Blog

Shortly after joining Adam Matthew this year I set off to North Carolina for an archive research trip. Whilst there I had the opportunity to visit Historic Stagville, the site of one of the largest plantations in North Carolina and the pre-Civil War South at its peak during the 1850s and early 1860s. The site and buildings seemed peaceful on a beautiful April morning in the leafy, green North Carolina countryside, but there were stark reminders as we toured the buildings, of the injustices that took place and the difference in quality of life for the plantation owners and the slave community who lived here.

Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, remains a person who inspires great interest and debate to this day, not least due to the complexity of his character and loyalties. This is demonstrated by a letter in which Lee reports for military duty in Washington and says he awaits his orders from Union command. Twenty three days later, he had resigned his post and taken a commission from newly seceded Virginia.

Regent Street Cinema, the venue for the first public screening of Louis and Auguste Lumière’s Cinématographe in Britain on the 20th February 1896, has re-opened this week after being restored to its former glory. The small, single-screen cinema, originally part of the Royal Polytechnic Institution at what is now the Regent Street campus of the University of Westminster, was closed to the public in 1980 and has since served as a lecture theatre for the university.

At the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1925 the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, aiming to promote their railway to a British audience, showcased their wildly popular ‘Treasure Island’ installation. The island was a magical world created for children and big children alike where they could clamber aboard miniature trains Peter Pan and Alice to explore the Canadian Rockies.

On April 14th 1865, America’s ruinous Civil War seemed finally to be drawing to a close. Five days earlier, General Lee had surrendered his army and to those walking Washington’s corridors of power, the war seemed all but won. However many in the South were still desperate to revive the Confederate cause, including John Wilkes Booth and his three co-conspirators.

This month, April 2015, sees the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at the hands of the enraged renegade actor John Wilkes Booth in 1865. Disgusted by the Lincoln’s part in the Confederate States’ defeat after four years of civil war, Booth sneaked into Lincoln’s box as the President was watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. and shot him in the back of the head. Days after the end of the Civil War Lincoln was killed at the very moment of his great triumph.

If ever there was a way to twist my arm and persuade me to visit romantic, historic Milan this summer, the prospect of a huge, international celebration of food is a pretty convincing one. Expo Milan 2015 is just such an event, but my primary interest is not in pizza (honest), but in Expo 2015’s place in the legacy of World’s Fairs.

Six days from today shall mark the ninety eighth anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s return to Russia after more than a decade of exile abroad.

The guidelines for creating the archetypal ‘advertisement’, be it on television or in written form, seemed to me to be relatively straightforward; ensure clear product placement, create an element of desirability and use clear, bold branding.

BBC Two’s newest period drama Banished sheds light on the lives of the first penal colony established in Australia. The likes of Russell Tovey, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and MyAnna Buring portray the lives of convicts and soldiers trying to serve their time and get by in the wilds of New South Wales. Life seems incredibly brutal in this environment and one would imagine the real lives of the first convicts and soldiers would have been terribly difficult.

If, like me, you have been avidly watching the rugby of both the men’s and women’s Six Nations tournaments over the last few weeks, you will no doubt be feeling the tension rise as we approach the grand finales tomorrow. Whether you have been supporting the English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, French or Italians, I think you will agree that it has been a cracking spectacle with the players taking centre stage.

A global phenomenon, few patron saints are as enthusiastically celebrated as St. Patrick. Credited for bringing Christianity to Ireland’s pagans in the fourth century, he has since become a symbol of Irish patriotism. And it doesn’t seem to matter much where you are in the world on 17 March ¬– chances are you’ll be encouraged to wear green, don your fanciest shamrock brooch and gulp down gallons of Guinness.

I think the majority of us will agree that our most treasured possession is the home in which we live. It is filled with objects that define us and, in some cases, legacies that outlive us. It is within these walls that we create a sense of belonging, an identity.

With an academic background in British-Jewish studies, I am naturally drawn to archival material on Jewish life and culture. Whilst examining documents sourced from the Colonial Office for Adam Matthew’s forthcoming resource Colonial America (first instalment publishing in autumn 2015), I found some intriguing material relating to early Jewish settlers in the New World.

Through all the glitz and glam of the Oscars one part of the ceremony that has got everyone talking is Patricia Arquette’s acceptance speech for her Best Supporting Actress award. She received huge support in the theatre audience (as can be seen in the reactions of the likes of Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez) and created a stir on social media as she demanded equal rights for women.

If you find yourself feeling miserable about the rain this dreary February, just be thankful you’re not Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), armed with only an umbrella against the Cameroonian monsoons during her travels in West Africa in the late 19th Century.

Did you know that there was an Englishman ruling over America in 1859? No, me neither. That was until whilst indexing for the second part of our American History resource I came across the colourful character of Joshua Abraham Norton, Emperor of the United States.

When American innovator, Thomas Alva Edison, and his British predecessor, Eadweard Muybridge, set themselves the grand task of inventing a device that could capture movement on film, they surely could not have predicted the social, ethical and moral repercussions that would surface and surround moving pictures from that point onwards.

In the British popular memory of the Second World War, China is largely absent. Japan had invaded and annexed Chinese Manchuria eight years before Nazi Germany marched into Poland, so in one sense the war began on Chinese soil. But perhaps it is because of this that we forget about them – they only became our allies because their war with Japan happened, after 1941, to coincide with ours.

Whilst exploring the visual collections of Victorian Popular Culture, a photograph caught my eye. It showed a group of elephants processing down Milsom Street in Bath – not a sight you see every day! The caption was simply “Barnum’s procession through Bath” and I was intrigued to find out more.

You may have seen the smash hit play Warhorse or even read the book or seen the film. Thankfully Joey the extraordinarily heroic horse lives happily ever after and we are treated to a glorious reunion of man and beast. Conversely, donkeys often seem to be the poor relations of the equidae family: slower, less graceful, more stubborn and with a non-waterproof skin.

At the tender age of 19, Wilfrid Barbrooke Grubb had an interview with the South American Missionary Society (SAMS) to be considered for missionary work abroad. In 1989, after a stint in Tierra del Fuego, he was sent to northern Paraguay to establish the first mission station in Chaco. South America was still a largely unexplored continent that held many unknown dangers, and Chaco was a particularly notorious region. Previously uncontacted tribes are still being discovered there, and in the late 19th-century stories of ritual mutilation and cannibalism were rife.

When is it too early to buy Christmas cards? Most of us leave our Christmas shopping until late November at the earliest. But why is that? Is there is an unspoken taboo against preparing for Christmas too early?

Intense debate has broken out among sections of the Adam Matthew staff this week following the decision to open our box of Christmas decorations. A number of employees have steadfastly refused to go near the festive items before December 1st. Others have insisted that the extra cheer they bring justifies their appearance in November, though suspicions remain that this is a ruse in order to get first call on the choicest tinsel.