DearREADERS, Now’s your chance to pay it forward! There is a new joint venture between FamilySearch and the Maryland Archives. Beginning in June, FamilySearch will digitize the Wills and Probate Records located at the Archives building in Annapolis. Records from Caroline, Carroll and Baltimore counties will be imaged. Some of these county records span from the mid-1800′s to mid 1900′s.
Screen Shot: Maryland State Archives website.
Screen Shot: FamilySearch Maryland Archives Volunteer … »
I’ve been thinking a lot about imaginary body parts recently. The Queen’s Gallery is opening a new exhibition of the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in May; put it on your ‘to do’ list if you are
By Joel Harrington (W&M Regular Contributor) Rare is the human society, past or present, in which drinking alcohol has not served a variety of purposes. Naturally we think of relaxation and celebration, and of course the lubricating role of drink in
The RTÉ Radio Player lets you listen live and catch up on all of the broadcasts and podcasts from the RTÉ family of radio services. Programmes and podcasts are listed on the RTÉ Radio Player for 28 days after broadcast
Home to over 3.5 million items of historical significance, the National Media Museum has 8 floors of FREE galleries and 3 cinemas including the UK’s first IMAX.
Arthur Lovejoy (1873-1962), proponent of one version of the history of ideas
One of the drums I like to beat is that historians’ methodological toolkit is well developed, but that we do not use this toolkit as cooperatively and as productively as we might. Part of making good use of tools is having good terminology, which helps us to understand and talk about what tools we have and what they’re good for, and how they can be used selectively and in chorus with each other. It also helps avoid n… »
There is a major difference between the traditional scholar’s questions about the past – ‘What happened in history, when and why?’ – and the question that has, in the last 40 years or so, come to inspire a growing body of historical research: namely, ‘How do or did people feel . . .
There’s an unfortunate lack of books that a) comprehensively cover Native American history, b) do so in a way that is respectful of Native people, c) illustrate why Native American history is important, and d) are actually readable and accessible by the general public. But I’ve attempted to cobble together some kind of list of recommendation, aimed at people who are interested in learning more about Native history but don’t really know where to start, with a heavy emphasis on why and how Native… »
The humple petition of Priscilla Lockier and Sara Spurgeon wifes of Hugh Lockier and George Spurgeon two of the Marriners of the Shipp the Virginia Merchant (whereof John Lockier was Captaine or Commander) is a curious document.1
Written in the formal legal prose of a London solicitor, it is a direct appeal to the justices of the Admiralty Court for the immediate payment of mariners wages. Henry Lockier and George Spurgeon, the womens’ husbands, had not yet returned from Virginia, whence they … »
Talk given at Our Criminal Past: Digitisation, Social Media and Crime History Workshop, London Metropolitan Archives, 17 May 2013 My academic apprenticeship, in Aberystwyth, was spent engrossed in two things: first, early modern Welsh and northern English crime archives, and … Continue reading →
From the wind tunnels the made commercial aviation possible to the analog machines that preceded the computer, a visual history of the spirit of innovation presently unworthy of the government’s dollar.
Among the great joys of spending countless hours rummaging through archives is the occasional serendipitous discovery of something absolutely wonderful: Case in point, these gorgeous black-and-white photographs of vintage NASA facilities, which I found semi-accidentally in NASA’s public domain … »
Last October, Hurricane Sandy sank a working replica of HMS Bounty, and claimed the lives of two crew members, one of whom was the vivacious Claudene Christian, a direct descendant of the mutineer Fletcher Christian.
by Dr Kyle HughesNorthumbria University Whilst there were many secret societies to be found in nineteenth-century Ireland, often with extravagant names, elabor
The Coalition Government’s announcement of plans to contract out probation services to the private and voluntary sectors last week represents another shift in the ‘moving frontier’ between state and voluntary action. It is likely to fuel debates about the implications of policies that shift responsibility for mainstream public service delivery onto non-statutory providers.
Probation – like many other public services – has its origins in charity. In 1876 a printer, Frederic Rainer, donated fi… »
Le CVCE, ensemble avec la chaire Jean Monnet en histoire de l’intégration européenne (Université de Luxembourg, FLSHASE) et son programme de recherche Digital Humanities Luxembourg – DIHULUX (unité de recherche Identités-Politiques-Sociétés-Espaces (IPSE)) – et l’Université de Luxembourg (Master en histoire européenne contemporaine), sont heureux d’organiser le symposium DHLU 2013.
Wednesday Link Roundup: links to the most interesting news, blog, and technology posts that passed through my RSS and Twitter feeds over the last week.
Writing:
Author Brian Moreland posted “7 Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block” over at the Writer’s Digest blog. Click here to learn more.
Write to Done offered insight into how you can use your fear about writing to become a better writer. Click here to write better.
So you want to Blog? Liana Silva discusses how scholars can use blogging to become… »
By Alec Ryrie
I’ve been working on the ‘lived experience’ of early modern religion: what it was actually like to be a Protestant in 16th or 17th century Britain. And I’ve become more and more convinced there’s a crucial element of the story almost completely missing from the standard accounts: children.
Read most histories of early modern religion and you could be forgiven for concluding that there were no children in this period. But we are dealing with huge numbers of people: perhaps a third… »
Below is the Twitter conversation that prompted me to express some of my ideas and questions about Google Glass. I’ve noted the point at which I posted my somewhat rambling thoughts here on my blog and, since the conversation continued well into the evening, I have included the much broader conversation that followed. Thanks to all who participated for such a lively discussion.
There are countless ways to catch a fish. It can be pursued, actively, aggressively. It can be stalked, quietly, thoughtfully. It can be trapped, methodically, patiently. It can be stumbled upon, unexpectedly, fortuitously. It can be devoured, hungrily, passionately. It can be shared, graciously, equitably. It can be released, the enjoyment of the hunt and capture acknowledged, but the object itself set free to grow and mature, and to be chased and caught again.
Knowledge is a fish, and last mo… »
‘Ilford Murder Trial’, News of the World, 10 December 1922, 10 I witnessed the end of a life this week: a coroner’s report of July 1940 tracked the months leading up to the death of the man who I have worked on for the past seven years. I knew he …
This past weekend marked the third anniversary of the Irish in the American Civil War blog. Sincerest thanks to all of you who have read articles on the site over that time, to those who have taken the time to comment, contribute and share your knowledge, and also to those who have contributed guest posts. Creating and maintaining this site is one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had, and along the way I have been very fortunate in making some great acquaintances both in the U.S. and Ir… »
Dr Thomas Dixon is Director of the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. In my previous post on this blog I wrote about Oscar Wilde’s famous courtroom defence of the ‘love that dare not … Continue reading →
The rebus was a common semiotic tool in eighteenth-century satirical prints, especially political prints. A rebus is essentially a form of pictogram – a visual device which represents a word or a name, often in the form of an image which acts as a homonym for the thing represented. The rebus has its origins in heraldry, but in the 18th century its function shifted from representing power, to mocking it. The satirical rebus was complex, because it not only represented something, but linked its c… »
Simsbury Mine
To be a Tory in the northern colonies was to understand and fear the consequences of confinement at the infamous copper mine of Simsbury, Connecticut. Although already in use as a Loyalist prison, the mine gained official approval for use by the Assembly early in 1776. It quickly gained a reputation as a dismal environment where “the light of the Sun and the light of the Gospel are alike shut out from the martyrs.”[i] The assembly approved an original expenditure of 37 to make t… »
I once overheard a curators conversation on a Sydney train. As we passed under the city, through Museum station, they explained the location of a bricked up tunnel once leading to the old Sydney department store, Mark Foy’s.
The next station, St James, echoes the stores heyday with old images sourced from the City of Sydney Archives. Last month, I discovered Madrid’s version, Chamberi Metro Museum, where early 20th century infrastructure and young metropolitan progress is preserved and project… »
Today is National Famine Commemoration Day in Ireland, an event which has been held annually since 2009. Though it seems little remains of any material culture relating to the famine, the National Museum has a small number of ‘famine pots’; large iron pots used to cook soup in the kitchens set up by the … Continue reading →
The sheer scale of the American Civil War makes it often impossible to comprehend. The great armies, grand charges and huge casualty figures that typify the conflict make it difficult for us to bridge the gap of time and experience that separates us from those who were there in the 1860s. Narrowing our view to look at the stories of individuals and small groups is one way of getting us closer to understanding the reality of war. It is much easier for us to grasp the impact of momentous events on »
I have considered the function of the footnote and the opportunities afforded by digital technology since entering graduate school. Recently, a brief exchange on Twitter with @Jason_M_Kelly and @lostinhistory prompted me to commit some ideas to “paper.” This is just a beginning, as I am sure there will be much more to add. “Why not [...]
Matthew Avery Sutton is one of those scholars of American religion who I had in mind when I asked readers to consider the most recent “religious” turn in academia. Sutton is an associate professor of history at Washington State University, [...]
History Hub welcomes contributions from historical academic papers working on all periods and themes, based in Ireland or abroad. Submit a paper today.
The following is a reposting of a May 6, 2011 piece. Heather Cox Richardson While I’m as happy as the next mom to get chocolate on Mother’s Day—or on any other day, frankly—I can’t help pointing out that “Mother’s Day,” did not originate as a way to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s empowerment and social reform in the late nineteenth century. Rather than starting in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother, it was an impassioned effort by women in… »
This week I had the good fortune to interview Jennifer Polk, Ph.D., founder of the blog From Ph.D. to Life. Since December, Jen has written about her transition from academia to real life and her quest to find a fulfilling (and paying) career. Jen’s website serves as a valuable resource for anyone who is thinking about how to apply their historic skills to other history-related work or about transitioning to a non-history career.
When you visit Jen’s site you will find that many of her posts are »
In 1864 James McDonnell was a 27-year old Irishman serving in the 5th New Hampshire Infantry. His unit would end the war with the dubious distinction of having suffered more battle fatalities than any other Union regiment. James had not been an early volunteer- financially motivated, he enlisted as a draft substitute on 1st October 1863 in Keene, New Hampshire. By September 1864, having endured the Overland Campaign, James found himself part of the forces surrounding Petersburg. His thoughts tu… »
Today I am turning away from the roiling waters of “What is DH?/What is not DH?/DH is evil!/DH is great!/DH is managerial neoliberalism wolf in flexible team member sheep’s wool (boo!)/DH is nice actually-existing socialism (hooray!)/etc.” (see here and here for starters) to a few posts on my current teaching. Oh, don’t think won’t be leaping back into that debate soon!
In the meantime, to teaching. I am in the midst of the third installation of Digitizing Folk Music History, in which a group of »
SPOTLIGHT ON RACHEL HERRMANN, YALE UNIVERSITYby Courtney QuirinPicked up by a journalist to support his story about new findings of cannabilism in Jamestown, Virginia— a topic that dominated major…
Fifty Digital Preservation Activities You Can Do. A blog post at "The Signal: Digital Preservation" on 2013-05-09.
See it on Scoop.it, via Digital Humanities Tool Box
With apologies to Thomas Andrews and Flannery Burke, who first introduced me to their “Five Cs of Historical Thinking” through a January 2007 column in AHA’s Perspectives magazine, I have developed a modification of their mnemonic that may be useful to my colleagues in history. I think this may be particularly helpful for introducing the field to new students—to those first-year undergraduates who think about “social studies” rather than history. In addition to Andrews and Burke, I also want to… »
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 26 November 1831: The idea so possessed my mind that a thrill of terror ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the…
BEDMINSTER, New Jersey (Reuters) – The slaves buried here are identified only as Richard and Zaff. A third person, recorded as a free black man, is not named at all.The three men bought their own grave
And the winner of the inaugural Bad History Award is…Niall Ferguson, for suggesting that the economist John Maynard Keynes was indifferent to the fate of future generations because he had no children himself, and for suggesting that Keynes didn’t have any children because he was gay.
It might seem a bit harsh to give a Bad History Award to Ferguson, given that he quickly issued an unqualified apology retracting the comments and admitting his error. But there is a serious historical point to … »
Leanne Green, VAHS Seminar, 19 November 2013 (slides) Advertising War: The Visual Imagery of Charity Campaigns in the First World War How do we remember the First World War? And what do historians …
In Rome, art restorers have uncovered what they say are American Indians in the background of a 1494 fresco in the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments. Some commentary on the imperial-religious context is available here. “Unity,” writes Ilan Stavas, “is the great elusive dream of Latin America, and Bolívar is its Don Quixote.” A review of Marie Arana’s new [...]
The University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
The University of Glasgow is a major research-led university operating in an international context with the following fundamental aims:
* to provide education through the development of learning in a research environment
* to undertake fundamental, strategic and applied research
* to make a major contribution to local, regional, national and international communities through widening access and through working in partnership to support economic r…
In 2014, the Department of History & Archaeology will stage a major international conference on the First World War. The specific focus of the conference is on the experience of minorities in the conflict, whether on the home fronts or on the various frontlines.For full details of the conference and the call for papers, please see the ‘Downloads’ section to the right of this page.Call for papers deadline: 31 May 2013Conference date: 14-15 April 2014Speakers include:Professor Ton…
A museum dedicated to Britain’s middle classes has failed in an attempt to bulldoze the 175-year-old working class pub next door, in the wake of fierce local opposition.
We asked Andrew Hogan, a historian of science and medicine whose work focuses on the observational approaches of postwar human genetics and biomedicine, what the sort of questions he asks might reveal about contemporary science. He sent us the following guest post; you can find out more about his work here.
Excellent coverage of the BRCA gene patenting case by Lukas on this blog (and elsewhere) over the past few months has recently gotten me thinking about the ways that various analogies sh… »
Last week I had a unique opportunity as a scholar to share a double-bill with a professional actor. With the generous support of the Ohio Humanities Council, the public library in Cambridge, Ohio invited me to deliver a lecture on … Continue reading →
Manufacturing Pasts, a project led by the University of Leicester and funded by Jisc, today releases over 1,700 historical sources for learning and teaching. The resources tell the story of what life was like and how quickly it changed in British industrial cities during the second half of the twentieth century.
Taking Leicester as a powerful example of these changes, the historical sources include photographs, maps, architectural drawings, oral history interviews, company publications and news… »