MetaFilter posts tagged with socialhistory

Come see the class inherent in the bar system

MartinWisse — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:39:54 -0800

"Now it is instructive to go into, eg, one of the big old boozers in the East End of London and imagine them not as they are, just one room, frequently, if they’ve been hipstered up, with unplastered brick walls and big, clear windows, but as they were 50, 60, 80, 100 years ago, carved into three, four or more separate spaces by mahogany and etched glass barriers, each section with its own hermetic, exclusive group of customers, who would rather walk into the wrong lavatory than the wrong bar, and served, often, by its own separate door to the streets outside." -- Martyn Cornell dives into the diverse varieties of British bar one could encounter until recently

South London Gay Community Centre

Abiezer — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:51:12 -0800

The Brixton Fairies and the South London Gay Community Centre, Brixton 1974-6 "This fascinating story about Brixton’s legendary gay community of the 1970s was posted up on the urban75 bulletin boards, and thanks to the author Ian Townson, I’m now able to repost an illustrated version, giving a wonderful insight into a long lost part of Brixton life."

History that you can hold, smell and you can touch

Fence — Sun, 15 May 2011 08:53:27 -0800

Lisa Eldridge, make-up artist and blogger met up with the historian Madeleine Marsh to discuss the history of cosmetics, which is also a history of women, society, and culture. The resulting videos are just fascinating, Part 1: Victorian Era to 1930s & Part 1: 1940s to 1970s.
(via Beauty is a sleeping cat)

Feed your head

Abiezer — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 20:08:43 -0800

High Society Mini-site to accompany an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection on the history and culture of mind-altering drugs. Includes image galleries, essays and a quiz.

Sam The Wheels's films of Brixton

criticalbill — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:09:04 -0800

Pentecostal minister Clovis Salmon, known in Brixton as "Sam The Wheels" due to his wheel-making skills, came to Britain from Jamaica in the 1950s. From the 1960s to the 1980s he used his Super-8 camera to film Brixton daily life and church scenes, including the aftermath of the 1981 riots.

Lithographs from the Touchstone Studio

Abiezer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:33:13 -0800

Envisioning Chinese Society in the Late Nineteenth Century: Words and Images from the Dianshizhai Pictorial Very nice online presentation of translated content from the famed nineteenth century Shanghai pictorial journal (China's first); Dianshizhai (点石斋画报) was modelled on Britain's Punch and produced as a supplement for Shen Bao subscribers. Flash is used so elements in the cartoons can be clicked for further information: a young woman repels a thief with martial derring-do; a customer bilks on the bill in a street eatery in Hangzhou; small-town society and politics with the muddle-headed magistrate; a non-performing temple bell offers a chance for sceptical commentary on religion; the gentlemanly pastime of cricket-fighting.

Catching a moment in time

Abiezer — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:17:41 -0800

His photographs recorded life along the Scotswood Road, the working class district in the West End of Newcastle made famous in Geordie song. James (Jimmy) Forsyth had come to make his home there having volunteered for war work as a fitter in one of the local factories, moving up to Newcastle from his native South Wales. In 1954, aware that change was coming and no longer working having lost an eye in an industrial accident, Forsyth began to document his community and surroundings. A self-taught photographer, Jimmy "picked up a cheap folding camera in one of the pawn shops. There wasn’t much to adjust, just as well, because I’ve never known what to do...I’m just an amateur...just capturing what I knew was going to disappear." Jimmy died last Saturday, aged 95.

Inside Red China

Abiezer — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:04:26 -0800

Two galleries of photos of China in 1957 and 1978 by Robert Carl Cohen, "the first American to film China since the 1949 Communist victory." My personal favourite set is these street scenes from 1957, but Cohen captured a diverse range of images from Chinese lives. His (? I presume) site Radical Images has plenty of other interesting stuff too.

Between the Wars

Abiezer — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:06:11 -0800

Worktown Between 1937 and 1938 Humphrey Spender took over 900 pictures of Bolton as part of the Mass Observation [Previously] project. Spender's "Worktown" photographs offer a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people living and working in a British pre-War industrial town.

We won't be like that again.

Abiezer — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:23:00 -0800

Behind The Rent Strike [YouTube playlist; six parts of 50ish min. documentary] Nick Broomfield's graduation piece, a documentary on the 14-month rent strike by the people of Kirkby New Town, near Liverpool, which began in late 1973 in response (it wasn't the only one) to the Heath government's Housing Finance Act. Broomfield gets plenty of insight from local people and examines the social conditions behind the events. Great viewing of good film-making and an opportunity for a bit of nostalgia if you're a viewer from round that way.

The Other Eastenders

Abiezer — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:16:37 -0800

Kamal Chunchie charts the history of the black and Asian community in Canning Town, east London, in the 1920s and 1930s. It tells the story of the Coloured Men's Institute and its founder, Kamal Chunchie, a man who can rightly be called east London's first black and Asian community leader. One of the many excellent East London history projects at Hidden Histories.

People's Past, In Pictures, Pamphlets, and Prose

Rykey — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:46:44 -0800

Drawing from 175 digital collections and growing, American Social History Online pulls together primary sources documenting our past as a people. A project of the Digital Library Federation. Use the shortcuts (homepage, right-hand side) to browse by subject, location, or time period (or browse tag clouds if that's your thing). Browse collections alphabetically (grid or list view), with the top 20 headings for each if you like. Use the powerful advanced search to search any part of a record, limit search results by media type, or search only within a specific date range. Get a free OpenID that allows you to save search histories and set preferences. Download Zotero previously, a Firefox extension, to organize, annotate, and share your finds.

Last days of the old North (of England)

idiomatika — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:35:27 -0800

Last Days of the Old North (of England). A fascinating selection of photographs - mostly from the late sixties/early seventies documenting an era when it truly was grim up north. Made all the more interesting by the erudite and comprehensive commentary by the photographer.

Scared of love, love and swimming pools.

Jasper Friendly Bear — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:29:11 -0800

The racial and sexual history of the American public swimming pool.

"Oh that."

Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:58:36 -0800

Christopher Hitchens, grumpy political type, on the blow job.

Welcome to the Blackout History Project

asparagus_berlin — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:57:14 -0800

Welcome to the Blackout History Project. With all the hub-bub today, josh m. marshall of talkingpointsmemo posted a link to an associates history of two other nyc blackouts. marshall says:

The Blackout History Project

take it easy nyers and anyone else blacked out.