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20. An Icelandic Executioner’s Axe
By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) This axe can now be found at the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik. It was used on 12 January 1830, to execute Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a maid, and Friðrik Sigurðsson, a farmhand, for their role in the murders of ‘womanizer’, Natan Ketilsson, and Pétur Jónsson, an unfortunate bystanding victim. The crime took…
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18. Vigani’s Cabinet
By Xinyi Wen (@HPSWarburgian) Red, umber, carmine, massicot yellow, ultramarine… in a 15×15 inches humble drawer, 63 kinds of pigments constituted a vibrant, colourful world. Each pigment was held in a labelled paper box lining inside the wooden grid, indicating these ingredients’ mobility and their flexibility of spatial arrangement. This drawer, together with other 28…
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“#Thank a Black Woman”: The Legacy of African-American Women in U.S. Politics
By Tionne Paris In August 2020, commentator Jorge Guarjardo tweeted that “Black women will save the United States”.[1] Whilst this statement was complimentary of black women’s ability to enact change, it highlights the unfair burden black women have been asked to shoulder throughout history. The American public vastly underestimate the political impact black women have had…
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Protestant Echoes and the Spirit of Calvinism
By Rory Bannerman (@BannermanRory) If there is a work of sociology that has held more attention, generated more discussion, and created more controversy than any other, it is Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Released in 1905, its premise is based on Weber’s observation that Protestants, in particular Calvinists, appear to…
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Replicating past mistakes? The Irish government, survivors, and the mother and baby homes report
Aoife O’Leary McNeice (@aolmcn) On January 13 2021 the Irish Taoiseach Michéal Martin made a public apology to the survivors of mother and baby homes. ‘It is the duty of a republic’ he said, ‘to accept parts of our history which are deeply uncomfortable’. Martin’s predecessors made similar apologies. In May 1999, then Taoiseach Bertie…
doinghistoryinpublic.org 