On The Line: 100 years of strikes & solidarity

On The Line: 100 years of strikes & solidarity is the headline exhibition at the People's History Museum this year, running from Saturday 21 March to Monday 2 November 2026. It marks a century since the 1926 General Strike, that moment when workers across the country withdrew their labour in support of more than a million miners who'd been locked out for refusing lower pay. From there, it traces a hundred years of labour struggles and the visual culture that grew around them: the flags, banners, posters, t-shirts and art produced by trade unions, artists and radical printshops.

The exhibition draws on the museum's own collection, and there's a real mix of things to see. You'll find banners, badges, paintings and posters, alongside a truncheon given to a scab volunteer back in 1926. It covers some of the biggest strikes of the last century: the 1968 Ford Dagenham equal pay strike, the Grunwick strike of 1976-7, the 1984-5 miners' strike and the Amazon Coventry warehouse strikes of 2023-24. Curator Mark Wilson also spotlights the work of collectives like The Poster Collective, Paddington Printshop and Fly Press.

It's part of the national commemorations for the centenary of the General Strike, so it sits within a wider look at that particular moment, but it keeps going right up to the present day. The museum is at Leftbank, Manchester M3 3ER, and it's open 10.00am to 5.00pm every day from 21 March through to 2 November. Entry is free, though most visitors donate £10.