Party membership and activism in the north-east of England 1945-1974

Contemporary concerns about apathy stem, in part, from constructions of a 'Golden Age' of participation in the past. However, we know remarkably little about the history of even conventional forms of participation such as party membership and activism. This project will use a range of methods - including multiple recapture techniques for studying hard to measure populations, archival research and oral history - to examine Labour and Conservative members and activists in the North-east of England in the post-war years. This will be the first major historical comparison of activism in the two major political parties in this period.