Between 1800 and 1850, political demonstrations and the tumult of a ballooning street life not only brought novel kinds of crowds onto the streets of London, but also fundamentally changed British ideas about public and private space. "The Crowd" sets out to demonstrate the influence of these new cr[...]
What fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? In "Portable Property", John Plotz examines the new role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with r[...]
What kind of adventure begins in the living room on a rainy Monday afternoon? It depends. Say you just found out that Granny, who raised you, is going to lose her house because there's nothing valuable left to sell except an unfinished tapestry. And say that your pet blackbird Mead starts talking an[...]