Here is our final project on banned books!
By Devon Hauser, Rachel Janowsky, Danielle Koppie, and Emma Tomicic
Author: Danielle Koppie
London Road
In “The Man With the Twisted Lip,” London Road is briefly mentioned as Sherlock and Watson begin their dash to finally solve the mystery of Mr. Neville St. Clair’s disappearance. Upon further research, I learned some interesting facts about the road that had little significance in the actual Sherlock Holmes story. Unfortunately, there are over twenty roads called “London Road,” just in the city of London, alone! So many of the facts that I saw were not entirely accurate due to the inability to distinguish between multiple roads. Since many of the websites are not specifically based around Victorian London, it was more difficult to find the correct road.
By using the Old Bailey Proceedings through Locating London, I was able to find that there were not many crimes committed on the road, but of the ten crimes that came up in the search results, five of them were highway robberies, and three involved animal theft. The first result was of a man names James Coates, who viciously stole a diamond ring from Mrs. Elizabeth Atley. He was sentenced to death for this crime (“James Coates, highway robbery”). I also learned that the London Road in Ipswich, not in London, is apparently site of the flat of Steve Wright, who murdered five women in 2006, an event about which a movie and a musical were written (both called London Road).
While looking at the OS Town Plan of Victorian London, I can tell that London Road has not changed much, and is still a major road in the city. Much of the information about London Road on British Histories contained information about religion. It was interesting because several of the articles were about religions that do not dominate London, such as Judaism and Islam. There are also many bits of information about monuments and buildings on the road.
The Charles Booth website offered the most useful and accurate information, despite having the worst design of any of sites. The website shows a map of London and color codes each street based on economic class. It shows London Road in pink, which means that the average economic state of people on London Road back in Victorian London was “Fairly comfortable.”
Works Cited
Doyle, Arthur Conan. London: Strand, 1891. Short Stories: The Man With The Twisted Lip by Arthur Conan Doyle. East of the Web. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. <http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TwisLip.shtml>.
“Search.” British Histories. University of London, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/search?query=%22London+Road%22>.
“Booth Poverty Map & Modern Map (Charles Booth Online Archive).”Booth Poverty Map & Modern Map (Charles Booth Online Archive). London School of Economics and Political Science, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. <http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl? sub=view_booth_and_barth&args=531720%2C179260%2C1%2Clarge%2C0>.
“James Coates, highway robbery. 15 January 1702 (t17070115-7).” Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Web. 6 November 2015. http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t17070115- 7&div=t17070115-7&terms=+London%20+Road%20#highlight
Google Fusion Tables
Here are the different parts of my project!
Cards:
Map of various filming locations from movie adaptations:
Pie Chart:
Bar Graph:
Network Visualization:
Danielle’s Intro Video
Check out my Introductory Video, here!
Google Ngrams: Musical Instruments
For this assignment, I decided to use the category that I had failed to find information for in the Book Traces assignment: music. I plugged in names of Nineteenth Century composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky, but none of the comparisons were significant enough for me to write about. I then decided to steer away from composers and look more into some instruments. I knew that this time period was incredibly important in the field of music, so I figured the instruments had to have seen some interesting developments. I plugged the words “trumpet,” “flute,” and “piano” into the Ngram Viewer, with the default settings. I saw that at first, the word “trumpet” was significantly more popular than either “flute” or “piano.” Flute was low but stayed fairly consistent until the end of the century. The most interesting increase, however, was definitely in the word “piano.” Its frequency more than tripled between the years 1850 and 1900. It went from least popular of the three to most popular by far. Some quick research explained that throughout the Nineteenth Century, the piano became more and more affordable, as companies began to mass produce the instruments. This allowed for many families to purchase pianos for their homes.
Some research on the flute showed that in about 1847, a man named Theobald Boehm invented a new type of flute that became the premise for the instrument we use today. Toward the end of the century, workshops began to adopt and modify Boehm’s design, and it was used in orchestras all across Europe and America. This explains the increase in the word “flute” from about 1887 to 1898.
As for the trumpet, its graph was fairly consistent throughout, and there was not much information on the Nineteenth Century trumpet alone. I did find out that around that time, similar to the flute and piano, the basis for the modern day trumpet was invented, but it was in the key of F, rather than today’s standard B♭. On the graph around 1810, there is a rather large spike, but I could not find any information that explained it.
I found this to be an interesting assignment because it relies on us making assumptions, which is what historians are forced to do when they are researching various trends on graphs like our Ngrams. This tool could definitely be valuable for anyone who is researching a topic from many years ago. Google has scanned millions of books into its system, which makes the research incredibly accurate. Also, I got to learn about the instruments I enjoy, which was fun.
Works Cited
“The History and Development of the Modern Piano.” Renner USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
Estrella, Espie. “History of the Trumpet.” About Education. About.com, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
“Theobald Boehm (1794-1881).” FluteHistory.com. Flutehistory.com, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
“Nineteenth-century Flutes.” FluteHistory.com. Flutehistory.com, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
Book Traces
When I entered the library to search for marginalia, I honestly thought it would be a quick process. I could get there after my last class, look through a few old books, find one with some really interesting writing in it, and arrive home long before dinner. Well, that’s not exactly how it played out. I got to the library and decided to just look through some random old books and sheet music. I found nothing. After about an hour, I decided to direct my focus toward the education section, because of my abnormal obsession with education systems. I looked at all of the call numbers I could find, then refined my search, then tried again.
After approximately two hours and sixteen minutes total, I found History of Education by Thomas Davidson. The book was published in 1900 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Upon opening the book, I discovered that one of the pages before the book starts was filled halfway with handwritten notes. These notes are quotations that a girl named Louise Patricia O’Malley wrote down when she was attending Simmons College in 1917. There is one quote by Socrates, and two quotes by a “Sir Moore.” I did some research, and it seems that both quotes by “Sir Moore” are variations on quotes also by Socrates, which makes me wonder how she found them. They are all about education, which makes sense because of the book. I found the book for free on Google Books, and searched it to find these quotes, but they were not in the text. This means that either Louise had heard the quotes, liked them, and wrote them down, or perhaps she was instructed to do so. I also looked up the name Louise Patricia O’Malley, and found the Simmons College Bulletin that contains the Annual Catalogue, with Louise’s name in it. She is listed under “Degrees Conferred in 1917,” so I assume that was her year of graduation.
When I found the book, I was just relieved that I could finally go home and eat something. Now as I’m writing this, I’m actually incredibly fascinated by these traces. It’s pretty amazing how I could find out so much information from a few quotes someone wrote in her textbook 98 years ago.
You can see my Book Traces submission, here!
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous Sherlock Holmes stories. In the archive, I have included some of the various television and film adaptations that have been created recently.
Items:
Victorian Dictionary: Teacher Training
As was the case nearly everywhere at the time, women in Victorian London were treated as horribly inferior to men. This left them with few employment opportunities and a tendency to remain home, cooking and cleaning for their families. One option available to women was to become an elementary school teacher. Similar to modern times, teachers had to go through extensive training before actually getting in front of a class.
While browsing under the Education category on Lee Jackson’s “Dictionary of Victorian London,” I was able to find some interesting information about teacher training in the Victorian Era. All of the information I found was from the “Etiquette and Household Advice Manuals,” published in the 1880s. According to the unknown author, training could begin at as young as thirteen years old, with an apprenticeship. This was also one of the only jobs for which women were required an education. The author makes a few interesting (and still relevant) points about the field. He says, “A good student is not necessarily a good teacher, and but few people grasp the difference between training and teaching.” He continues to say that Government schools are the only places a girl could go to receive quality training, and that one must have had at least two years of training in order to become a teacher. The main idea of the entire section is clearly that teachers required a great deal of training before entering the classroom. The author even states that it was common for girls in particular to have health breakdowns and to be overworked, which is why he recommends girls do not join the workforce until they have a “stronger physical frame,” around age fifteen or sixteen. Another writer, however, shares a different opinion. This writer, mentioned by the main author, believes that children who were born into the upper or middle class would become great learners even before they could talk, which would allow them to in turn become great educators. Those were the children who would apparently need less time to become quality teachers. According to the writer, they could have started their apprenticeships at age thirteen, and could have been ready to teach within two or three years. While the young age is not surprising for the time period, it is still strange to think about a fifteen year old being ready to teach a class of children just a few years younger.
Danielle Koppie’s Introductory Post
Hi everyone!
My name is Danielle Koppie. I am a freshman majoring in English Adolescence Education. Some of my main interests include Harry Potter (books, movies, soundtracks, merchandise, etc.), music, playing trumpet, reading, and Friends (both the people and the TV show).
