Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 6:30 pm – Thursday, 28 February 2019 at 8:30 pm
Manchester in 100 shops
Date: Thursday 28th February 2019
Time: 6.30 pm – 8.30 pm
Location: Manchester Central Library
Tickets: Free – Available on Eventbrite
Step back in time and take a walk down Manchester's high street passing by the city's iconic shop windows. From department stores to grocers, from toy shops to fashion boutiques, this exhibition will transport you back to a time when the only way to shop was on the high street.
Please join the curators Professor Jon Stobart and Michala Hulme from Manchester Metropolitan University for the launch event at Manchester's Central Library, Thursday 28 Feb 2019 at 6.30pm. Alongside the launch of the exhibition, the event will also reveal Greater Manchester's favourite shop, as voted for by members of the public.
Project
100 Manchester Shops aims to involve the public in creating a vision of Manchester’s history based around its shops. This is achieved partly through a website on which members of the public can nominate shops to be included in the project, providing information on their personal connection with the particular shop. These shops are posted onto an interactive map which builds a picture of Manchester through its shops. Added to this is a series of projects in which a small number of schools work on producing a history of a shop local to their area – in effect a community history. The results of these will be presented via small exhibitions in the relevant locales. The culmination of the project is an exhibition at Manchester Central Library, in which a selection of the shops appearing on the website are recreated as shop windows. This will provide members of the public to see and comment upon the changing face of Manchester’s shopping streets.
History Research Centre
The HRC brings together historical research on a wide range of periods and places, from Ancient Greece to modern Germany, and from slavery in America to Christian groups in China. We have particular strengths in the histories of leisure and consumption, religious and intellectual history, histories of war and conflict, and the histories of youth, gender and sexuality. Much of the research undertaken within the HRC is consciously public-facing, with public engagement co-ordinated through the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage.
Biographical notes
Jon Stobart is Professor of History and Director of the HRC. His research covers a wide range of topics within the histories of retailing and consumption. Of particular relevance to this project is his recent work on the development of provincial department stores in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England.
Michala Hulme is Associate Lecturer and Research Associate in the Department of History, Politics & Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University.