History fans, I need some help and advice

[Goldeh]

I need to start working on my history dissertation proposal and I've had various seminar support on how to choose a topic but nothing about actually selecting one. Everyone I've spoken to have said to choose what I love but I love so many things. I've also been told that it must be an original piece of research and all my ideas feel like I'm re-treading old ground.

Some papers I've written over the course of my studies include topics like:

• social history of industrial revolution era workplace accidents and their impact
• using literature as a historical source
• the history of sleep
• race riots
• commemorations, who we commemorate, who we don't, and why
• the history of aesthetic landscapes
• public history
• environmental history

My areas of interest are the industrial revolution, the Victorians, museums and their role/museum collections, the history of crafts and their stories (especially gendered crafts like knitting, proggy mats, etc and functions the serve in things like identity, remembrance, generational skill sharing, etc), the cultural significance and contextualisation of myths and fairytales, the history of disease.

I cannot think of new research angles on any of these. I know I will eventually and that the reason I'm currently blocked is because I'm overthinking it.

In the meantime, inspire me with your unanswered historical questions, wonderings, musings, and crack theories (my personal crack theory is that vikings wore wooden helmets).

Oh, I remember sitting in the library, crossing my legs at some of the things I was reading! And I also remember thinking, crocodile dung pessaries... yes, i can see how they would be effective, who'd want to go anywhere near!

If we're sharing social media, btw, I research pregnancy loss in history, and this is me on Anne Boleyn's notorious miscarriage of 1534.
https://lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/a-formless-mass-of-flesh-anne-boleyn

We need an 'ugh' reaction for dung pessaries!

If that's your area of interest @FastFood, you may have already read this but Medic by John Nichol is a fascinating read!

@Ebearhug We're clearly both on a rabbit hole of our own devising here by now but I just looked up Catherine, "Kitty" Wilkinson, "The Saint of the Slums"

Kitty Wilkinson - Wikipedia https://share.google/Ihcjl10eFhGKshpoi

She got a silver teapot from Queen Victoria which must have made it all worthwhile.

I do seem to remember reading somewhere that of all the tasks in domestic service, doing the laundry was the worst thought of.

Even in, "The Wind In The Willows" wasn't the, "Washerwoman" a disguise taken by Mr Toad because, well, he was a male toad and washerwomen were not...I'll leave it there.

Ooh, I don't think I knew about her - what a woman! Thank you, @Redheadedstepchild!

It's really not that long ago that the census asked if a person was deaf, dumb, blind or imbecile. A few of my relatives were listed as imbeciles as they got older, which I presume was dementia.

Different uuniversities may do it differently, I think as an undergrad I chose my supervisor and was assigned a postdoctoral whom I worked with on my project. PhD wise it was more about a subject with a supervisor attached, however, even at my uni I’d applied for other phds and it was far more fluid. I’d honestly make sure you get a decent supervisor as at that level you need support, and it’s bloody hard if you don’t get support

I’m currently interested in death -the changing attitudes to death. And the changes in what we do with dead bodies. Eg cremation is now the most common practice in the UK but around 1900 (I can’t remember the exact year) it was unheard of and then when it was it was v controversial. Plus tradition’s following death eg the Victorian practice of dressing up dead bodies posing them, maybe with living family members and then taking their photo .

And of course historically way back when Egyptian mummies and the many and varied traditions around the world (eg leaving bodies for vultures etc to find - eco friendly….. but distressing if a random hand etc gets dropped by an animal in your back yard! (Which I gather led to the practice largely dying out?)

My first ever word-processed essay was on Victorian death practices. I remember being most annoyed the spell checker didn't recognise "bombazine".

lol …. Now, coming to the end of my career , this sounds like a good project I’d enjoy … or serial killers 🤣🤣 …

I find the history of medicine, nursing and public health very interesting.

‘the Victorians, museums and their role/museum collections, the history of crafts and their stories (especially gendered crafts like knitting, proggy mats, etc and functions the serve in things like identity, remembrance, generational skill sharing, etc), the cultural significance and contextualisation of myths and fairytales, the history of disease.

Your topics are very broad. It becomes easier when you specialise’. The specialisation is also your unique research angle. For example:

The Victorians - depicted through the eyes of women artists/ of Salford / below stairs / and what they are / in popular fiction.

Museums and their role in primary learning / and their collections of skulls / in promoting equality.

Stories of men who knit

Myths and legends of the Outer Hebrides

The history of menstrual health conditions / athletes foot /scurvy etc.

@TonTonMacoute wrote:
"I find it interesting how important crafts were to supplement household income. I read about women in Switzerland who would spend the long dark winters making lace. It was a social activity that could be done indoors, they could share the source of light (candles were very expensive) and the finished products would be sold when everything thawed out in the spring."

In Ireland, a wealthy woman ensured local women were taught lace making to ensure the families had income during the famine. This was in Clones, Co. Monaghan. Their methods and patterns have endured to this day. Maybe there are similar examples in your local area, OP.

Ooh someone could do a comparison with a city foundling hospital.

I think there also might be something in knitting for babies - timeliness and superstition /infant death, or something along those lines.

I don't know if it would be of interest to you, but something like 'The changing face of the undeserving' would be fascinating. Race, sex, class, sexuality (think of the treatment gay men got, with AIDS, etc.), poverty, prostitution, alcoholism, drug use, lone parenting...so much.

When I did my history MA, I looked at some museums that had an industrial past. I did a compare on contrast on how they told their stories. If you wanted to do a twist on this, I would then pick another place and say how you think it can be opened as a museum and how it could be set apart from the others.

I have become very interested in why we hold on to the momentous, keepsakes and ‘Tat’ from one generation to the next. This comes from having to deal with clearing houses of loved ones when they have died. The history side, and the question is, we held on to these things because that is how wealth was kept and measured for a long time, less about sentiment really. When did we keep hold of chattels when the chattels stopped having value? And this just a musing, not academically tested fact!

Adding to my post - There was of course resistance to progress. Evidence will be found in newspapers, especially letters to them. My own former husband was knowledgeable in statistics (had work as an actuary at the AA) and made a thing of contesting the arguments that seat belts were a good thing.

I remember in the 90s Manchester museum had a small display of (then!) modern objects with labels done in the same way as historical objects in the museum. It was thought provoking how much we know about those objects and the people who use them compared to what is on the label and gives an idea of how much story there is to flesh out about each object.

Nothing useful to suggest re dissertation OP, but I loved this book by Esther Rutter on the history of knitting in Britain

amzn.eu/d/fEVt4Cs

I have always been interested in what normal family life was like for women in the past. Another interesting topic would be the role women played in better worker’s rights from the 1800s.

Violations of the dead in 19th and early 20th century science - think Egyptian (and other) mummies, corpses of people with illnesses or deformities (Merrick, Byrne), deformed unborn children (definitely a trip to the Hunterian museum), public anatomical dissections, grave robbing (Burke and Hare) etc.

New exhibition at the Beaney in Canterbury "exploring the science, history, and ethics related to displaying human remains in museums".
What Remains? Canterbury’s Ancestors: Ethics, History & Science - Canterbury Museums & Galleries

and the many and varied traditions around the world (eg leaving bodies for vultures etc to find - eco friendly…..

I forget which Biggles book it comes in, but Ginger climbs a tree....

What about the role of women in spiritual and occult societies in Victorian Britain and their role in female emancipation

Researching local history, I found a 1911 census return with ‘no votes for women, no information from women’ written on it by an all women household.

I think it would be fascinating to look at these small but meaningful acts of rebellion (not completing the census came with penalties).