of a social historian
This is the miscellaneous category, where you’ll find blog posts on various aspects of social, cultural and political history that sit in some way outside of my usual themes. What you’ll find below ranges from write-ups of history conferences and museum exhibitions to mini-biographies of interesting lives I come across, whether they be LGBT rights or anti-poverty campaigners, diplomats, punk poets or tennis champions.
As I prepare for the students to arrive at my new university, it's a good time to stop and think about what it means to teach History students - and, more importantly, what it might mean to be a History student. It's something I think about quite a lot, but had especially brought to my attention earlier …
Continue reading "What’s the point of studying History?"
I wasn't quite two years old when Linda Persson became the Administrative Secretary for the Social History Society in 1986. She was still in post 28 years later, when I met her at the Society's annual conference in Newcastle. When, a year later, I got more involved with the Society as Communications Officer, a number …
Continue reading "Linda Persson: academic administrator extraordinaire"
This is all about women's historic relationship with money. That thought didn't occur to me until quite late in the day. But in many respects that's what my latest academic journal article is all about. In itself, it's further discussion of the means-tested pre-NHS hospital patient payment schemes and the social workers who administered them. …
