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With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade

1979 film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ8027968 ↗
Source-derived summary

With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade is a 1979 American documentary film directed by Lorraine Gray about the General Motors sit-down strike in 1936–1937 that focuses on the role of women using archival footage and interviews. It provides an inside look at women's roles in the strike. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

The film was one of the first to put together archival footage with contemporary interviews of participants and helped spur a series of films on left and labor history in the US utilizing this technique. The film was also important in helping bring into view the history of American women being active in the public sphere, particularly in union and labor actions. The film was, further, ground breaking because it was produced and directed by women.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade” as 1979 film. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Babies, Banners and Story.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1979, 1936, 1937—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1979-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Babies, Banners and Story providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade”, the useful work is to connect “1979 film” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8027968. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1936 and 1937.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade primary sources, With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade archive and Babies research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.