Archaeology on Television, 1937

The birth of archaeologically themed television programmes is intimately linked to the birth of television itself. Yet little is known of the earliest broadcasts owing to both the fragmentary archival record and the longstanding hype surrounding later archaeology TV productions. This article examines two of the first such shows, likely the earliest in the English-speaking world for which records survive, focused on the British Iron Age site of Maiden Castle and on the reconstruction of prehistoric pottery. While noting the role of Mortimer Wheeler in their development, I also highlight several key women who produced the programmes, starred in them, and otherwise held critical posts in the establishment of professional archaeological practice in Britain, including Margot Eates, Ione Gedye, and Delia Parker — all based at London's Institute of Archaeology (IoA). These BBC TV broadcasts were specifically deployed to showcase the sites and methods of the burgeoning discipline of archaeology. More importantly, however, they were subtle players in the building of intellectual and institutional capital for both the IoA and the BBC. Augmented by other graphic media produced by the IoA itself, the earliest televised archaeology shows generated income, exposure, capacity, and clout for these two very different but pioneering organizations.     

Origins of Difference: Professionalization,Power, and Mental Hygiene in Canada and the United States

This study examines the emergence and development of mental hygiene professional organizations in Canada and the US by analyzing discursive differences in the publications of two sister committees: the National Committee for Mental Hygiene and the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene. The analysis finds that while mental hygiene in North America initially emerged as a single, shared continental professional discourse, the two movements diverged in critical ways for reasons directly related to their institutional contexts and donor bases. Even as US popular and political discourse veered towards eugenic policies, the US mental hygiene discourse shifted sharply away from eugenics. In contrast, in Canada, mental hygiene publications focused increasingly on the moral dangers of Canada’s immigrant population and played a role in producing scientific legitimacy for eugenic policies. This analysis suggests that the different trajectories of the two professional communities have their origins in organizations’ membership and donor bases, not broader differences in national character.