Historical events in Wales captured online

Research carried out by Aberystwyth University recording people’s memories of watching television footage of some of the most significant events in Wales from 1950 – 2000, can now be viewed on a new website www.mediaandmemory.co.uk
Historical events such as the Aberfan disaster in 1966, the Miners’ Strike in 1984 and the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 are some of the important events to have been documented and placed on the website.
As well as interviews with contributors and film footage, the website which is called Media and Memory in Wales, also includes maps, documents and photographs.
Working in four areas of Wales – Caernarfon, Carmarthen, the Rhondda and Wrexham – researchers interviewed people about how television affected their lives and the way they saw the world around them at that time.
Professor Iwan Rhys Morus, from the Department of History and Welsh History and leading the project, explains: “The website will be a vital resource for academic researchers, professionals in the media and policy makers. You could easily spend hours searching through the stories that are collected here.
“The archive resulting from this project will provide a significant resource for understanding the politics of television. For much of the fifty years in question, television formed a key battleground in struggles for linguistic and national identity.
“The new website includes an extremely important archive which explains the role of television in the lives of Welsh people over 50 years. I am sure there is something of interest to everyone here."
Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the project has been carried out by Aberystwyth University’s History and Welsh History Department with support from project partners Culturenet Cymru.
Other partners are BBC Wales whose footage of the events provided an important spur for peoples’ memories, and the National Screen and Sound Archive at the National Library of Wales where the content will be archived.
If people are inspired to share their own memories of watching these events and of the impact of television on their lives, they can do so by contributing to People’s Collection Wales – www.peoplescollectionwales.com

Department of History and Welsh History
History has been taught at Aberystwyth since the founding of the College in 1872. The Department is one of the largest in the University, and the research interests of its staff extend across the full chronological and geographical range from the Roman period to contemporary political issues, and from Wales and Britain to America, France, and Russia. Interests in comparative history and in state building in both the British Isles and France were pioneered in Aberystwyth by historians such as Richard Cobb, R.R. Davies, Gwynne Lewis, R.F. Treharne and Gwyn Alf Williams.

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