Tag: American History
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A Brief Moment of History: The World’s Littlest Skyscraper
As I’m getting back into the groove with blogging after my book hand in, I thought I’d turn back to one of my favourite series, A Brief Moment of History. I was listening to a podcast recently which was talking about famous cons, and the story of the world’s smallest skyscraper was recounted. Fascinated by…
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It Was Really Her Plantation: White Early American Southern Women’s Positions of Authority on Plantations 1607-1776
Today we have a really interesting guest post lined up for you. I’m happy to introduce Catherine Williams, a graduate student in Early Modern Studies, who will be telling us all about White women in the Early Modern American South. These women held unique positions of power and authority through their scarcity and through the…
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Energising Fashion: The Craze for Electric Corsets and Belts
Fashion is fashionable. It is ever-changing, inspired by culture, religion, and society, and every century has had its own “craze” where people go to extremes that are sometimes criticised by contemporaries, and sometimes by those looking back and wondering “what were they thinking?”. But one trend of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries was that for…
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A Brief Moment of History: Humanity’s Worst Year Ever?
Ask anyone on the street when they think the worst year in human history was, and I’m sure there’d be quite a variety of answers offered. Years during the World Wars; when the Black Death swept Europe; or even more recent events like during the Covid pandemic. War and disease are probably the most significant…
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Historical Figures: Madam C J Walker, Titan of Industry
Years ago I was writing one of my daily social media posts on the theme of “on this day” and I saw that the day I was writing (23rd December) was the birthday of a woman named Madam C J Walker. Intrigued, I looked into her to see whether to write a post about her…
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From Olmecs to Cadbury: A History of Chocolate
Chocolate is a product that can be found in pretty much every cupboard. It is one of our favourite sweet treats, but few of us probably think twice about the history of chocolate when we’re having a craving. This unassuming product has been consumed for over 3,000 years, and the sweet chocolate bars that we…
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Historical Figures: Wilson Bentley, The Man Who Photographed Snowflakes
With winter well and truly settled in, many places have been experiencing snowfall. Some places in the UK narrowly missed out on having snow on Christmas Day, bringing a much-desired White Christmas. Snowflakes bring many people joy for their crisp, clean coating of the land. School children learn how to cut out snowflake shapes from…
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A Brief Moment of History: When People Posted Babies
Even in our digital age, people still send post. We’ll send cards at Christmas, birthday presents to distant relatives, or maybe love letters to our sweetheart in an attempt to relive a simpler age. But around 100 years ago, it wasn’t unheard of to receive something a little different in the post: children. You heard…
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Feeble or Fierce? Colonial Women of North America
You may or may not be aware of the recent article in The Guardian reviewing the new historical television drama, Jamestown. This article has garnered a lot of criticism in the historical world, and for good reason. If you don’t want to read the article, then the main summary points are this: Now, after I…
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Vikings and America: The People who beat Columbus
If you asked the average person on the street who “discovered” America (we’ll put aside the racist and Eurocentric issues this raises for another time) most people would probably tell you it was Christopher Columbus. In 1492, Columbus undertook his first voyage Westwards, under the theory that he would reach Asia – contrary to popular…
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