Collecting 20th Century Rural Culture

What's your favourite image of the countryside? 

This four year project began in the autumn of 2008 supported by Lottery funding of £95,000. The purpose is to acquire material that builds, decade by decade, a picture of the countryside in the twentieth century. We are looking for signal items that speak powerfully of their day and illustrate the wider cultural influence of the countryside on English society.

These items could range from works of art that somehow express a mood of the time down to everyday objects that instantly connect with a particular era in the countryside. Perhaps it might be an object with a special story to tell, and an association with an event or a person. For each one, we'll be developing an expert narrative to place it in context and construct an overall story.

To find out about the objects acquired as part of the project, go to the Collecting Rural Cultures project blog. We would be pleased to receive your comments on what we have collected so far.

Over the course of 60th anniversary exhibition 'Everyday stories of country folk: celebrating 60 years of The Archers and MERL' which runs from 1 May 2011 – 22 December 2011, we will be displaying many of our new acquisitions and visitors are invited to suggest further objects that could fill any gaps or open up other fruitful areas of collecting on 20th Century Rural Cultures.

The Heritage Lottery Fund's Collecting Cultures scheme is designed to help support acquisitions, curatorial skills, research and increased public involvement. The MERL project is one of 22 that are being sponsored in museums and galleries across the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decade by decade: collecting 20th century rural cultures

20 January, 2010, 1-2pm

A Lunchtime Network talk by Dr Roy Brigden, Keeper of MERL

 

Dr Brigden will give show how this major project, which aims to acquire material that builds a picture of the countryside in the twentieth century, has been progressing, and what has been learnt so far.  

 

Couldn't make it? Want to know more? Read Roy Brigden's new article about the project.

 

Representing Rurality: Culture & the Countryside in the Twentieth Century

Wednesday November 4th, 2009

A one-day conference held at the Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, in connection with MERL’s Collecting Twentieth Century Rural Culture project (funded by HLF) and in cooperation with the Inter War Rural History Research Group.

 

Download a copy of the conference programme (pdf)