Monstrous Births

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora E. Jaffary
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Museum ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Reproductive Anatomy ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter uses eighteenth- and nineteenth-century news publications, medical periodicals, and an 1895 catalogue of birth anomalies from Mexico’s National Museum of History to study evolving ideas about birth monstrosity. In the late colonial period, Mexicans understood anomalous births as evidence of New Spain’s prodigious fertility, a perspective that reflected both the particularized manner in which the Enlightenment developed in Mexico and the late colonial development of “creole patriotism”. Nineteenth-century reports of monstrous births revealed some changes. The later notices conveyed popular attitudes of revulsion and horror toward birth monsters. Second, whereas the late colonial notices restricted speculation as to the origins of unusual infants to “the rare effects of nature,” by the late nineteenth century, scientists and physicians, particularly obstetrician Juan María Rodrígez, turned their focus directly onto (and into) the bodies of the mothers who had produced such phenomena. They increasingly monitored the biological conditions of aberrant embryos’ development in the female uterus. This view allowed for the possible biological regeneration of monstrous productions but also contributed to the construction of the inherent pathology of Mexican women’s reproductive anatomy.

scholarly journals Insomnia and the late nineteenth-century insomniac: the case of Albert Kimball

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 20190074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Beaumont
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Individual

This article explores the emergence, in late nineteenth-century Britain and the USA, of the ‘insomniac’ as a distinct pathological and social archetype. Sleeplessness has of course been a human problem for millennia, but only since the late-Victorian period has there been a specific diagnostic name for the individual who suffers chronically from insufficient sleep. The introductory section of the article, which notes the current panic about sleep problems, offers a brief sketch of the history of sleeplessness, acknowledging the transhistorical nature of this condition but also pointing to the appearance, during the period of the Enlightenment, of the term ‘insomnia’ itself. The second section makes more specific historical claims about the rise of insomnia in the accelerating conditions of everyday life in urban society at the end of the nineteenth century. It traces the rise of the insomniac as such, especially in the context of medical debates about ‘neurasthenia’, as someone whose identity is constitutively defined by their inability to sleep. The third section, tightening the focus of the article, goes on to reconstruct the biography of one exemplary late nineteenth-century insomniac, the American dentist Albert Kimball, in order to illustrate the claim that insomnia was one of the pre-eminent symptoms of a certain crisis in industrial and metropolitan modernity as this social condition was lived by individuals at the fin de siècle .

Evolutionism and Positivism (c. 1860–1900)

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Diaz-Andreu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Culture History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Remote Past

This was the way that one of the executive members of the Swiss National Museum phrased, at the end of the nineteenth century, the changes that had taken place in the previous decades: the interest in the national past was replacing the former emphasis on the Great Civilizations. Another transformation that had occurred was that the study of prehistory, rather than the history of the Roman and medieval periods, was definitively on the agenda. This change of emphasis, which took place between the 1860s and 1880s, had been in motion throughout the century but had finally crystallized in the last two decades of the century. By then, nationalism had transformed its character into a predominantly conservative doctrine. Another adjustment was also apparent. The acceptance of evolutionism had emerged as a major scientific theory to explain change. Issues of nationalism, regionalism, and imperialism became intertwined with scientific theory and further nourished the interest in the remote past. The development of methods to study evolution in the natural sciences promoted a scientific approach to the prehistoric period. At the same time, this affected attitudes towards the Roman and the medieval past. In this chapter, therefore, I reject the view expressed by other historians of archaeology such as Trigger (1989: 148) and to a certain degree Sklenár (1983: 123–6), who think that nationalism constituted a threat to cultural evolutionism and its eventual dismissal. This, they think, took place when scholars moved towards the adoption of the culture-historical perspective in the first decades of the twentieth century. The following pages will reveal, however, that the belief in evolutionism was not contrary to the nationalist cause. Late nineteenth-century archaeologists believed in the evolutionary theories to a greater or lesser extent. Despite this, they also became deeply implicated in the construction of their national past, to a degree not seen in previous decades. Culture-history did not oppose evolutionism; it accepted its tenets and moved beyond them.

Captive and client labour and the economy of the Bida Emirate: 1857–1901

1973 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Mason
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Population Transfer ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Using Data

The purpose of this essay is to discuss a number of aspects relating to the client and captive labour force in the Bida emirate in the immediate pre-colonial period. Using data collected in surveys of 1611 captive and client villages in the 1930s, it has been possible to estimate the origins of a large part of this force and to establish the different periods of its recruitment. Comments are made regarding the role of this labour force in the pre-colonial economy of Nupe, on the position of slaves and clients in the society of the emirate, and on the effects of the extensive population transfer on the ethnic demography of Nupeland. It is hoped that this essay will contribute to the contemporary discussion regarding indigenous slavery in Africa, and will lead to an accelerated abandonment of simplistic notions concerning the nature of African economy and society in the late nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Erard Harps in the Collection of the Czech Museum of Music

Musicalia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 85-114
Author(s):  
Daniela Kotašová
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Success ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Instrument Maker ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract The present harp collection of the National Museum – Czech Museum of Music contains Erard pedal harps from various periods of that famed Parisian company’s activity. In creating musical instruments, Sébastian Erard built upon the work of G. Cousineau and C. Groll and became the most successful manufacturer of double-action pedal harps with a fourchette (fork) mechanism (mécanique à fourchettes et à double mouvement). Erard’s work as an instrument maker influenced not only the historical development of the harp, but also the work of other instrument makers. In Bohemia, the Czech harp maker Alois Červenka (1858–1938) built upon Erard’s work with great success. The Erard harps in the collection of the Czech Museum of Music document the Czech socio-cultural context in which the harps of the French instrument maker were used from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 228-236
Author(s):  
Gillis J. Harp
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Among the most significant outcomes of the complex relationship between evangelicals and political conservatism has been to make orthodox Protestants simultaneously both less distinctively Christian and less genuinely conservative. Since the late nineteenth century, evangelicals have drawn from the newer sort of classical liberal “conservatism” whose principles owe more to the Enlightenment than to Christian theology. Further, their unreflective activism and increasingly nondoctrinal pietism has made it easy for evangelicals simultaneously to compartmentalize their faith, while still becoming more active politically. Evangelicals’ perspective on public life thereby became more secular as it became more partisan and utilitarian. The choice to support candidate Trump in 2016 highlighted evangelicalism’s lack of a theological basis for political engagement. The preceding chapters show that this deficiency had deep historical roots.

Climate and Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve E. Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Patronage ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Impact

This chapter emphasizes the intersection of natural (environmental) and social factors that made droughts calamitous for the poorest sertanejos. It traces the construction of the northeast (nordeste) as an identifiable region within modern Brazil, perceived as a challenge to modernization efforts due to its environment and its citizens’ mixed racial heritage. The chapter introduces central aspects of the sertão’s geography and economy, briefly outlining changes from the colonial period to the twentieth century. The role of the Great Drought (1877-1879) in shaping landholding patterns is emphasized, along with the impact that the Canudos rebellion had on other Brazilians’ views of sertanejos. Brazilian racial ideologies of the late nineteenth century are analysed in relation to the marginalization of sertanejos. The dynamics of political patronage by Brazil’s rural coronéis are introduced to explain how drought aid was often funnelled to wealthy landowners rather than to the poor. Finally, popular views of twentieth century drought works are accessed through reference to folk poems known as cordéis.

scholarly journals George Lyell and Frederick Parkhurst Dodd: authority and expertise in nineteenth-century Australian entomology

2021 ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
Deirdre Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article focuses on the correspondence and careers of two lepidopterists, George Lyell and F. P. Dodd. Drawing on Dodd’s unpublished letters to Lyell during the late nineteenth-century rage for butterflying, it examines how private acquisition gave way to the professional activity of collecting and, in Lyell’s case, the eventual gifting of a large and significant collection of moths and butterflies to the National Museum of Victoria from 1932 through to 1946. The article also examines how issues of authority and expertise were measured and contested among collectors in this period.

Notions of Nationhood in Bengal: Perspectives on Samaj, 1867–1905,

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
SWARUPA GUPTA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Modern Era

This paper explores and re-defines notions of nationhood as reflected in the Bengali literati's expressions of an empowered identity in tracts, pamphlets and articles in periodicals during the late colonial period. It shifts the focus from existing assumptions of the nation as an artefact of modernity by demonstrating that though ideas about nationhood acquired a coherent and articulated form in the late nineteenth century, its roots are to be traced back to the pre-modern era. By interrogating the relatively unexplored conceptual category of samaj (social collectivity) deployed by the literati, this essay demonstrates how a connection was forged between the modern nation and the historical community from whence it emerged. Ideas about nationhood articulated by the literati had indigenous origins, which were oriented to a tradition of a shared world of values and conduct. In highlighting such origins I seek to qualify existing academic models that regard colonial nationalisms as ‘borrowed’ or ‘derivative’, and stress the tremendous difficulty in transcending western paradigms. The notion of a nation in colonial Bengal was produced through a complex interaction between re-orientations of indigenous ideas of past unities and the historical circumstances of the modern period. The latter included influences emanating from the late colonial situation, specifically the development of print technologies and the emergence of a civil society in India after 1800.

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