Poor Law Historian

a natural sucker

[wanderingmygiant]

Paisley Abbey, Scotland. The heart of my research.

[usnatarchives]

Happy Bill of Rights Day!

Happy Bill of Rights Day! Today, we celebrate the adoption of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, which were added on December 15, 1791. These amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were designed to protect the fundamental rights of American citizens.

The Bill of Rights was not originally part of the United States Constitution. The Constitution was ratified by the states in 1788, but it did not include any explicit protections for individual rights. This led to concerns, particularly in the smaller states, who feared that the new government would be too powerful and violate individuals' rights.

The Bill of Rights was introduced by James Madison in the first session of the United States Congress in 1789 and was ratified by the states in 1791. It contains several individual rights and protections, including the right to freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to a fair and speedy trial, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

What does the #BillOfRights say? You can read a full transcript on our website: www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights 

#DidYouKnow that the document was engrossed between September 25 and 28, 1789, and it was signed at Federal Hall in New York City on September 28, 1789. But the rest was shrouded in mystery. 

Discover more about the Bill of Rights and how this mystery was solved on the Pieces of History blog:

Solving the Mystery of the Bill of Rights

December 15 is Bill of Rights Day, which commemorates the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  The National Ar

Image 1: Bill of Rights, 1789.

The online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records.

Image 2: Letter from President George Washington Transmitting Copies of Maryland’s Ratification of the Bill of Rights.

The online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

“AI art isn’t real art” boring, pedantic, relies on defining the undefinable and an ever changing goalpost of what Real Art is.

“AI art is fueled by massive art theft” correct, concrete demonstration of the harm it’s doing to actual human beings and not just the nebulous concept of Art Itself.

[wanderingmygiant]

I'm thinking about how this applies to AI history.

[wanderingmygiant]

Learning More, Getting Dumber

The day before the comprehensive exams for my doctorate, one of my advisors told me that I would never be smarter than I was the day before my exams. It was a reassuring thing to tell me, and I repeat a version of it to undergraduate students before they present their senior projects (e.g., "no one in the room knows more about this topic than you do").

I got that reassurance in 1996. Since then, I've been teaching college-level courses in US history and a variety of upper-level classes in migration and British history. Early on, a colleague told me he loved being a historian because we accumulate knowledge as we age, always adding depth and detail to what we know. There is little chance a new discovery will leave us behind or upend the theory we have based our whole knowledge base on (looking at you, evolution). I've worked to keep up with changes in the historiography and read into new topics to develop my curricula over the years. There is nothing like teaching a topic over and over again to encourage you to find connections between events and themes across time. Now, I have spent twenty years researching and publishing on mostly 19th-century Scottish topics related to Paisley and the Poor Law. Later this Spring I will submit a book manuscript on the subject, and I am just at the end of the first-draft phase on that project. I've added immeasurably to the amount of information stuffed in my skull before those exams,

And this is the moment in my career when I am most overwhelmed with the sheer volume of knowledge I have not acquired. My book includes a chapter about Paisley's dilemma over their tiny, inadequate mental asylum. There is a VAST scholarship on the history of psychiatry in the nineteenth century that I have barely touched and will get two sentences in the chapter. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on middle-class social conventions - then a two-page section of Dickens upends me in confusion over the proper use of calling cards. Even reading about topics I adore but do not research (fashion history, this means you!) I'm now looking at books I admire, seeing the huge number of things I've had to leave out of my own text, and wondering what wealth of detail these authors know that they just couldn't squeeze into the book - and that therefore I'll likely never learn. My colleague did not warn me about this: my total body of knowledge is shrinking in proportion to my awareness of how much there is to learn.

I'm preparing to teach for the second time a course specifically on Social History of Victorian Britain. These students will read one or two books (assuming they follow the syllabus), glean details of daily life from Oliver Twist (I know, not strictly Victorian, but close enough for my purposes), conduct research into a juicy Glaswegian murder and research and write a paper on a Victorian Invention of their choice. With their final grade, they will confidently exclaim, "I've learned Victorian Social History!"

Oh, my. What they don't know.

[classicalshorts]

Another kind of narrow…

I came across an article the other day that queried the relevance of degrees in the modern job market. This annoyed me for two main reasons:

1. The notion that education can be measured by economic impact, something which is not constant in terms of what defines it.

2. That this was a good guiding principle for shaping the education system.

Not everyone fits into this mould, and just because this is what a society seems to prize right now, it does not mean that it always will, nor that it should.

A mind that is grown and nurtured by a good education will be adaptable, but not one grown, chiselled, and moulded to a perceived relevance defined by a narrow view of importance.

Another article said the ‘old’ narrow system needed replacing with more relevance entrepreneurial qualities that were more modern. Two objection: firstly, not everyone will be en entrepreneur, society cannot be healthily or naturally composed of one type of individual; secondly, the qualities described, creative, critical, reflective, and adaptive thinking, were hardly exclusive to the entrepreneur. Whilst I agree that these could receive greater emphasis in education, I strongly disagree that this is about channeling economically impactful individuals.

I think these skills matter because that it what enables humans to flourish: to grow in their ability to enjoy learning, reflect on what matters, interact respectfully with their fellows, and be ready to deal with a highly changeable world, yet discover their own talents, be proud of these, and develop as adults with a sense of inner confidence, calm, kindness, and tolerance. Surely, that matters more than economic impact?

What is sad (and, yes, here comes the Classical message) is that this mistake has been made over and over again. Why? Well, that is the subject of another article, but one reason is I think a mistaken belief in improvement and advancement that just creates a new ‘narrow’ guiding principle masked with the label of ‘moving on’. Nor is it necessarily deliberate. Human beings have often fallen into this trap.

A very wise thinker once warned his fellows that they should take care of their own selves and souls; to discover what truly mattered and love accordingly to the best of their ability; to learn that true happiness lay in discovering this, not in crowns and glory. He meant of course wisdom and goodness, cutting out the narrowly conceived ‘importance’ that tore societies apart. Helping them see this had become his life’s work. Sadly, he was given a cocktail of hemlock for his efforts.