Geeky stuff- Building an archive solution
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Author Archives: dgm
Citizen science and access to libraries
Recently I’ve become interested in the development of natural history in nineteenth century Australia. After all not only was the Victorian era the heyday of natural history, but in Australia it had an importance in people trying to understand how … Continue reading
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A very tangential connection to the Russian Revolution …
Visiting family always seems to involve a boozy dinner with alittle too much red wine, or at least ours do. And as always with coneversations involving a decent red, sometimes they take some slightly odd turns. And so it was … Continue reading
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Opera girls …
We’ve started watching the ITV adaptation of Vanity Fair on BBC First. The lead protagonist, Becky Sharp, is described as the daughter of an ‘opera girl’, a term clearly designed to be redolent of illicit sex and debauchery. It’s the … Continue reading
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Chloroform
One aspect of the Catherine Morton case that puzzled me was just how common was chloroform in colonial Australia. So I did some digging. The key date in the story of chloroform is 1847, the year when Simpson first started using … Continue reading
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Magic Lanterns on easy terms
I recently came across a study carried out by a researcher at the University of Exeter in the UK where, by searching old newspaper adverts, they found evidence that people in Victorian times could hire magic lanterns and slides for … Continue reading
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Almost an unfortunate misunderstanding …
Recently we’ve been going out for the day scoping out places that might repay a visit, places such as local museums, abandoned town sites and the like. We might pretend that this is related to our interest in local history … Continue reading
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Paperclips
It was only a throwaway comment, but one thing that tickled my fancy about the presentation on the MAMA archaeological dig was the comment that paperclips were not used before the 1890’s. Actually they were. While the machinery was for … Continue reading
Posted in Historical, Uncategorized, Victorian
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