social history

Painting 1

Renaissance Italy’s Competition of Power Through Jewelry

Medieval History / / , , , , ,

Renaissance Italy’s wealthiest groups competed for power in many ways, amongst them through women’s jewelry. It was a complex Game-of-Thrones-esque time, when many different ambitions came into play — the moralizing Franciscans who preached against conspicuous displays of wealth, the male merchants who often vied with the nobles for political control, and the elite women […]

Renaissance Italy’s Competition of Power Through Jewelry Read More »

Anti-Masturbation Ad

Anti-Masturbation Movements and Practices

Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , ,

Wanna know a crazy thing that a lot of British and American people were interested in during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?: masturbation. Moralists and medical writers freaked the heck out over “onanism,” a term that Victorians liked using for wanking, jerking off, sailing the taco, flicking the bean, etc, etc.Anti-masturbation diatribes have

Anti-Masturbation Movements and Practices Read More »

Maji Maji Uprising

Maji Maji Uprising of Tanganyika

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , , ,

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost the entire continent of Africa was taken over by various European states and business entrepreneurs. Among this area was the eastern state of Tanganyika, modern Tanzania. The two men featured here in chains are reflective of many who rose up against the German colonialist government in

Maji Maji Uprising of Tanganyika Read More »

Taiping Flag

Banner of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , ,

Here is the banner from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one of the two major powers that engaged in China’s civil war between 1851 to 1864. While accurate records of casualties are impossible to tally, the Taiping Rebellion resulted in the worst civil war in terms of deaths: upwards of 20 million people — as many

Banner of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Read More »

Cursed Stone Couch Eckley

Cursed Stone Couch in Mining Country Pennsylvania

Live Reporting, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , ,

Spooky season is almost upon us, and thus it feels appropriate to share this rural legend and roadside attraction near the border of Carbon and Luzerne Counties in the forested mountains of Pennsylvania’s mining communities. I am writing, of course, about the Cursed Stone Couch of Weatherly, PA. Folktales — especially frightening ones — often

Cursed Stone Couch in Mining Country Pennsylvania Read More »

Eckley Mining Village

Live Reporting, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / ,

Today Shippensburg University’s history department sponsored a trip to the Eckley Miner’s Village — a restored community built after 1854 when a mining firm called Sharpe, Leisenring and Company began construction on a small community (between 1,000-1,500 people) specifically to house the coal miners who worked for them. The region had hundreds of similar establishments,

Eckley Mining Village Read More »

Bicycle riding, bicycle face, and bicycle fears for Victorian ladies

Fabulous Females, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , ,

In the late 1800s, Victorian values had made many folks worried — VERY WORRIED — about girls and women partaking in a new trend. Medical doctors and many Victorian-influenced bourgeoisie thought this new pastime would make them unhealthy, lusty (a bad thing, in their minds), or even UGLY. The name of the new trend? Bicycle

Bicycle riding, bicycle face, and bicycle fears for Victorian ladies Read More »

Oneida Community

Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , ,

Yesterday’s post featured a successful entrepreneur (Walt Disney) whose Utopian community failed to come to fruition. Today I am looking at a Utopian community which grew into a successful corporate enterprise, almost despite itself. And here I am talking about Oneida, the New York-based silverware company (see second image for vintage silverware photo). And incongruously,

Oneida Community Read More »

John Calvin

“The Consistory” Government of John Calvin

Medieval History / / , , ,

The original Utopia was of course the fictitious creation of Thomas More, who wrote the eponymous book. “Utopia” comes from the Greek “no place,” and indeed, Moore’s work is a satire of early 16th-century England and not a blueprint for society. It was only later that various idealists actually tried to establish their versions of

“The Consistory” Government of John Calvin Read More »

The Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne Effect

History of Science, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , ,

This is a photo from about 1930 of the “Relay Assembly Test Room,” from the factory known as the Hawthorne Works, operated by Western Electric and site of a famously studied phenomenon in psychology called “the Hawthorne Effect”.Starting in 1924, Western Electric sponsored a series of experiments on the effect of lighting and efficiency in

The Hawthorne Effect Read More »

Victorian Pharaoh Outfit

The Society of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , , ,

  It’s always super fun to look at eccentric Victorians, and I think the extreme Egyptian-philes of the 19th century take the cake. On that note, might I introduce the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn? Pictured here are two of the most (in)famous members, Aleister Crowley (he trained there before breaking off to start

The Society of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Read More »

Cannibalism

Cannibalism in Medieval to 19th-Century Europe

History of Science, Medieval History / / , , , , ,

Europeans practiced cannibalism well into the 19th century, and one of the favored ways to consume their own kind happened with beheadings. Here you see close-ups of a 1649 painting by artist John Weesop called “An Eyewitness Representation of the Execution of King Charles I”. Notice in the second image the rush of people collecting

Cannibalism in Medieval to 19th-Century Europe Read More »

The Battle on the Bridge

Africa, Asia and South Asia / / , , , , , , , ,

In the second century of the Common Era, China’s Han Dynasty oversaw an unusually long period of peace and prosperity. Nonetheless, military conflicts punctuated the era, and often the elite aristocratic families were involved. The Wu Family Shrines document such events, and featured prominently in one of the stone chambers there, amidst many other bas-relief

The Battle on the Bridge Read More »

image from the great necropolis of Porto

Death in the Mediterranean

Ancient History / / , , , , , , , , , ,

How we treat the dead reflects much about what the living believe. In the Ancient Mediterranean, pagan cultures considered the proper burial of the deceased to be of critical importance: otherwise, the dead person’s spirit would have a restless afterlife. On the other hand, the world of the living was to be kept separate from

Death in the Mediterranean Read More »

a mosaic depicting a chariot race

Chariot Racing

Ancient History / / , , ,

Chariot-racing was one of the most popular sporting events in Ancient Rome. Throngs of people (up to 250,000 in Rome’s Circus Maximus) would crowd the stands, supporting their favorite teams (marked by the colors blue, green, red, and white) with fervorous shouting and cheers. The charioteers were much admired, and although some drivers could make

Chariot Racing Read More »