Historical writing | Jane Takes On History

July 14, 2020

What a Newly Discovered Letter Means to Historians

The Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., which depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a kneeling freed slave, is being scrutinized and reconsidered these days. But the dispute over the statue (also called the Freedmen’s statue) has had a remarkable result for historians: An 1876 letter by Frederick Douglass has been found in which he expressed disappointment in the statue.

For me, what is so intriguing is how it was discovered and how that illustrates the wonderful world that digital technology has brought to historians—a world in which artifacts of the past are readily available.

Here’s the story: Continue reading “What a Newly Discovered Letter Means to Historians”

June 30, 2020August 8, 2023

Remember the Ladies, Mr. Cannadine*

In studying British history, I’ve come across female British historians of the early twentieth century who helped develop economic history as a discipline. They were intellectuals; we’d call them “blue-stockings” in the United States (a few were also elegant), and they tended to delve deeply into regional archives.

Julia Mann, for example, was the expert on Britain’s pre-industrial textile industry; Ivy Pinchbeck wrote a pioneering volume about how women’s lives were changed by the Industrial Revolution; and Pat Hudson practically owned the history of woolen textiles, Britain’s largest industry before the Industrial Revolution.

I recently read a 1992 essay by Maxine Berg indicating that these historians, while well-regarded, were not taken as seriously as they should have been. [1] Berg suggests that such inattention may distort our understanding of the historiography of Britain.

I realize that historiography—the study of what historians write—may not appeal much to my readers, but that is what my master’s thesis is about. Specifically, I’m looking at what historians have said about labor conditions in the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) and how their views changed over the years. Thus I need to know which historians helped paint the picture accurately.

And I see that some may have been left out. Continue reading “Remember the Ladies, Mr. Cannadine*”

February 13, 2020March 16, 2024

Three Good Books That Revised History

In a previous post I critiqued an author for wasting enormous talent trying to write something “new.” In this column I will discuss three books that ushered in new ways of thinking, but did it better. These books aren’t easy reading, but their density is proportional to their content. (I can cover three books because praise takes less space than criticism.) Two were readings assigned in class; the other was recommended.

***The Stripping* *of the Altars***

The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy[1] overturned decades, perhaps centuries, of stultifying complacency about the Protestant Reformation in England (including my own). Duffy challenged the widespread presumption that the Reformation brought a true and purified religion to a country gripped by ritual, magic and saint worship—in other words, the Catholic Church.

While the title refers to the destruction of the traditional church under Protestant kings Henry VIII and Edward VI, more than half the book is devoted to describing Christianity before the Reformation. Duffy shows how the Catholic Church was woven into the texture of people’s lives through holy days, celebrations, pageants, processions, veneration of saints, deathbed donations, prayers, and, above all, the miraculous Eucharist. Overseeing that world and everyone in it were the saints, from the Virgin Mary to little-known local martyrs, all of whom could help people in various kinds of trouble. Continue reading “Three Good Books That Revised History”

February 6, 2020February 6, 2020

In the Belly of the Beast

In the mid-1970s, while browsing in the Chicago Public Library, I came across The Rise of the Western World by Douglass North and Robert Thomas. [1] This short book tells a fascinating story of how property rights, trade, and limited government led to prosperity in the West (prosperity that eventually spread around the world).

Since then I’ve read many books about the success of the West and specifically about the Industrial Revolution, which started in England around 1760 and is generally viewed as continuing till 1830. I personally rate the Industrial Revolution as equal in importance to the discovery of agriculture.

So it will come as no surprise that, as a graduate student in history, I am studying the Industrial Revolution. In fact, I am studying labor conditions in the Industrial Revolution. Yes, the labor conditions that Charles Dickens wrote about in his novels Hard Times and Oliver Twist.

On the one hand, the Industrial Revolution was an exciting time. As a British schoolboy supposedly said, “About 1760 a wave of gadgets swept over England.”[2] New inventions, especially in the textile industry, appeared one after another, enormously improving productivity, reducing costs, and launching an age of material success.

On the other hand, labor conditions were tough. The new factories needed workers and brawn was not required. Women and children could work and monitor the machines—and they did.

Continue reading “In the Belly of the Beast”