The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History is a non-profit organisation, founded in 1961 to study “the working-class situation … and social history in the fullest sense”. The Society encourages teaching and research in labour history and the preservation of the records of working people and the labour movement. It desires to make history a vital part of popular consciousness and a matter for reflection and debate.
This year’s conference titled ‘(Re)Sources: Historical Inquiry and Labour History Archives’ welcomed historians, activists, and professionals in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) sector to present papers on sources and archives, how they use them, the challenges they face, and the possibilities they see.
AMH Senior Archivist Ben Woods' presentation gave an overview of the genesis, resources and functions of our archives. Ben’s presentation included references to Gary Lewis’ People before Profit: The Credit Union Movement in Australia and Australian Credit Unions Magazine where the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative, our forerunner, were discussed. Here is a snippet from Ben’s paper:
The archives began in 1985 as the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative (ACUHC). In his definitive history of the Australian credit union movement, People Before Profit, Gary Lewis notes that the ACUHC genesis came at a time when the Australian credit union movement was at a crossroads. Some thought it was becoming more of an “industry’ than a “movement”. Lewis writes that, “credit unions allowed members to over-commit themselves financially by hurrying loan approvals to appear ‘efficient’ relative to rivals. Australia was awash with consumer credit. Did people still need credit unions?”.
Lewis goes on to say, “Modernist strategists, convinced that credit unions could only survive by employing a nationally coordinated approach and developing new services that addressed the needs of contemporary consumers, continued to debate traditionalists, who were bitterly opposed to a surrender of traditional values or any thought that credit unions put profit before people. Pointing to high interest rates and management ‘elites’, pioneers argued that the ‘little man’ was losing control of his democratic institutions”.
It was in this environment that a group of retiring or nearly retired pioneering credit union ‘traditionalists’ began ACUHC, “in 1985, seeking to preserve the movement’s ‘tribal memory’”.
Quoting Lewis again, “Over the next decade, the historical co-operative assembled Australia’s premier credit union archive, which included an important oral history element, organised educational seminars and conferences, published a newsletter, The Chronicle, and encouraged research into the history of the movement”.
