Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire (PDF)
The boxes are available to borrow free of charge from Glasgow Women’s Library and from Clydebank Heritage Centre. Please contact us to arrange.
We are delighted to offer these wonderful resources and hope you enjoy them as much as they, and we, have enjoyed collecting and collating them.
Women Making History – on film!
In March 2016 this ‘Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire Project’ was nominated and shortlisted for the West Dunbartonshire Provost Civic Awards within the Community/Voluntary Champion Group Category and commendation was achieved. To showcase the nominees on the evening of the Award Ceremony all were filmed and recorded by Demus Productions and the footage of the West Dunbartonshire Women’s History Group and their project resources can be seen below…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjha8rRlCBk
West Dunbartonshire Provost Civic Awards Community/Voluntary Champion Group Category Shortlisted Nominee film footage of the ‘Women Making History in West Dunbartonshire Project’
