It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
In her 1771 novel Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim, Sophie von La Roche, writing no doubt for an audience of genteel ladies, portrayed the waltz as a "shameless, indecent whirling-dance [which] broke all the bounds of good breeding". The early version of the German waltz which she was describing was a variant of the Ländler, a …
In my last post, on English and North American death records from 1647 to the present, I briefly mentioned how the development of the industrial city in 19th century Europe and North America changed patterns of disease and mortality. The dreadful overcrowding in the slums, together with a lack of adequate water supply, particularly encouraged contagious …
Continue reading Filth, disease and Dickens: Jacob’s Island, a London slum
One of the most important cultural developments in Victorian England was the growth of medievalism. Medievalism was an expression of the yearning for a medieval golden age and as such was very much a reactionary movement. Those who felt alienated by industrialisation and modern capitalism looked back to a mythical past in which romance, chivalry, …