Blog

This week marked 65 years since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her act of defiance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which is now regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the US. Primary sources in AM resource Race Relations in America can begin to tell us about this story first-hand.

While most of us will be fortunate to earn one genuine ‘claim to fame’ in our lifetime, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) has two. Best known today for her contributions to the fields of mathematics and computer science, she also happened to be the daughter of a certain George Gordon Byron, the most famous poet of the Romantic era. 

As we approach the end of November, most of us will be beginning to think about our Christmas shopping, baking our Christmas cakes and Christmas puddings and starting to stock up on all the festive treats that we enjoy over the Christmas period. Having recently started some of my own festive preparations and with Christmas very much on my mind, I turned to our Food and Drink in History resource for a little bit of festive food inspiration.

The fourth module of East India Company, Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict, released this week, showcases a vast quantity of archival material from Series E of the India Office Records held at the British Library. Documents relating developments in not only South Asia, but also Venice, Persia, Syria, China, Japan, Madagascar, Singapore and modern-day Indonesia (among other places) all feature.

A perennial favourite of the autumn calendar, Bonfire Night – or Guy Fawkes’ – passed quietly in lockdown yesterday with nary a whiff of gunpowder nor plotting on the cold November air. It is not to the attempted parliamentary fireworks of 1605 that I turn today, however, but another bonfire, both literal and literary.

With COVID-19 scuppering so many holiday plans in 2020 I was determined to still get my Halloween fix this year. Pumpkins have been carved, I’m ready to consume my body weight in pick ‘n’ mix and I’ve been delving back into one of my favourite productions of Shakespeare’s famously gruesome Titus Andronicus in Shakespeare’s Globe Archive.

It’s been hard to get the creative juices flowing this year, that overwhelming sense of anxiety about the world, in general, was stifling, to say the least. However, the acknowledgements at the end of Colson Whitehead's The Nickle Boys got me thinking...

“Pink Pills for Pale People!” is the excited announcement from a leaflet that can be found in Popular Medicine in America 1800-1900. If like me, you’re wondering whether the pink pills make people pale, or pale people pink, or perhaps that this much alliterative pinkness is beyond the pale...well, you might be right.

When I first started working on the Food & Drink in History resource, I immediately became obsessed with molded jelly salads. This food fashion fascinates me, so I leapt at the chance to dig deeper.

This blog will showcase a few highlights from a document which explores interesting research into consumer attitudes to packaged white bread in 1959 and how attitudes and spending habits reflected changing consumer priorities.

This month we’ve been celebrating the release of two resources: Children’s Literature and Culture, and the second module of Food & Drink in History. I was lucky enough to work on commissioning documents for both titles, and one of the best parts of my job is making connections between our resources – connections across history.

Even if you’ve never heard the term “Christmas creep”, chances are you’ll be familiar with the concept. September has only just begun and already you’re noticing Christmas-themed merchandise in the mall and on the outer fringes of the high street.

This week marks the publication of Food and Drink in History, module II, which adds a wealth of new material to a resource which spans centuries and offers users a unique lens through which to explore food histories, cultures and traditions from around the globe.

“An old adage maintains that 'blood is thicker than water' but this must have been proven false countless times, as such ties are no guarantee of help in adversity.” Ouch! Old friends, neighbours and relatives are at the centre of our support networks – particularly in times of adversity. This was the topic that participants in the Mass Observation Project were asked to write about in the winter of 1984. How would they weigh up ‘relatives versus friends’?

World Fairs were events that involved huge-scale expositions from countries all over the world, which showed off their innovations and inventions. AM’s World’s Fairs resource represents over 200 fairs, and there are 10 core collections that relate to 12 ‘case study’ expositions. With so much daydreaming about holidays and getaways, I thought I would take myself on a virtual trip to 1889 Paris, around the Exposition Universelle.

As the post-Covid news cycle regularly reminds us of travel corridors, quarantine requirements and localised lockdowns, I have begun to wonder if holidays have ever been so stressful. A browse of the travel manuscripts collected in Nineteenth Century Literary Society reminds me otherwise.

In a time when women could not govern democratically, Caroline Norton mobilised the power of poetry to mount political campaigns – and successfully reformed the legal rights of women in the process.

This Sunday, 23 August, marks five months since the lockdown began here in the UK and, as restrictions slowly but steadily begin to ease, I’ve been reflecting on my lockdown experience.

Holidaymakers the world over have put their passports away this summer as the global pandemic continues to make international travel difficult, if not entirely impossible. In an effort to recreate that holiday feeling, I’ve been seeking inspiration for future trips in some of the documents published in Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism.

The release date for Winds of Winter is still unknown, and Game of Thrones finally went down in (literal) flames last summer, but if you’re missing your annual dose of fierce queens, morose knights and fiery dragons, look no further than Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.

Masks. Haven’t you heard? They are all the rage this month. From the blue medical coverings you get in the Pharmacy to the fancy four-layered ones my Mother has been making (and everyone’s Auntie/Grandma/Neighbour), they have become as much a fashion statement as a necessary, life-saving item. 

Four months on from us Brits going into lockdown, the BBC has reported that we have splurged on tea, biscuits and good books.  I have delved into the directives in AM’s newly released Mass Observation Project, to take a look at tea-drinking habits in the 1980s. One thing for sure is that there is always an occasion for a cuppa.

In the spring of 1988, I was newly 5 and was about to undertake the most exciting thing in my young life – to be a real-life bridesmaid. There would be white ballet slippers, a crown of (fake) flowers, ringlets to match the bride, and, best of all, a Laura Ashley dress covered in watercolour hues.

Inspired by the recent news of the wedding of Princess Beatrice to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, I decided to dig into the newly published Mass Observation Project, to see what the mass observers of the 1980s had to say about another famous royal wedding, that of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer.