Protest poster could fetch a tidy sum in Shrewsbury auction
A 1960s student protest poster will go under the hammer, with a sale estimate of up to £200, in Shrewsbury next month.
An auction organised by Halls on May 15 will feature the poster, which dates back to 1968.
The seller is a cataloguer at the Houghton Library, which was a division of Harvard University Library in the United States, at the time of student strikes in the 1960s and 1970s.
The student movement at the time arose to demand free speech amongst students but as the US involvement in the Vietnam War grew, the conflict became the main target of student protests.
Halls fine art picture specialist James Forster said: “This fascinating memento from a seminal period in US history seems to capture the spirit of that generation of students and its simplicity of design seems to make it all the more striking.”
The unnamed vendor said: “My poster was on a wall in Harvard Yard, the central area at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was May 1968. The mood was not angry but excited, thrilled to have a purpose, and of course it was wonderful to sit or march around Harvard Yard in the spring sunshine after a hard winter.
"It was a time when the world seemed new and wonderful, and there was as much hope as anger in the protests.”
