In the spring of 1976,the editorial collective of History Workshop Journal introduced the scope and ambitions of their brand-new journal in the first of many editorials. This three-page manifesto made clear the collective’s commitment to championing ‘history from below’ and laid out some strategies for highlighting its relevance to the lives of ordinary people past, present and future.
‘The journal is dedicated to making history a more democratic activity and a more urgent concern. We believe that history is a source of inspiration and understanding, furnishing not only the means of interpreting the past but also the best critical vantage point from which to view the present.’
Over fifty years later, this editorial remains an inspiring read, not only for historians but also for those who understand history as a source for image-making. As a historian with a background in these creative disciplines, knowing how to create an image has greatly shaped my approach to historical research in terms of both theories and methodologies in the writing of history. Perhaps less obvious to the academic, design and illustration are in fact deeply interwoven with telling radical histories.
The covers of History Workshop Journal however attest to their importance in history-making. Every volume featured a large image for its cover, originally reappropriating historical photographs and prints. From 1995, HWJ’s graphic rebrand launched with Issue 39, featuring Bernard Canavan’s striking paintings and prints. His images utilised vibrant colours and bold black and white shapes, in conjunction with the new thick, black, san-serif title (simplified to the letters ‘HWJ’) in the top quarter of the cover, resonant with the radical lino-print posters and ephemera that define the visual cultures of numerous historic movements around the world.
For the digital platform, illustrations are not only celebratory and entangled in the process of ‘writing’ radical history, they also serve to bring new readers to the topics and concepts in radical historical research. Illustrations help to visually articulate the complexities of the articles we publish, in a time when our world is saturated with images. During my role as an editorial fellow, guiding students through the process of illustrating articles which lacked interesting or high-quality images, in spite of their fascinating research, became a channel for me to contribute to the rich visual history of History Workshop and make radical history accessible beyond the academy.
In my work as a lecturer in illustration, straddling both design history and studio practice, I also see first-hand how radical histories offer new avenues for students to think about their position as interpreters of histories, as well as their own identity as artists, through image-making. In May 2025, we invited my illustration students from Nottingham Trent University to reflect on the ongoing relevance to history in their own lives, and their personal connections to the subject of radical history. One of the main objectives of this exercise was to help the students recognise the value of their own perspectives of history and reflect on how deeply they are shaped by specific social, political, cultural and economic contexts of the twenty-first century. We called into question what it means to illustrate history for and as ‘the public’ audience; As Sally Alexander and Anna Davin shared in the first issue, in their call for a refocus on feminist history within the History Workshop movement, ‘it is only by seeking and recognizing political relevance in history that we can bring it more directly into the battle of ideas — history is too important to be left just to the professional historians.’
In a workshop setting not dissimilar to that of the early History Workshop movement, we invited the students to produce visual responses to the following questions:
What does it mean for history to be public?
What does it mean to do history ‘from below’?
What histories are meaningful to you?
Although it took some warm-up discussions to unpack some of these big questions, it was useful to turn back to the lectures and seminars they had received earlier in the year. Their projects focused on a wide range of histories related to protest and ‘amplifying’ the topics that they felt were important to address. Significant themes included histories of the present through issues like the climate crisis and mental health, especially since they are part of a generation that were deeply affected by Covid-19. But it was also a chance for them to engage with their own histories, through exploring memory and family, as well as identities expressed in popular culture such as film and TV. Here are some of the illustrations and reflections they shared with us in celebration of History Workshop. A huge thanks to the students for celebrating the 100th issue with us!
Maddy Horrigan
My interpretation of history from below looks at issues surrounding how delicate the positive impact and overall results of conservation efforts can be, looking specifically at the many examples of farmers destroying habitats and ecosystems by disposing of waste in nearby rivers. Examples in the BBC’s archived articles can be found as far back as 2001, and anecdotes from conservation workers also highlight this issue in recent talks I have attended. This issue is often overlooked and even the minimal media attention these kinds of events accrue dissipates quickly, which is why I feel this is relevant to history from below. This reoccurring problem persists in the background and has a knock-on effect in the ecosystem. The fish and other wildlife impacted fatally are gone permanently, and a lack of repercussions given to farmers who damage the rivers. Additionally, it also damages the motivation of conservation teams to see their work, often decades worth of effort, lost in a single incident.
Eve Moore
I have created an illustration about the history of hunt sabotage in the UK. I think it is something many people don’t know about and is brilliant work, a vital backbone towards animal liberation throughout history. The HSA (Hunt Sabotours Association) was founded in 1963, and over time had grown into a nationwide organisation fighting to end the trophy hunting of foxes, deers and badgers.
AJ Barke
This piece was inspired by how humans impact the earth and how the landscape could negatively form as a result of that.
Jack Miller
This piece is about a youth activist protest in recent history who protested outside the Meta office concerning how media platforms run by Meta are profiting off young people’s mental health.
Ching Yan Ho
Time seems to have passed faster than before, yet the outbreak of COVID seems just like yesterday. Even though it has already been such a long time, COVID still lingers in our society, I still find people getting COVID in the last few weeks. Will it ever end? When will we no longer need to be haunted by COVID?
Yamil Ghazanfar
I thought about documenting how I felt about this point in time – the overwhelming burden that it pushes onto us to “do something” or “be part of the change”. Working to see something happen in this largely capitalist society that squashes every chance at change is hard, and only the person of the past can guide us through the present.
Amber Sterley
We found this one photograph while reorganising my grandpa’s messy photo albums. In between teenage parties, wedding announcements and family photos, there was this photo of a child with a gas mask. I was struck by the incongruity of it, and at my lack of knowledge of the effect World War Two had on places outside of the UK. It looks so sinister today, but it also feels like a mother commemorating her child’s first day of school. I was inspired by and wanted to share this dissonance between past and present, the questions it led me to, and how literal the term ‘world war’ really was.
Philo Li
When talking about the recent history I have lived through, COVID-19 was without a doubt the most impactful. My inspiration comes from real situations I observed during the lockdown: those with more resources and power received more daily supplies than ordinary people, this made me question whether the government was fair. As time passes, people tend to forget the pain they experienced, so I chose to draw it as a way to remember.
Eanna Swan
I was eager to produce an outcome with a positive and empowering tone – I’ve been keen to explore community, personal connection and a ‘hands-on’ approach to engaging with history in my past History Workshop opportunities. In my response, I thought of ‘In the Mood For Love’ by Wong Kar-Wei and its confessional scene in Angkor Wat – specifically the stone of the temple paired with the vulnerability of the act itself. With the monument serving as witness to countless individual experiences, the scene spoke to how engaging with history can encourage personal introspection and act as an opportunity to contextualise both personal and global events. In my response, I adopted hands – something universally familiar and organic – as focal point, and contrasted this against the firm permanence of stone artefacts, using a selection of historical depictions of this as reference to encapsulate the connection between past and present.
Nevaeha Yearwood
This illustration is based on black cinema and was inspired by the History Workshop article ‘when black cinema went soviet’ (Owen Walsh, 2019). The black figure is interchangeable with prominent black filmmakers who have used their voices to spotlight significant historical moments in an unconventional way for instance Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’ (2025) which is a story set in 1932 during the Jim Crow era. This film resonates with many is because it grounds the audience in the past even if there are supernatural elements. When history is done ‘from below’ it allows for a wider audience to understand the context of the past. Black film doesn’t have to only be uncomfortable or traumatising to get across points and to form connections with global audiences.