Bookstore

Author: Thalia Campbell and Mervyn Wilson
Category: History
Pages: 40

Description:
Lavish colour photographs bring to life the banners of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, Men’s Guild Woodcraft Folk and Co-operative Societies, while articles on the symbolism and the use of the banners give a valuable insight into the people who made and carried them.

Author: DVD
Category: Biography / History / Videos
Pages: DVD 23 Minutes
Description:
From a childhood in a small Welsh market town, to his return there at the end of his life, this film biography traces the life of the man who became known as the “father of co-operation”.

Author: DVD
Category: History / DVD
Pages: 95 Minutes
Description:
Commemorative video produced for the 1994 Co-operative celebratory film season, introduced by Bill Owen. Excerpts from films produced by the co-operative movement are included along with complete films: Men of Rochdale (1944); New Emporium for Blackpool Co-operative Society (1938); Introducing Rogerson Hall (1938); Advance Democracy (1938); It’s All Yours (1955).

Author: DVD
Category: History / DVD
Pages: 95 Minutes
Description:
A further compilation of co-operative films, including: Co-operette, an all colour musical comedy (1938); Out of the Box, the history of co-operation in Scotland (1942); Peace Parade (1937); and Song of the People (1945).

Author: Edited by Richard Bickle and Molly Scott Cato
Category: New / History / Co-operation
Pages: 206

Description:
Robert Owen was one of the most significant thinkers and social innovators of the nineteenth century. He is widely recognised as the ‘Father of Co-operation’ and an exemplary industrialist and educational reformer – his work on time-based currencies, trades unionism and community living are perhaps less well known. This book explores the connections between Owen’s work and the present day through a series of papers.

Author: Katarina Friberg
Category: Co-operation / History / Member Participation
Pages: 508

Description:
A comparative study of the Newcastle upon Tyne Co-operative Society in the UK and Konsumentforeningen Solidar in Malmo, Sweden. This volume follows the development of the two societies through their minutes and members’ meetings, showing the interaction with their environments, organisational structure and decision-making.

Author: P D S Waddell
Category: History
Pages: 76

Description:
An introduction to the use by co-operative societies of tokens. Tokens were widely used for the calculation of dividend, prepayment for delivered commodities like bread, milk and coal and for mutuality clubs. This volume is aimed at collectors and examines the use of tokens and their manufacture as well as listing co-operative societies known to have issued tokens.

Author: Professor Ian MacPherson and Professor Stephen Yeo
Category: Rochdale / History
Pages: 45

Description:
The Rochdale Pioneers could hardly have envisaged the scale of the venture they were starting, or dreamt that some 160 years later 800 million people across the globe would be members of co-operatives adhering to the ‘Rochdale Principles’. These contributions, by two of today’s leading academic thinkers on co operative issues, are part of our efforts to address the under-reporting of the Pioneers’ achievements, and to celebrate, 160 years on, the remarkable contribution of the Rochdale Pioneers.

Author: Edited by Bill Lancaster and Paddy Maguire
Category: History
Pages: 136

Description:
The essays in this volume were first presented as papers at the Co-operative History Workshop held as part of the 1994 celebrations of the Rochdale Pioneers 150th anniversary, and show the wide range of interests and enthusiasms of co-operative historians. They appear with a lively introduction by Tony Benn, and an overview by the editors. Subjects range through local beginnings and developments in different parts of Britain; the Co-operative Women’s Guild; the Co-operative Party; biographies; consumer co-operation in the postwar period and internationalisation.

Author: Alan Burton
Category: History / Rochdale
Pages: 8

Description:
Co-operative film-making began with the magic lantern before the end of the 19th century, and developed through short training, publicity and educational films – and longer feature films like “Men of Rochdale”, produced for the centenary of the Rochdale Pioneers in 1944 – into the 1960s. This book, produced to coincide with the 1994 Co-operative Film Festival, describes the films and their making, and is illustrated with stills. The foreword is by Lord Attenborough. Two videos are available to complement this book.

Author: W Henry Brown
Category: Biography / History
Pages: 54

Description:
The original 1925 edition of Pathfinders included 74 biographical sketches of those whose names appeared on the Reformers’ Memorial in Kensal Green, London. Long out of print, the illustrated volume, like the Memorial itself, covers co-operators, chartists, radical journalists and writers, trade unionists, educationalists and feminists.
In this new edition, published shortly after the refurbishment of the monument, Stan Newens MEP has included biographies of the 11 reformers added to the memorial later, and of W Henry Brown himself. The brief ‘lives’ give a flavour of the people and the times in which they lived.
“A study of the names suggests that there is no one highway towards social peace. The avenues are many, as are the natures and dispositions of the people for whom the work is done” – W Henry Brown

Author: Jean Gaffin and David Thoms
Category: History
Pages: 296

Description:

The centenary history of one of the world’s most remarkable radical feminist groups, the Co-operative Women’s Guild, recounts the stirring events of the Guild’s foundation and its many energetic campaigns.

This new edition contains a postscript reviewing the ten years following the book’s first publication in 1983. The book appeals to everyone with a concern for women’s role in society and is an important addition to the academic literature on the women’s movement.

Author: John Tilley
Category: History / Biography
Pages: 91

Description:
A V Alexander is one of the great unsung heroes of the Labour Movement. This son of a widowed corset-maker left school when he was 13 and, following a career in the Co-op and then in Sheffield politics, became the organiser with Winston Churchill of crucial wartime naval successes.
This first biography of the only Labour Party Minister ever to serve as First Lord of the Admiralty was written while John Tilley was Co-operative Parliamentary Secretary.
“His contribution to the nation’s well-being was immense” – Roy Hattersley MP in a lively Introduction.

Author: Mary Davis
Category: History
Pages: 147

Description:
The long overdue study of a remarkable and unique youth and children’s organisation founded in 1925 as a non-militarist, pro-socialist alternative to the scouting movement. This organisation – the Woodcraft Folk – is still going strong. Many on the left of the political spectrum will have heard of it – maybe they will have participated in it when they were children or sent their own children to its camps and weekly group nights. Although there were other attempts, Woodcraft Folk is the only surviving independent youth and children’s organisation with a socialist and labour movement orientation.

Author: Rita Rhodes
Category: History
Pages: 296

Description: This is the unique study of a consumer co-operative society and its involvement in British politics during a period of one hundred years. The Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society was based in South East London and grew to become one of the Co-operative Movement’s biggest retail businesses. At the same time it developed a distinct and remarkable political tradition which set it apart from other co-operative societies.

Author: William E Lawson
Category: History
Pages: 55

Description:
A history of the Scottish Co-operative Co-operative Wholesale Society published for the Society’s centenary in 1968.