The Mosquito Press Archive provides unique insights into aspects of radical social, cultural and political campaigning movements active in Britain during the last quarter of the twentieth century, 1975-2000. The material comes directly from campaign participants who kept in touch due to some shared goals from their respective campaigns. It was agreed that this represented a strong case for bringing the material together as the Mosquito Press Archive.
Any archive of material of this type risks being under-represented and it risks falling into the category of “ephemeral”. Much of it not only remains unseen, but was unseen even in its own time, consisting as much of it does, for example, of correspondence, agenda and minutes of conferences and other meetings and defence.
There is further information about the range of other archival material in the archive.
Origins of the Mosquito Press
Founded in 1980 as a book publisher, this company took on further functions during the early 1980s, including issuing press releases and other information on current affairs. It went on to organise seminars and other events relating to issues including the Irish peace process and campaigns for Korean reunification. By the end of the 1980s, these activities had been taken over by other campaigning and research organisations and the company was dissolved.
Main themes in the collection
This material is of priceless value to researchers, and the wider public, providing as it does otherwise unavailable testimony from eyewitnesses and participants in the wide-ranging campaigns of the period. With burgeoning campaigning activity from all manner of groups, from trade unions to political and cultural groups, national minority organisations, peace and international friendship organisations, and so on.
This kind of archive is particularly vital in the last quarter of the twentieth century, since it was this period in which the new information technologies were becoming established, seeing a transition away from the hardcopy world of typescripts, handwritten notes and duplicated paper of which the vast majority of this archive consists. In the twenty-first century campaigning activities leave a record online and digital records of the organisations concerned. By digitising the papers we hope to make the information accessible and prevent these aspects of history from disappearing.