‘Dear Friend’ is a letter-writing project celebrating women in public life and in struggles for liberation. It's launching on 8 March as part of Wonder Women Manchester 2016, with events at Central Library and People’s History Museum.
Everyone is invited to write a letter or postcard to a woman - living or dead - who has had an influence on their lives. Letters will be digitised, transcribed, and displayed a website and the aim is to hold an exhibition later this year.
Manchester resident and project manager Sylvia Kölling explains: “The idea is to democratise history by letting participants tell us who matters to them, in a simple and engaging way. The project aims to raise the profile of not just famous women, but women who have made a huge difference in a community but never been considered worthy of having their story told”.
Partners People’s History Museum are very excited to be the host of the project launch. Engagement and Events Officer Catherine O’Donnell enthuses: “Dear Friend is a great project that will help raise the profile of countless women written out of the history of many movements for social change”. A recent study by Slate Magazine shows women form only 28% of subjects in popular and academic history writing, and only 6% of history books written by men are about women.
The project launch comes hot on the heels of the selection of Emmeline Pankhurst as Manchester’s first statue of a woman in over 100 years. Is that a coincidence? “Yes and no,” project manager Sylvia Kölling tells us. “The idea was born last summer and it was in part related to the statue. I thought, why can’t we celebrate more women, why can we only have one, and why do we only generally only celebrate women activists who fight for women's rights?”
For further information and to take part, visit: http://dearfriend.org.uk/