Blog

This week sees the release in US cinemas of Jeff Nichols’ film Loving, a dramatization of the story of interracial couple Mildred and Richard Loving whose marriage lead to their arrest under anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia in 1958. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, they appealed against the conviction and the case went to the US Supreme Court in 1967 where, in a ground-breaking decision, the convictions were overturned and all remaining anti-miscegenation laws in US states were rendered unconstitutional.

Examining the material culture of the past can help us to understand how audiences of that time might have felt about what they saw, diminishing our assumptions that we bring from the present day. Some of the most fruitful sources for this research are programmes from popular venues. At The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter we have 4000 cinema programmes, including fascinating examples from the beginnings of cinema history between 1896 and 1920.

Jennie Batchelor, Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Kent, discusses her long-running interest in The Lady's Magazine, and recent research conducted using the digital copies of the magazine available in Adam Matthew's Eighteenth Century Journals.

When we think of the role of women on the Home Front during the First World War, the images which spring to mind are inevitably those of fresh-faced city girls perched precariously on fence posts, wellies on and pitchfork in hand. Think harder and you might also have a vague recollection of countless rows of twenty-somethings handling and packing shell cases in London munitions factories; but what other jobs did women do during the First World War?

One of the greatest and most brazen of swindles known to man is in fact not very well known by many. Born in 1786, Gregor MacGregor was the author of this delicious duping, and lived a colourful life in which he exhibited all the oleaginous qualities needed to enable a man to put his greed before all else.

Last week I had the opportunity of seeing Ian Hislop’s and Nick Newman’s stage play based upon the true story of The Wipers Times, currently showing at the Watermill Theatre, near Newbury, 22 September – 29 October 2016. I also attended an afternoon discussion session where the co-writers were interviewed about their work and answered questions from the audience. The Wipers Times was a trench journal published by British soldiers fighting on the Ypres Salient during the First World War. It became the most famous example of trench journalism in the English-speaking world.

Learning that the annual international conference held by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, (ATALM) is taking place this week in Phoenix, Arizona, I thought it a fitting time to highlight a sample of the material collated within our recently published resource: Frontier Life: Borderland Settlement & Colonial Encounters, that demonstrate attempts made over 100 years ago to restore both indigenous languages and histories.

One of the reasons I like the Adam Matthew resources so much is the visual richness contained within each one. The historical value and depth of the primary source content is complemented and augmented by a wealth of accompanying vivid images, many in colour.

America has been the focus of global news over the last few months due to the almost continuous coverage of the upcoming US Election. The election, while obviously a very hot topic in America, is also of interest to people around the world and, in time honoured fashion, ‘outsiders’ are also sharing their opinions and viewpoints. In 1842, it was my [cue shameless name drop] great-great-great Grandfather, English novelist Charles Dickens, who wrote a commentary on America during his first visit to the country.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been getting to grips with dramatic Great British Bake Off news. Shock-waves were sent rippling through the country when we learnt that this series would be the final one as we know it. In this office, like in many offices around the country, the reaction ranged from a healthy dollop of dismay to a big helping of speculation. First Mel and Sue announced their resignations and Mary Berry, a few days later, followed suet. (Yes, pun very much intended.)

The three intrepid women, Mariam Begum, Frances (Webbe) Steele, and Mrs Hudson who managed to travel on board East India Company ships in the early seventeenth century, flouting Company prohibition, continued to cause trouble even after the much harried English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, no longer had to directly deal with them. Unfortunately for Roe, the journey back to England was not as tranquil as he might have hoped, for Frances and Mrs Hudson were travelling with him.

In 1617 three unlikely travelers, Mariam Begum, Frances Steele (nee Webbe), and Mrs. Hudson, arrived at the busy port of Surat onboard an East India Company ship called the Anne. What made their journey so exceptional was that during the early years of its operation the Company expressly forbade women from traveling out to the East Indies, despite numerous pleas from its factors and sailors who did not wish to leave their wives behind.

After the announcement of our project with Shakespeare’s Globe last month, along with the launch of Shakespeare in Performance, attending the World Shakespeare Congress and a visit to the Globe itself to watch Iqbal Khan & co’s latest staging of Macbeth I can definitely say I have got the Shakespeare bug.

How many people are on the United States government payroll? If you don’t know the answer to this question, and particularly if you were an African American living in the 1950s, then chances are you would not have been allowed to vote. Last Friday, the 9th September, was the 59th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Act. Although there were criticisms at the time as to its efficacy and even motives, it was significant in being the first civil rights legislation to be passed in 82 years.

In his classic 1893 the frontier thesis – first delivered at the St Louis Worlds’ Fair – the historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave an analysis of how the experience of this contested space creates a particular culture and forges aptitudes, democracy, mentality, self-reliance, and so forth.

One of the biggest challenges of studying theatre history is reconstructing the non-textual elements of performance: the performers’ gestures and expressions, the costumes and set, the audience reaction. The challenge is amplified when studying illegitimate entertainments or legitimate plays that relied heavily on mimicry. How do we imagine the sounds or conjure the image of a scene in which a single actor, without leaving the stage, performs five or ten separate characters?

Visitors to my desk tend to comment on two things; firstly, the fan incessantly running regardless of the season, and secondly, the postcards propped up under the monitor. Bought from an exhibition gift shop last autumn, the cards feature Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova - respectively the first man and woman in space – against a back drop of hammers, sickles and rockets, staring nobly out into the office from under their helmets. My interest in - or perhaps idolatry of - these famed cosmonauts was sparked by our upcoming video resource, Socialism on Film, which is being produced in conjunction with the British Film Institute.

In December 1979 my dad was in town waiting for a bus home when a motorcycle rounded the corner a little too quickly, sending something flying off the back and landing in the road. It looked like a white envelope at first but as he walked over to pick it up he saw the simple design of a white brick wall and two words in black ink: Pink Floyd.

It’s been a dramatic 2 weeks of triumph, teamwork and towering feats of sporting achievement during the 31st Olympic Games, and after years of planning, the eyes of the world were firmly on Rio de Janeiro.

The Olympic Games are a great opportunity for usually unheralded sports to take centre stage, and many of the same events were on display when the modern games first started over a century ago.

If you didn't already know (of course you did) this year is a HUGELY exciting one for scholars, thespians and fans of William Shakespeare. 2016 marks the the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death, and cultural organisations the whole world over have been pulling out all the stops to celebrate his life and works.

When we think of the East End in the nineteenth century our minds often conjure-up images of dark back-street rookeries and communities blighted by crime and poverty. Well known polemic pamphlets by contemporaries like Andrew Mearns’ The Bitter Cry of Outcast London and the haunting images sketched by Gustave Doré have influenced both academic writing and popular culture to this day. When imagining the East End in the nineteenth century, very few of us associate it with sailors and the maritime culture that they brought ashore.

Reflect on the rich history of the Olympics, particularly the impact of Muhammad Ali in AM's Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975. The 1960 Rome Olympics introduced the world to 18-year-old Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, who won the light heavyweight gold medal. Explore material from the collection that marked the beginning of Muhammad Ali’s illustrious career as a boxer and activist.

Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920 is a recently revamped resource for the study of American social, cultural and popular history, providing access to rare primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men through the use of documents such as etiquette advice manuals.