Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The 12 transcribed interviews made available were produced as part of an oral history project conducted during 1993-4 when the creator of this resource held a Douglas Knoop Research Fellowship in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield. The complete research material consists of two folders of correspondence, replies to letters published in local newspapers in Lancashire and Yorkshire. During the research, contact was made with a number of respondents in their 70s and 80s from Leeds, Huddersfield, Bolton, Rochdale and Manchester, who were interviewed in February 1994. The audio versions of the in-depth qualitative interviews and the letters may be made available in the future.

Main Topics:

The research asked for information about the history of the Co-operative movement, particularly the experience of ordinary shoppers rather than activists. The research was particularly focussed on the question why people used the Co-op before World War Two, whether they were motivated by the dividend or if they had some conception of the movement’s wider aims. Another aim of the research undertaken was also the intention to better understand the relationship between their engagement with the Co-op and their consumer practices more generally; ie how they had experienced the ‘new consumerism’ that historians have discerned between the wars.