The Baby Makers: Making History 2024

The Women’s Art Activation System (WAAS) worked on the project The Baby Makers: Making History throughout 2024. 

Working in partnership with Museum in the Park, Stroud, over 2 years, the project was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.  

The Baby Makers: Making History set out to establish reproductive and birth histories in the Museum collection as a little-recorded but important part of our collective heritage. 

“It’s been a wonderful and inspiring project in so many different ways – thank you and well done!”

Abigail Large, Events and Exhibitions Coordinator Museum in the Park

Working with key partners Stroud Against Racism, and Stroud Local History Societies, we have uncovered diverse memories and experiences to do with the maternity services, fostering and adoption, loss, and birth-related stories across the District.

Thanks to National Lottery players we have collected new material for the Museum in the Park archives.

Project Report

You can read and download the full project report here, or continue scrolling down the page to see what we did in this project.

Performance Film – listening/shouting

As artists, we have made our own response to the project and what we have heard.

CW: In this film there are references to childbirth, baby loss and medical trauma.

Artwork performance film – The WAAS responds to the histories gathered and shared

The Baby Makers: Making History Film

This film directed by White Rabbit Films features some of the stories including references to fostering, adoption, racism and other aspects of medical and maternal care.

Created by White Rabbit films for The Baby Makers: Making History

First Black History Display for Museum in the Park

Collaborating with Stroud Against Racism we explored Black and diverse histories of birth and maternity, culminating in a new display in the Museum foyer. Launched for Black History Month with most of the input from particpant Dee Guthrie, the display attracted many very positive comments and responses.

Another focus is on stories from before the 1980’s and going back as far as memory will allow. Working with Stroud Local History Societies we have been finding out what giving birth was like in Stroud over the decades and how practices and meanings have changed over time.

One of our participants, Dee Guthrie, created a new display about the Windrush community in Stroud, for the Museum foyer.

Stroud's Windrush generation: an intergenerational family history display by Dee Guthrie

“A stunning corner of riches deep in meaning and history. I drank it all in – very moved by it, totally humbled and appreciative too.  Gratitude, respect, awe. More please.” 

Comment in Black History Display visitors book.

Project Launch Day Event

We held a project celebration event in November at the Museum. This was a chance for health professionals, participants, museum staff, artists and members of the public to come together and talk about issues and stories that have come through this project.

11 Oral Histories Gathered

We have collected 11 new oral histories in 5 hours of new recorded and transcribed material for researchers, historians and the public to access. There is a new series of birth history collection items donated to the Museum and there was a temporary exhibit of birth histories in the Collector’s Room. A total of 20 new itemsshave been donated or laoned to the Museum, including artworks made by participants, archive materials from Stroud Maternity Unit, activist items from events in support of the local maternal health services, and personal items from individuals.

Successful Workshops with Participants

As part of the Birth Histories project “The Baby Makers: Making History” we held two workshops.

We are so deeply grateful to those awesome women who showed up and shared their stories. They were all powerful and moving, and are enriching understandings of Stroud’s social and maternal history.

Sunday 7 July 11am-1pm – Black History – Birth and maternity in Stroud

Supported by Stroud Against Racism and open to all who have a recent or older story to share, about Black history and histories of childbirth and reproduction, involving Black folks and people of colour, of any heritage.

Workshop participant making a drawing at the Museum in the Park Collections Room 2024. Photo © Sarah Dixon/The WAAS

Wednesday 10 July – Pre-1980’s stories

Supported by Stroud Local History Society, this session was open to all who had a story from the 1980s or before.

Both events were held in the Collector’s room at Stroud’s Museum in the Park.

“It was a lovely experience – thank you”

Workshop participant – birth histories

What Happened At The Workshops?

At the events we showed some items from the Museum collections, to start conversation, and we offered materials and prompts for writing, doodling, collage and other ways to express yourself. With permissions, we recorded audio and video material for the project. This is not compulsory and written consent has been sought for everything we will use.

We had some really rich a powerful conversations, learning about practices of birth in the past, reflecting on how things have changed, and making new connections. We also encountered powerful conversations about the experiences of the Windrush generation in Stroud, and their descendants.

We are bringing missing histories into the Museum collection and changing the future for the public visitors and researchers.

cutting cloth at the Museum
New textile work being created by a workshop participant as part of an exploration Black maternal histories in Stroud. Photo © Sarah Dixon/The WAAS