Living with Machines: Human stories from the industrial age (exhibition board text)

‘Living with Machines: Human stories from the industrial age’ was a free exhibition at Leeds City Museum from July 2022-January 2023. It explored how machines and mechanisation changed life and work in Leeds and the surrounding regions. A collaboration between the British Library and Leeds City Museum, the exhibition was co-curated by Mia Ridge and John McGoldrick. Inspired by the Living with Machines research project, the exhibition unearths new human stories behind material from Leeds Museums & Galleries, brought together with items on loan from the British Library, National Football Museum, National Railway Museum and more. From machines to mass-produced clothing, grassroots women’s football to art, the exhibition paints a relatable picture of how rapid advances in technology changed life and work for everyone.

This document contains interpretation for the Living with Machines exhibition, a collaboration between the British Library and Leeds Museums and Galleries that built on the Living with Machines research project. This text was written by exhibition co-curators Mia Ridge and John McGoldrick in a commentable Google Doc so that the Exhibition content and steering groups drawn from across the organisations could review and comment on work in progress. As a working document with all the label text, it contains references to format and design notes for wall panels, etc, including information about which thematic section or captions content is linked to.