Doing History in Public

Category: Archive

  • Virtual electioneering: echoes of the 1883 Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act

    Virtual electioneering: echoes of the 1883 Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act

    Helen Sunderland (@hl_sunderland) On Thursday, voters across the UK will head to the polls in the third general election in less than five years. This contest suggests numerous historical parallels. It’s the first December election since 1923 – an election which incidentally brought in Britain’s first ever (minority) Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald. Brexit continues to…

  • 5. The Rogue’s Gallery

    5. The Rogue’s Gallery

    By Walker Schneider (@WalkerSchneider)  Today crime-fighting relies on massive criminal databases. In the United States, this practice can be traced back to Gilded Age New York City and the Rogues’ Gallery, the great-grandfather of modern criminal databases. Deep within the New York City Police Department’s headquarters on Mulberry Street, the Rogues’ Gallery was a hulking…

  • 6. An Early Modern Urine Flask

    6. An Early Modern Urine Flask

    By Philippa Carter ‘Uroscopy’ (the examination of urine) was a standard diagnostic tool for most early modern physicians. Having just come from inside the patient’s body, urine was understood to contain vital information about what was happening in there.

  • 7. A Jacobite Teapot

    7. A Jacobite Teapot

    By Carys Brown (@HistoryCarys) This seemingly innocuous teapot has a seditious past. Painted with an image of Charles Edward Stuart (known to his supporters as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”), this was a Jacobite object. The Jacobites were those who, following the “Revolution” of 1688-9, when James II fled Britain and was replaced as monarch by William and Mary,…

  • 8. A Long Rifle

    8. A Long Rifle

    By Nicolas Bell-Romero (@NicoBellRomero) ‘So, as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: ‘From my cold, dead hands!’[1]