My mother Elizabeth Lebas, who has died from cancer aged 67, was a teacher and researcher in the politics and philosophy of urban living. Her work focused on health, housing reform and urban policy in the 1920s-70s, a period that fascinated her because of its commitment to a collective future. She carried out original research on municipal film-making, and discovered, catalogued and rescued the extraordinary public information films often found in local archives, unmarked in cardboard boxes that progressive local governments, especially the Glasgow Corporation (now Glasgow city council), had made between 1920 and 1978.
She was born in France to Jean, a ship engineer, and his wife Fernande, but the family soon moved to Quebec, Canada, fleeing the hardships of postwar Europe. After completing a degree at Sir George William University in Montreal (now Concordia University), Elizabeth spent a year at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, Indiana University, as an assistant to the sociologists John Gagnon and William Simon. The experience ignited her passion for field research, and included a trip to Hugh Hefner's original Playboy Mansion in Chicago to watch films otherwise banned in the US.
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