Author: Robert James

‘You will get out of the course what you put in’: Being a first year History student
Are you just about to start your first year as a History student and wonder what it will be like? Then read this blog written by one of last year’s ‘freshers’, Amelia Boddice. In the blog Amelia reflects on her experience when starting this whole new chapter in her life, from how to prepare for class to enjoying life both inside and outside the lecture room. Amelia is just about to start her second year of studies.

What to expect?

In terms of the gap between A-level and doing an undergraduate degree you can expect a big difference in the workload. There is an increase in the amount of preparation you must do for class, any written assignments and your participation in group work. You should do the core reading as a minimum but if you find you have some spare time I would suggest doing some further reading as this will show your enthusiasm and help to get your marks up for the portion of your final grade which is composed of seminar participation marks. This works in concordance with the lecture material to help consolidate your background knowledge on any given topic. Doing this will also help you to prepare 2/8 core readings needed for essays so you will be ahead.

This increase in workload, I have found, may increase the pressure you feel to succeed but the lecture/seminar format of this course helps to reduce this to a degree. This dual system is very different to the A-level system, but I have found it more effective for consolidating knowledge and you must understand lecturers do not have enough time to teach us everything about every topic so attending both will aid in your general understanding. I would always recommend emailing or asking tutors for essay specific readings to help make your essay more succinct and to show your dedication to the piece. There is always an area for you to succeed in and this system will allow you to do well regardless of what your strengths are, whether they are essay writing or giving a sustained verbal argument with evidence. Seminars are broken down into four tasks: presenting, primary sources (historical documents to be analysed which can be found in your handbook), secondary sources (which is the general background reading) and the blog. These tasks alternate with each seminar and all your marks go towards your final grade – so do not worry if you find essays difficult, if you have succeeded in seminars your overall grade will rise as a result.

My experience:

I found that I spent an awful lot of time in the library as the staff were friendly and the atmosphere was brilliant for studying. However, you can do a lot of the reading online at home so if you are not staying on campus there is no need to worry as you will be able to do it remotely. By doing this I could do work in advance and therefore not feel any huge pressure when facing upcoming deadlines, so I would suggest finding a place you love to study.

Everyone on the course, including the tutors, are very friendly and there to help. As much as you might have been told everyone is in the same boat, it really is the case! If you are open to making new friends and working in an environment you may have previously found uncomfortable, such as presenting, you will find the course very rewarding. If you meet your presentation group in advance and do your part, there is really no need to worry. Then once the presentation has been completed you will feel very rewarded and may have overcome a fear in the process.

Listening closely to the advice given by tutors about written assignments you may not have previously encountered, such as document commentaries, really helps! There are also essay writing guides on Moodle under ‘Learning Development.’ Use it, it has been put there for your benefit. Also remember lecturers have office hours which you can use for any essay specific queries. In addition to this take note of tutors’ email addresses for any questions you may have.

This course will allow you to build your confidence and experience opportunities you may not have been able to before. For example, in my first year I volunteered for the Ministry of Defence at the National Museum of the Royal Navy reconstructing RAF packs from the Second World War! Take all the opportunities that come your way.

How to prepare and general advice:

The general reading lists are always a good place to start. Either read the introduction or a chapter you think may be helpful to give you an insight on the module.

Be willing to make new friends.

Practice referencing. Although you will do this in the course ‘History At University’, it may be beneficial to just give it a go.

Remember:
- Find time for yourself. Your mental health and wellbeing come first.
- It is possible to balance coursework, work and any social activities you may want to be a part of. For example, being a part of a sports team is made much easier as Wednesday afternoons are free of all classes for all university students because that time is dedicated to sports fixtures.
- You will get out of the course what you put in.
- The first year of university is kind of like a practice as it does not count towards your final grade; use it as a practice but try your hardest. It is comforting to know that whatever assignments you do you will have a second chance to improve your grade.
Good luck!
September 15, 2018
Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings

In this blog, the second in a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the changing uses of the city’s cinema buildings. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year.

Going to the cinema was an important leisure pastime in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. Millions of the country’s citizens flocked to the cinema on a weekly basis, leading one prominent historian to refer to the activity as the ‘social habit of the age’. [1]

In order to respond to the growing number of people going to the cinema, thousands of new venues were built across the country. On top of this, many existing buildings were converted into cinema halls. Here in Portsmouth, for example, a tobacco factory located in Queens Street, Portsea was modified, opening as the Queens Cinema in 1914 with enough space to accommodate over 500 patrons. [2] What was once a site of labour, became a site for relaxation.

Queens Cinema, Portsea

By the start of the Second World War there were 29 cinemas located across the town. Many of these were plush ‘picture palaces’, constructed as part of the boom period of cinema building in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Odeon and Regent (later Gaumont) cinemas in London Road, North End, the Plaza (later Gaumont) at Bradford Junction, Fratton, the Tivoli, in Copnor Road, Copnor, and the Palace in Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk).

Many of these buildings have long been lost. Not, as may be assumed, to enemy bombing during the war (only one cinema – the Princes Theatre in Lake Road – was completely demolished in the Blitz), but to the bulldozer after the Council began its post-war reconstruction programme. [3]

Bomb damage to the Princes Theatre, Lake Road

A good number of buildings survived the bulldozers, though. The Odeon in North End still stands, as does the Plaza/Gaumont in Fratton, and the Palace in Guildhall Walk. They are no longer cinemas, however, but serve other purposes. The Odeon is now a Sainsbury’s Local store, the Plaza/Gaumont was turned into a Bingo hall in the 1990s, and then became a mosque, while the Palace is now a nightclub – the Astoria – and a popular haunt for our students!

Odeon cinema, North End

The former Odeon cinema, now a Sainsbury’s Local supermarket

Plaza/Gaumont cinema, Bradford Junction

The former Plaza/Gaumont cinema, now Portsmouth Tami Mosque

The Palace cinema, Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk)

The former Palace cinema, now the Astoria nightclub

The changing uses of buildings is a fascinating history to uncover. As society’s leisure activities alter as the years go by, certain pastimes fall out of favour while others replace them, so the purposes of the buildings in which these activities took place changes too.

Some buildings become redundant and are lost to the cityscape forever. But many remain; they just serve a different purpose. So the next time you are in the Astoria strutting your stuff, think about the generations of people before you who have whiled away their leisure hours in that space in the past. Think, too, about what may become of that venue in the future. Will other generations use the space for different purposes?

Notes

[1] Cited in Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain 1930-1939, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 11.

[2] Robert James, ‘Cinema-going in a Port Town, 1914-1951: Film Booking patterns at the Queens Cinema, Portsmouth’, Urban History, 40.2, 2013, pp. 315-335, p. 317.

[3] http://michaelcooper.org.uk/C/othervenues.htm

August 24, 2018
“It’s all been a lot of fun really”: Concerns over modern television and the future of comedy programmes

Daniel Reast is an MRes History and BA (Hons) History and Politics graduate from the University of Portsmouth. He has written for the IAFOR Online journal and Portsmouth Postgraduate Review on the subject of comedy history, as well as his own blogs and website discussing politics and society. In this blog Daniel reflects on the development of television comedy in the modern era and asks whether it can be as ground-breaking as comedies from the so-called ‘Golden Age’of the 1970s and 1980s.

Cast of Carry on Brussels

In May of this year, Channel 4 was proud to present Carry on Brussels: Inside the EU, a short documentary series following the European Parliament in its daily struggles, and pressures existing from the Brexit vote. While a natural reaction from some viewers to this series was to become ideologically enraged by the ‘positive’ representations exhibited on screen, the majority of viewers were watching through glasses tinted by satire and passive aggression. The series was a resounding success for Channel 4, whose reputation has been tainted by property programmes and dull lifestyle documentaries. The network’s history is well remembered as the first major programmer to ‘rebel’ against conformist three-channel domination on British television. It was the mouthpiece for alternative comedy and an anarchic attempt of Thatcherist satire. Alas, those heady days of near-Marxist parody and rebellion are long gone. The traditional television industry is losing its business and viewers to the young upstarts of streaming services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. The boxset has replaced the soap opera, and American programming has emerged as an imperial power to dominate popular television.

When I first researched the comedy programming of the 1970s and 1980s, it was without any difficulty to find examples of popular material. The ‘Golden Age’, as I deemed it to be, was awash with sitcoms and sketch shows which were to transform British popular culture for generations. Even today we feel the warmth from the comic talents of the so-called Golden Age. The popularity was due in part to its superb writing; though the real success of a series is found through its legacy and societal impressions. But can we see that the comedy programming of today will break the ground as hard?

The Pythons in 1969

It is my suspicion that a majority of comedies will go neglected and fall into the archives without much appreciation. The same has occurred with many Golden Age comedies of course, but I fear modern programmes are neglecting the stick used to beat society’s dusty rug. The view of current BBC Head of Comedy, Shane Smith, is under fire from the revered comedians of the Golden Age for pushing a more diverse range of comedies for broadcast. Allen’s motives are to represent modern Britain with more ethnically diverse casts and writers, as well as plots and settings. According to Mr Allen, “If you’re going to assemble a team now it’s not going to be six Oxbridge white blokes. It’s going to be a diverse range of people who reflect the modern world.” (Allen, 2018) The statement has sailed into the Charybdis of political correctness warriors and their opponents. John Cleese, the writer and actor in series such as Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, has attacked the pro-diversity movement for its ignorance and restrictions on comedic talent. Stars such as Eric Idle, Rowan Atkinson, and Ricky Gervais were quick to defend Cleese in turn.

Cast of Fawlty Towers

The issue is not in whether a cast or writing team is diverse, but if the comedy is reflective of society’s changes. The very best comedy exhibits both hilarity and emotion in varying quantities, and to ignore modern Britain’s inequalities and impossibilities is to reject a progression in the genre. The Cleese argument is not attacking diversity or equality for comedians and writers, but the content which is produced by both sides. Ideally, Mr Allen would not need to politicise the commissioning of comedy. But as with all media exposure and production, the development is meaningless if a viewing public hates the programme. Proof of the pudding, is in the eating as they say. It is likely that people want Golden Age laughs, but in a sauce of modern relevance. As the late and great Robin Williams stated, “Comedy is acting out optimism.” Perhaps that’s all comedy should be: a joke.

Fawlty Towers title card

August 10, 2018
Graduation 2018: Two days of celebrations!

Graduation is a special day for tutors and, of course, students and their families and friends. In this blog the History team at Portsmouth reflect on a day in which they celebrated the successes of their undergraduate and postgraduate students as they graduated after completing their degrees.

All set for the ceremony in Portsmouth Guildhall

Graduation is always a day of mixed emotions. While it is exciting to see our students graduate, it is also sad to see another year group leave. We have worked closely with them over the course of their time here; guided them through the assignments they did; helped them become critical and reflective thinkers; and prepared them for whatever careers lay before them. While we are sorry to see them go, we are filled with pride as they cross the stage at the ceremony at Portsmouth Guildhall. It is truly a bittersweet moment.

L-R: Brad Beaven, Simon Smith, Rob James

For the first time this year, graduation was split over two days. On Saturday 14 July all of our postgraduate students took to the stage at Portsmouth Guildhall. These included students undertaking our distance learning MA Naval History degree, the MRes in Humanities and Social Sciences, and a PhD in History. Taking centre stage today were Drs Hilary Morris and Simon Smith, who were awarded doctorates for their respective theses. Hilary’s thesis, ‘Empire, Quantification, and Public Health: British Military and Naval Medicine, 1700-1830’, was supervised by Dr Karl Bell, Prof. Brad Beaven and Dr Rob James. Simon’s thesis, “‘We sail the ocean blue’: British Sailors. Imperialism, Identity, Pride and Patriotism c. 1870 to 1939“, was supervised by Brad Beaven and Rob James, and they were there to see them graduate, along with fellow PTUCers, Dr Mel Basset and Daniel Swan. Congratulations Dr Morris and Dr Smith!

On Tuesday 17 July it was the turn of our undergraduate students to celebrate their successes. In the early afternoon students who had been awarded the School Prizes – Francis van Berkel, Matthew Dentten, and Rory Herbert – were invited to attend a prize-giving ceremony with their guests in the Freda Swain suite in Portsmouth Guildhall. As well as being presented with their prizes, attendees were treated to a glass of wine (or two) and a buffet lunch (with lots of lovely cake!). Francis won the Robbie Gray Memorial Prize for Best Dissertation. Matthew was awarded the Stephens Prize for the Best Dissertation on Imperial and Maritime History in Early Modern Europe. Rory won the School Prize for the Student of the Year in History. Well done all of you!

Mathias Seiter with Francis van Berkel

James Thomas with Matthew Dentten

Katy Gibbons with Rory Herbert

Members of the History team waiting to make their way to the stage

Later in the afternoon all graduating students took to the stage in a packed (and very hot!) Guildhall to be congratulated on their achievements by the University Chancellor, Prof. Karen Blackett, and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof. Matthew Weait, while the History team (along with colleagues from English, International Relations, Journalism, Politics, and Sociology) sat on the stage cheering them on. It’s always a daunting prospect for students to cross that stage, and we always feel for them as they make their way across it. It’s really only a short walk, but we are told that it feels much longer when you are doing it! The rapturous applause – cheers, whoops and whistles – from the students’ families and friends helps them on their way, though, and we can happily report that all students made it across the stage without falling over!

After the ceremony, students and their guests joined the History team for a champagne reception in Ravelin Park. By this point the anxiety of taking part in the graduation procession has passed, so our graduates and their families can chat with us in a more relaxed environment. It’s a final chance to congratulate them on their achievements, catch up on what they’ve been up to since the last teaching session, and find out what they plan to do in the future. Oh, and there’s always time for more photos, including taking part in the traditional group photograph (where hats are thrown in the air!).

Champagne reception in Ravelin Park: L-R: Emily Fryer, Rob James, Sam Tugwell (winner of the Josephine Butler Memorial Prize), and Francis van Berkel

Congratulations all! It’s been a pleasure working with you, and we wish you the very best for the future!

The History team

Graduates and tutors from the Schoold of Social, Historical and Literary Studies celebrating with the traditional ‘throwing of the hats’ in Ravelin Park

July 18, 2018
“There comes a time when you’ve just gotta’ be a man”: An analysis of shifting on-screen representations of British masculinity in the post-Thatcher period

“Sam’s dissertation was an outstandingly researched piece of work. It synthesised contextual and historiographical issues regarding masculinity and film in the post-Thatcher era in a conceptually interesting way, and made great use of visual sources as a cultural lens from which to understand anxieties surrounding changing concepts of masculinity in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Sam demonstrated an excellent understanding of film culture, not just in the period studied, but across the twentieth century, and the way in which he revealed how certain masculine filmic archetypes were shaped and modified in response to the shifting contemporary climate was nothing less than compelling.” – Dr Rob James, Sam’s dissertation supervisor.

Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (2006)

For me, writing a dissertation on film was a natural choice, as it has always occupied a central role in my life. I first became interested in analysing the longer-term consequences of Thatcherism on British masculinity after reading an article by Nichola Poulton, who wrote about masculinity in football hooligan films. Whilst reading her article, I noted the links between the football hooligan archetype and the ‘Angry Young Man’ archetype of the 1960s, and so decided that there was great potential in a study of masculine archetypes in British film and how they have evolved since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.

I began my reading trying to identify the areas of British film and the masculine archetypes in which my study would be able to turn up original research. A problem I encountered during this stage was the disparate wealth of historiography focusing on American cinema. However, I found a key text which ended up heavily shaping and influencing my dissertation, which was Andrew Spicer’s study of representations of British masculinity throughout the twentieth century. From thereon, my dissertation was built upon analysis of Spicer’s archetypes. By examining how his archetypes have changed, I believed I could highlight just how dramatically and quickly masculine representations in British cinema had shifted under Thatcherism, doing so to represent the new social milieu, or address contemporary questions surrounding gender.

Still from The Football Factory (2004)

After reading Poulton’s work, the football hooligan became the obvious first archetype for my study, and I wanted to demonstrate that his hyper-masculinity was reactionary to the damage wrought upon British football by Thatcherism during the 1980s, drawing attention to key policies, and government responses to such events as the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989. For me, this was my easiest chapter, as the consequences of Thatcherism were glaringly explicit. My second archetype was that of the contemporary ‘New Man’. In Spicer’s work, he identified Hugh Grant as the embodiment of this archetype during the 1990s. Fortunately for me, since the publication of Spicer’s work, Grant had departed the British film industry and thus left room for research on a New Man. I quickly found my New Man in the form of Simon Pegg. It became evident that his antithetical representations of masculine archetypes in Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007) were both tasked with navigating contemporary gender issues raised by Thatcherism. Pegg was attempting to locate a new central position on the gender spectrum; a hybridised New Man, between two models of masculinity unable of social integration in the post-Thatcher period. I quickly decided upon using James Bond as my final archetype, and this was another easy choice as my dissertation would have been lacking had I not chosen to do so, considering his cinematic omnipresence since his introduction in the 1960s. With Pierce Brosnan’s Bond already being well-covered, Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (2006) was the obvious choice. At first, I had great difficulty in trying to pin-point just where Thatcherism was impacting upon his masculinity, and my reading of the film became too parochial and focused on his relationship with Vesper Lynd. However, I realised that my study was diverting from its original aim due to this distraction. So, I re-read the film and noticed the contradictory nature of Bond’s body in Casino Royale, which was caught between consumerism and hyper-violence, and so located his body as the site of Thatcherism’s long-term impact on the ideal representation of gender, traditionally personified through Bond.

Stlll from Hot Fuzz (2007)

I was presented with no real difficulties during my search for secondary sources, other than the original problem of texts being predominantly focused on American cinema. Whilst texts principally concerned with British masculinity in the post-Thatcher period were lacking somewhat, there was an abundance of texts concerned with British genres in the twenty-first century and I was able to easily use these to explore the masculine archetypes I had chosen. Primary sources were of no difficulty to find either, with most of these being archived interviews with actors and directors, from a selection of newspapers. However, I also used databases and government reports to my advantage, which were also easily accessed online.

Overall, I can positively say that I loved working on my dissertation and found it to be a satisfying and rewarding experience, which for me incorporated everything I had learned in my three years at Portsmouth university, and felt like a natural conclusion to my degree. I had great fun combining my History degree with my love for film and it motivated me to explore areas of history that I had never been concerned with before my time at Portsmouth, such as gender. Since finishing it too, I have found my overall experience of watching films to have been enhanced, after my dissertation had me reading films with different lenses and focuses.

Sam Tugwell is a BA (Hons) History student at the University of Portsmouth. His dissertation was winner of the Josephine Butler Memorial Prize, which is awarded for an outstanding piece of work on women’s or gender history.

July 10, 2018
The story of Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe: Is the material culture of folklore providential or problematic for the historian?

Daniel Millard, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog on the toy mascots carried by Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown on the first Transatlantic flight for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit. Daniel discusses the ways in which we can use these items of material culture to ask better questions of the past. The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.

Next year will see the centenary of the world’s first Transatlantic flight. For the historian this offers an exciting opportunity to re-acquaint with two notable aviators from the twentieth-century. I refer, of course, not to Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, but to the two cats that accompanied them on their sixteen-hour journey from Newfoundland to Ireland.

Twinkle toe mascot

‘Twinkletoe’ and ‘Lucky Jim’ were toy mascots presented to the airmen by their loved ones to keep them safe on their record-breaking trip alongside bunches of white heather “carried as evidence of our friend’s best wishes”. [1] This was a time when air crews – fresh from the First World War – had “an atavistic faith in magical powers” with superstitious belief manifesting itself in the carriage of amulets and charms in a cornucopia of size and form. [2] Brown himself later acknowledged his own delight in espying “ a large black cat […] saunter[ing] by the transatlantic machine as we stood by it early in the morning” for “such a cheerful omen made me more than ever anxious to start”. [3]

Five months – to the day – after Alcock and Brown’s biplane took to the skies, a lecture exploring the collection and use of lucky charms was held at the Royal Society of Arts in London at which Arthur Rackham, the then president of The London Society, kicked off proceedings with the words “It is a very general habit to regard folklore as […] something which concerns the historian”. [4] It is a subject field that retains our attention to this day for the material culture of ‘superstition’ – like that of other subject areas – offers the potential of “a more wide-ranging, more representative source of information than words” alone. [5] Tim Dant agrees, believing material culture “provides evidence of the distinctive form of a society […] because it is an integral part of what that society is; just as the individual cannot be understood independently of society, so society cannot be grasped independently of its material stuff”. [6]

Lucky Jim mascot

In a discussion in The American Historical Review , Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore declared that “for most historians material culture means stuff found in a museum,” and it is within this very institution that Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe reside – the former in the Air and Space Hall of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, and the latter at the RAF Museum, Cosford. [7] Richard Grassby believes the relationship between museum-object and historian remained strained for such a long time because, until recently, curators “sought the unique, significant and noble to the neglect of the ordinary and utilitarian”. [8] Of course, few people can deny that Twinkletoe and Lucky Jim were added to the nation’s collections because of their “iconic or associational value”. [9] In addition, their confinement behind glass also raises important questions around Sibum’s belief that in order to make sense of an artefact it makes a difference as to whether you physically touch it. [10] There are, then, other challenges the mascots pose. For example, three-dimensional objects “are multifarious entities whose nature and heuristic value is often determined by the diverse range of narratives that historians bring with them”. [11] We therefore find many researchers devising “their own models to engage with and analyse the different types of material evidence”. [12] These range from Jules David Prown’s straightforward three-tiered approach involving description, deduction and speculation to Beverly Gordon’s use of proxemics to “illuminate women’s relationships to things such as quilts”. [13]

So, how should we go about beginning to unlock the mascots’ evidence? For Adrienne Hood the starting point is to “uncover [their] collecting […] history” by researching textual and photographic documents found within the Museum’s registration files. [14] Whilst that, in itself, sounds easy to accomplish paper evidence can, in reality, often disappoint. Documented information frequently reveals little more than from where the items were sourced at time of donation, whereas historians “place great significance on the way objects were acquired – through scavenging […] hunting […] means of trade […] gift giving […] conquest or piracy” at every stage of an object’s existence. [15] Whilst we are told from contemporary newspaper accounts that Alcock gave his cat mascot as a souvenir to the welcoming party on arrival in Ireland, Lucky Jim’s registry file does not contain any detailed information as to what happened to the toy in the years between 1919 and its acquisition by the Museum of Science and Industry some seventy-two years later. [16]

For any object the need “to locate, and correctly interpret, the ‘culture’ in material culture is important”. [17] For Nicole Boivin “the consideration of emotion is often crucial to understanding the role that objects […] can have in human affairs and particularly in processes of memory, identity and personhood”. [18] That “people invest things with elaborate meanings” is clear, but from looking at the mascots can we truly get closer to understanding what was going through Alcock and Brown’s minds as they placed the cats within the aircraft or the sentiment that went into their production and presentation by their relatives? [19] It is an enquiry Leor Halevi is fully justified in raising when he states: “I do agree that emotions can be expressed through objects in unique ways that cannot be captured by language, but the question then arises, how can we access those emotions and sense experiences as historians?” [20] For Riello the answer is simple for objects, like Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe, “should not be used as an aid for providing enhanced answers”, but for helping historians “ask […] better questions”. [21] This is a viewpoint that is shared by Adrienne Hood, who believes that “a systematic and detailed consideration of the chosen ‘thing’ leads to a series of questions that would not arise in any other way”. [22]

As Alcock and Brown embarked upon their pioneering voyage Brown reported that Lucky Jim wore “a hopeful expression […] whereas Twinkletoe […] expressed surprise and anxiety”. [23] These are emotions that mirror those of historians as, from the 1970s onwards, they began to emerge from “two centuries [of] little or no engagement with objects”. [24] Whilst the mascots’ validity in helping tell the story of the world’s first Transatlantic flight “is no longer suspect, how to unlock [their] secrets in a meaningful way remains challenging”. [25] Therefore, we must echo Alcock and Brown’s own reaction in readying themselves for the journey: “we hoped for and expected the best, but it was as well to be prepared for the worst”. [26]

Notes

[1] Arthur Whitten Brown and Alan Bott, Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours: With a Discussion of Aircraft in Commerce and Transportation, (New York: Frederick A Stokes Company, 1920), 32.

[2] Bill Wallrich, “Superstition and the Air Force”, Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1960): 11.

[3] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 32.

[4] Ross MacFarlane, “London’s Lost Amulets and Forgotten Folklore”, The Telegraph, October 28, 2011. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/8854074/Londons-lost-amulets-and-forgotten-folklore.html

[5] Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”, Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No.1, (Spring 1982): 3.

[6] Tim Dant, Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 2.

[7] Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore, “AHR conversation: Historians and the Study of Material Culture”, American Historical Review 114, No. 5 (2009): 1365.

[8] Richard Grassby, “Material Culture and Cultural History”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Spring, 2005): 598.

[9] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 4.

[10] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1384.

[11] Giorgio Riello, “Things that Shape History:Material Culture and Historical Narratives”, in History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Source edited by Karen Harvey 24-46, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 30.

[12] Adrienne D Hood, “Material Culture: The Object”, in History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources edited by Sarah Barber and Corinna M Peniston-Bird, 176-198. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 180.

[13] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 7; Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 180.

[14] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 182.

[15] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1366.

[16] The Lancashire Daily Post, “Atlantic Crossed”, June 16 1919, 5; Museum of Science and Industry registered file, (Ref: Y1991.437.5).

[17] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1367.

[18] Nicole Boivin, Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 112.

[19] Ludmilla J Jordonova, The Look of the Past: Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5.

[20] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1364.

[21] Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 30.

[22] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 178.

[23] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 32.

[24] Alan Mayne, “Material Culture”, in Research Methods for History, Second Edition edited by Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire, 49-67, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 49; Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 25.

[25] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 176.

[26] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 34.

June 28, 2018