From Protest to Preservation: Exploring the Scottish Cold War Experience Through Anti-Nuclear Ephemera in National Museums Scotland Collections

Throughout the Cold War, members of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament utilized ephemera and material culture as tools to share their concerns about the placement of nuclear weapons and power stations in Scotland. These creative ‘disobedient objects’ offer rich symbolic insights into the organization and issues being championed in this period. One lifelong Scottish campaigner, Kristin Barrett, donated her personal collection of protest material to National Museums Scotland in the early 2000s. This collection includes an array of leaflets, posters, stickers, badges, and small items such as an improvised rattle bottle. By exploring the object biographies of this ephemera, we can see the transformation in meaning from everyday products to protest objects and finally to museum artefacts. This paper emphasizes the value of ephemeral collections which provide an alternative view to accepted narratives of the Cold War period.