Town Houses in Taunton, 1500-1700

Abstract

In this article the author traces the evolution of the small to medium-sized town houses in Taunton in the period 1500–1700. He describes surviving examples of three, two and single cell houses, L-shaped, detached and semi-detached houses of the period, and after discussing building materials, compares them with developments elsewhere in the South West.     

The medical content of English almanacs 1640-1700

There has been a great deal of recent interest in popular health care in early modern England, resulting in studies on a range of topics from practitioners through remedial treatment. Over the past decade, the history of books has also attracted growing interest. This is particularly true for the seventeenth century, a period marked by a dramatic rise in all types of printed works. The 1640s are especially significant in the evolution of printed vernacular medical publications, which continued to flourish during the rest of the century. While recent studies on popular medical books have contributed greatly to our understanding of contemporary medical beliefs and practices, they have failed to properly recognize the effect that almanacs had on early modern medicine. Although their primary function was not to disseminate medical information, most provided a great deal of medical information. Furthermore, these cheap, annual publications targeted and were read by a wide cross-section of the public, making them the first true form of British mass media. This article is based on the content of 1,392 almanacs printed between 1640 and 1700, which may make it the largest comparative study of the medical content of any early modern printed works. The project has resulted in two major findings. First of all, almanacs played a major part in the dissemination, continuing popularity, and longevity of traditional astrological and Galenic beliefs and practices. Secondly, at the same time, almanacs played an important early role in the growth of medical materialism in Britain.     

Neo-Canadians and Schools in Montreal, 1900-1970

Immigrants' involvement in Quebec's unique confessional educational system is viewed through the experience of the important Jewish and Italian communities. This discussion illustrates the degree to which the two “host” communities, French and English, were unwilling to alter their religious or nationalist doctrines and institutional structures in order to accommodate other ethnic groups.     

The Production and Display of Domestic Interiors in Wilhelmine Germany, 1900-1914

In the opening years of the twentieth century, the German homeassumed new cultural meanings and symbolic significance as asite of economic, political, artistic, and social intervention.This article investigates a range of Wilhelmine institutions—fromthe Wertheim department store and the Prussian Commerce Ministry,to the Applied Arts Movement and the Movement for Art Education—toillustrate the variety of German approaches to promoting newconceptions of the home. Examining the ways in which Wilhelmineprivate and state reformers turned the topic of how one livedand dwelled into a topic of pressing significance, the articleargues that private, commercial efforts and state-driven policyinitiatives interpenetrated to a degree previously underappreciatedin Wilhelmine historical studies. These private and state initiativeswere, in turn, closely tied to the cultivation of German consumeridentities, and to larger efforts on the part of Wilhelmineinstitutions to adapt to the dizzying conditions of twentieth-centurycapitalist modernity. As a result of these developments, specialexhibitions of artistic home interiors originated in premierGerman department stores as well as in the halls of the statebureaucracy; historical ornaments termed ‘modern’in one decade were denigrated as barbaric in another; and generationsof craftsmen battled one another for a legitimacy conferred,to a significant degree, by private commissions, generous statesubsidies, and admission into prestigious exhibitions.