Items

• Lahr's Bookshop Sign
  This handwritten shop sign from Lahr’s Bookshop refers to the sale of “dirty” books, most likely in reference to D.H. Lawrence's 1928, privately-printed novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. Blunt and practical, it reflects the pressures faced by anarchist and radical booksellers as they navigate obscenity laws, public scrutiny, and the boundaries of acceptable reading in early twentieth-century London.
• Leaflet for Esther Lahr's Lending Library
  This leaflet advertises Esther Lahr’s lending library, run alongside the Progressive Bookshop in London. Closely connected to anarchist and left-wing intellectual networks, the library offered access to radical literature that was often difficult to obtain elsewhere. Modest in format yet purposeful in tone, the printed leaflet outlines borrowing terms while signalling the political commitments behind the enterprise. It reflects how the Lahrs combined bookselling, publishing and lending as part of a broader anarchist cultural project, creating a space where print became a tool for debate, education and dissent.
• List of Non-sexist Children's Books
  A bibliography of books which fight gender stereotypes, this pamphlet is divided into four age categories from ‘under-sixes’ to ‘13 years and upwards’. The authors founded the Children’s Rights Workshop to analyse and share findings on sexist, racist and classist children’s books, and the Other Awards, to celebrate books that countered these prejudices. The pamphlet was published by feminist magazine 'Spare Rib' and distributed by the socialist Publications Distribution Cooperative.
• Poems
  Modernist writer, publisher, and translator John Rodker was one of what is today called ‘The Whitechapel Boys’ group of writers and artists. In 1914, Rodker self-published and distributed his first collection, 'Poems', as a pamphlet, complete with cover art by fellow Whitechapel Boy, painter David Bomberg. The words “To be had of the author” followed by Rodker’s home address are printed on the title page.
• Raging Womyn: In Reply to Breaching the Peace
  Jean Freer’s pamphlet was a direct reply to the criticism's of the women’s peace movement in the 1983 publication 'Breaching the Peace'. She published it from the Greenham Common camp the following year. Freer rejected what she saw as the radical feminists’ isolationist approach to women’s liberation, arguing that the openness and mutual support fostered at Greenham had been empowering for women.
• Rationing of Food in Great Britain
  This pocket‑sized booklet, published in September 1946, provided practical information on rationing following the end of the Second World War. It explained the rationale and background of rationing, as well as the quantities of rationed goods available under different schemes. It also outlined what could be obtained through canteens, schools, and communal “British Restaurants,” which provided affordable meals for workers. Food control remained essential after the War, and for some foodstuffs became even stricter. Booklets such as this were an important tool for communicating the continuing necessity of rationing.
• Silk Suffragette Buttonhole
  This silk Suffragette buttonhole, made around 1914, was designed to be worn in public as a sign of support for women’s voting rights. Small but striking, it turned clothing into a political statement. Like many suffrage objects, it combined elegance with activism, making protest visible in everyday life.
• Songs
  This collection, published by folk singer and collector John Foreman—known as “The Broadsheet King”—brings together protest songs, traditional ballads, and spirituals. Reflecting grassroots musical activism, it illustrates how song circulated as a powerful tool of commentary, solidarity, and resistance in twentieth-century Britain.
• Stop the City
  This flyer publicised the Stop the City protest in March 1984, a grassroots demonstration against capitalism and financial institutions in London. Featuring illustrations and a map, it symbolises direct action challenging the economic and political power of the City.
• Talking Blues
  Centerprise was founded in Hackney in 1971 by Glenn Thompson and Margaret Gosley. It was a bookshop and publishing project, but also included a coffee bar, adult education, and various youth groups. This pamphlet is a poetry anthology written by young people who met weekly at Centerprise, supported by youth worker Oliver Flavin, with illustrations by Doffy Weir. The young poets, including Hugh Boatswain and Sandra Agard, describe their lives in verse, focussing on education, racism and unemployment, but also the power of music.
• The Dockers' Tanner
  This theatre programme advertises 'The Dockers’ Tanner', a play by Leslie Martin staged at London’s Unity Theatre in the mid-1950s. Produced by Joe McColum with décor by Lucien Amaral, the play dramatises the 1889 London Dock Strike, when workers united to demand the “dockers’ tanner” (a minimum wage of sixpence an hour). Unity Theatre, known for its left-wing productions, used drama to highlight labour struggles and working-class history. At just six pages, the programme provides cast lists and production details, while also embodying the theatre’s broader mission - to make radical politics accessible through performance, solidarity, and cultural engagement.
• The Mask of Anarchy
  This 1973 edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s radical poem 'The Mask of Anarchy' was published by Kropotkin’s Lighthouse Publications, with a foreword by poet Dennis Gould. Written in 1819 in response to the Peterloo Massacre, Shelley’s call for nonviolent resistance became one of the most influential protest poems in English literature. Reissued during the 1970s, amid renewed interest in political poetry and grassroots publishing, this slim pamphlet links Romantic radicalism with contemporary struggles. Its production by a small press underscores the enduring power of Shelley’s words to inspire movements for justice, solidarity, and social change across generations.
• The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
  This programme, issued by the Unity Theatre around 1949, announces a stage adaptation of Robert Tressell’s landmark novel 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by Frank Rhodes. The novel, first published in 1914, vividly depicts the struggles of working-class painters and decorators, exposing exploitation and inequality in Edwardian England. By staging it, Unity Theatre brought Tressell’s socialist message to contemporary audiences in post-war Britain. The modest three-page programme not only records cast and production details but also reflects the theatre’s enduring mission to connect political conviction with performance and to champion working-class voices on the London stage.
• We Continue Forever: Sorrow and Strength of Guatemalan Women
  International exchange is at the heart of this pamphlet, which was published in New York City but contains the voices of Guatemalan women. The Women’s International Resource Exchange Service (WIRE) was founded by US feminists to publish global writing. A detailed consideration of this pamphlet and its role as a tool for resilience, written by Senate House Library librarian Julio Cazzasa, is available to read online.
• White Man's Duty
  This 1942 pamphlet is a discussion between publisher and anti-racist activist Nancy Cunard and writer and Pan-Africanist George Padmore about the Atlantic Charter. The Charter outlined the USA and UK’s plans for post-war “common principles”, including the right of all people to choose how they are governed. The pamphlet questions the Charter as an act of mere symbolism rather than substance, describing the gulf between promises and reality.
• Window on Brick Lane
  Named for their location in the basement of St George’s Town Hall in Cable Street, The Basement Writers was formed in 1973 by teacher Chris Searle. Sally Flood, who was then nearly 50, was one of a few older writers who joined the group. A factory embroidery machinist and prolific poet, Sally described her verse as being like a diary. This is exemplified by this pamphlet, in which it is noted that most of her work was written “at the factory, from her seat with its window facing Brick Lane”. The illustrations in this pamphlet are by Patricia Flood.