The Working Class Movement Library in Salford - in pictures

Project Librarian Jane Taylor in the Paine Room Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The 42 room collection was originally founded in the 1950s by Ruth and Eddie Frow, pictured in 1993. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Project Librarian Jane Taylor with the oldest book in the collection "An answer to a letter of enquiry Into the grounds and occasions of the contempt of the Clergy" published in 1671. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Banners on the staircase. A Bradford Socialist Sunday School banner (right). Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Emblem from the National Union of Railwaymen. The collection reveals the nuts and bolts of how unions operated from the 1820s onwards: rule books, agendas, notices of meetings, minutes, agreements, campaigns, conference reports, leaflets, newsletters, badges and banners. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Free Castration On Demand poster from the 1970s. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Frontispiece from The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts, 1806. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Help Spain poster from the Spanish civil war, 1936-1939. The Library also holds an archive consisting of letters written by men from the Greater Manchester area, some of whom lost their lives in the war. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Votes for Women timeline from 1913. The collection captures the inside stories of attempts to challenge and change events in the last 200 years. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

A State Of The Poll from the election in Halifax in 1847 showing how few people were eligible to vote. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

National Union of Stove Grate Workers certificate. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

The Woman Worker journal from 1917, a journal for women trade unionists. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Voucher for the Manchester Foodship for Spain during the Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939. Photograph: Courtesy: The Working Class Movement Library

Class Struggle, a board game. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian