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Authority record
Corporate body · 1984-2000

Women for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (WNFIP) emerged from Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in 1984, after a gathering at Green Gate on 1st March organised by Zohl dé Ishtar to mark Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day. One of several groups in Europe formed to support the Indigenous-led movement for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP), launched in Fiji in 1975, WNFIP focused particularly (although not exclusively) on building solidarity with Indigenous women from the region. At its peak, the WNFIP network stretched across England and Scotland, with active groups in several towns and cities. The network dwindled in the 1990s, but the London group continued to publish a newsletter until disbanding in 2000.

Corporate body · 1990 - present

The Western Shoshone solidarity group has its origins in November 1990 when three women who knew each other from Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp - Juley Howard, Lorna Richardson and Jane Gallop – were asked by Rebecca Johnson, a Greenham woman working at Greenpeace, to go to the Nevada Test Site to try to prevent the detonation of a British nuclear bomb on Western Shoshone land. The group expanded into a wider network in the UK (under various names) and conducted a range of actions in the early-to-mid-1990s. Although the group then began to disperse, it was reactivated by the 40th anniversary of the founding of Greenham in 2021.

Women in Profile
GB 1534 WIP · Corporate body · 1987-1991

Women in Profile was set up in 1987 upon the announcement that Glasgow would hold the European City of Culture status in 1990. It consisted of community artists, grass-roots activists, academics and broad based arts practitioners who wanted to ensure that women's achievements in the arts were represented during this celebration, and not solely the achievements of men. Collectively they ran a season of events, workshops, exhibitions, projects and other activities before and during the year 1990. One of their largest projects was the creation of Castlemilk Womanhouse. The Womanhouse opened during the Summer of 1990 when a group of artists, led by three graduates of the Glasgow School of Art, gained access to a four storey council tenement building in the Castlemilk area of Glasgow. The aim with this project was to free up the space for female artists and local women and children by running arts workshops, creating installations and exhibiting art. Over the course of their existence Women in Profile gathered materials relating to its activities and, after consultation with the local community and women's groups across the City of Glasgow, opened Glasgow Women's Library in September 1991.

Glasgow Women's Library
GB 1534 GWL · Corporate body · 1991-

Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) has been providing information, resources and services since 1991. It developed from a broad-based arts organisation called Women in Profile, which was set up in 1987 with the aim of ensuring the representation of women’s culture during Glasgow’s year as the European City of Culture in 1990.

Since 1991 thousands of women have contributed to the growth and success of the Library. The collection has been largely donated and there have been scores of women involved in managing its projects, volunteering and contributing their time, expertise, visions and energies.

Despite the absence of revenue funding and a complete reliance on volunteers, GWL was quickly established as the central general information resource about and for women in Glasgow. People from all sections of the community donated books, magazines, journals and ephemera and by 1994 GWL’s rapid growth, both in terms of collection size and user numbers, resulted in the need to relocate to larger premises. Consequently, the organisation moved to Glasgow City Council-owned premises at 109 Trongate where it continued to expand and develop, providing learning opportunities informally in the context of the lack of any funding for this purpose.

The Library is a unique resource in Scotland but has always sought inspiration, support and links with sister organisations world-wide. Many of the Library projects, policies and initiatives have developed after peer group visits, contacts or discussions.

Over the Library’s history we have held hundreds of events, undertaken research, training and partnerships, visited and hosted workshops, conferences and exhibitions. We have visited international sister projects as well as making firm links with local and national women’s initiatives.
In 2000, GWL secured its first project funding, enabling the employment of workers for the first time. This was followed by further successful funding bids to facilitate new projects focusing on the provision of Lifelong Learning opportunities and an Adult Literacy and Numeracy Project aimed at women.

During a key period of development between 2002 and 2006, GWL secured its status as a Linked Library to the Scottish Parliament, appointed a Librarian and a Writer in Residence, undertook several research commissions on behalf of public bodies and launched its Women Make History Project. This period saw further growth in user numbers, with more than 10,000 people a year accessing the ever-expanding collection of materials and range of services.

In 2007, GWL was decanted from 109 Trongate to temporary accommodation at 81 Parnie Street (due to the development of 109 Trongate for visual arts organisations) pending a negotiated and agreed relocation to permanent self-contained premises at the Mitchell Library, for which the organisation worked towards a planned £1.5 million refurbishment. Whilst some archive materials and artefacts remained in storage at Parnie Street, project work continued and in April 2008, a new learning initiative aimed at Black and Minority Ethnic Women was launched. The new Women Make History Project researched, developed and delivered its first Women’s Heritage Walk and has since developed a further four.

In June 2008 GWL was successful in its bid for funding to the Heritage Lottery Fund and was awarded £410,000 to create a purpose-built archive space within the Mitchell Library premises and to employ an Archivist for three years to train volunteers in archive-related skills, conserve the collection and co-ordinate a programme of related public events. In addition, the Scottish Government agreed three years funding to develop GWL’s Lifelong Learning Programme at national level.

Like 109 Trongate, the temporary Parnie Street premises were also designated in 2010 as being required for visual arts project development, resulting in GWL having to move once again and take occupation of the Mitchell Library space in advance of planned renovation works. This move revealed, in fact, that the space could no longer meet GWL’s operational and strategic requirements in terms of size, functionality, vision and ambition. In the five years between the offer of these premises and the temporary move into them GWL’s growth had been significant, having increased its paid staff cohort three fold from four to 12 and doubling its number of core projects from four to eight. GWL worked with Glasgow Life to identify suitable new premises, and the former public library building in Landressy Street in Bridgeton was identified as an option for GWL by Glasgow Life as a result of the relocation of their public library service into the refurbished Olympia Building. With the support of Clyde Gateway the Library worked hard to raise money for the essential renovations needed to make Bridgeton Library fully fit for our purposes.

Having relocated to permanent premises at 23 Landressy Street in 2013, a major £1.4 million capital refurbishment project was completed in November 2015, when the Rt. Hon. Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland opened the new premises, publically declaring GWL as ‘truly a national treasure.’ This was followed in December by GWL being awarded the prestigious status of ‘Recognised Collection of National Significance’ by Museums Galleries Scotland and the Scottish Government, further cementing its status as the only Accredited Museum dedicated to women’s history in the whole of the UK.

Eschle, Catherine
Person

Catherine Eschle is a British political scientist, scholar, feminist and researcher who is best known for her research which centres around the concepts of feminism, resistance, intersectionality, social movements, gender-politics, democracy, and International Relations. Since 2001 Eschle has been published in journals such as: Westview press, Security Dialogues International Studies Quarterly, and the European Journal of Politics and Gender, and Political Studies.

Eschle currently holds a position at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland where she is a senior lecturer as well as a position at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in Austria as a guest lecturer where she focuses on gender studies.

Lesbians in Peer Support
GB 1534 LIPS · Corporate body · 2000-2006

Lesbians in Peer Support (LIPS) was a youth group organised by the Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) supporting lesbian and bisexual women and girls between the ages of 14 and 25. The group was founded in 2000, following a1999 study into poverty and social exclusion among LGB young people in Glasgow and West Scotland which found that many young lesbian and bisexual women experienced high levels of isolation and social stigma. A youth group run by Lesbian Line had recently folded, leaving little support for young queer women in Glasgow. LIPS initially received three years of funding from Comic Relief, making it GWL’s first funded project. Sue John and Shona Bruce led the project, which was launched in October 2000 in the Tron theatre as part of the Glasgay! Arts Festival.

LIPS initially held meetings at GWL on Thursday evenings, shifting to Thursdays and Saturdays in 2001. The group also later launched an under 18s subgroup. This collection records many of the activities that took place during these meetings, including creative writing, drumming and drag workshops, as well as sessions on issues such as self-esteem, sexual health and domestic violence. Alongside regular meetings, the group organised residential trips in 2001, to Manchester – where they strengthened their links to a local lesbian and bisexual youth group – and to Camas on the Isle of Mull. The group also produced a series of short films, Dykes in the City which were launched at the 2001 Glasgay! Festival.
Staff and group members of LIPS were also involved in researching and campaigning around the needs of LGBTQ people in Scotland. In partnership with the Greater Glasgow Health Board, LIPS launched Something to Tell You: Hearing the Voices of Young LGB People in 2002, a report that gathered and analysed the experiences of young gay, lesbian and bisexual people in Glasgow and West Scotland.
In 2003, GWL secured additional funding from Comic Relief to run LIPS for a further three years. As part of the next phase of the project, members of the group trained as Peer Educators to facilitate LIPS groups and support new members. Following Comic Relief’s policy of funding projects for no more than six years, LIPS began to taper off its activities from 2005, and disbanded in the following year.

Cathy McCormack
GB 1534 CM · Person · 1952-2022

Cathy McCormack (July 5th 1952 – present), is a Scottish grassroots activist based in EasterHouse, Glasgow, prominent for her involvement in local and international anti-poverty campaigns. Becoming part of the EastHall Residents Association (ERA) in 1982, McCormack began her activism through a Glasgow-wide Anti-Damp campaign, helping to tackle a chronic damp housing problem experienced in EasterHouse and other post-war housing schemes. McCormack’s continued campaigning in the 1990s led to her involvement in setting up the Scottish Public Health Alliance in 1992, her attendance as a Scottish representative at the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development in 1994, and two study trips to Nicaragua and South Africa in 1992 and 1998. Today, McCormack still resides in Easterhouse Glasgow and is the author of a 2009 autobiography, ‘The Wee Yellow Butterfly’.

SA1 · Corporate body · 1972 - 1981

Sappho was a lesbian, volunteer-run magazine that ran from 1972 to 1981. As well as publishing information on lesbian groups and organisations, the women behind Sappho campaigned for fair treatment of lesbians in all aspects of society, including the army and prison system. They organised lesbian exhibitions and conferences, supported others, and were used as a network of communication for lesbian women around the world. They also provided a creative outlet for lesbians, publishing poems, creative writing and photography, similar to the Spinster publication (which ran from 1979 to 1983, and whose papers are included in this collection).