"Opening up": telling the stories of 1940s-1960s life at the Black Country Living Musuem
- Dates
- Thursday 18 January 2024 (19:00-20:30)
Centre for Midlands History and Cultures Seminar
Speaker: Dr Simon Briercliffe
Abstract
In 2023, the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley opened the first buildings in its £30m Forging Ahead project. The new shops, homes and public buildings tell the story of life in the post-war period in this West Midlands region. This talk will reflect on the opening of the new areas of the museum, and the challenges and benefits of telling stories of everyday life, industry, immigration and other subjects through living history interpretation.
Speaker biography
Dr Simon Briercliffe completed his PhD on the Irish in nineteenth-century Wolverhampton at the University of Birmingham in 2022 and is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the University. He is also a researcher at the Black Country Living Museum, covering the whole of Black Country history with a recent focus on the post-World War Two era. His first book, Forging Ahead: Austerity to Prosperity in the Black Country 1945-1968 was published in 2021, and his second, 50 Years of Bangla Brummies, in 2023, part of a community history of the Bangladeshi community in Birmingham.