Helen Louise Cowie (born 1981 [1] ) is a British historian who is a Professor of Early Modern History at the University of York. Her research addresses cultural history, the history of science, animal history, and the history of Latin America. [2]
Cowie read for a PhD in history at the University of Warwick, where she was supervised by Anthony McFarlane and Rebecca Earle. Her thesis, which was submitted in 2007, was entitled Colonizing science: Nature and Nations in the Spanish World, c.1750-1850. [3] A revised version of Cowie's thesis [4] was published with Manchester University Press in 2011, entitled Conquering Nature in Spain and Its Empire, 1750-1850. In the book, Cowie explores the study of natural history in the Spanish empire in the 18th and 19th century. [5] Cowie joined the Department of History at the University of York in 2011 [2] as a Lecturer, later becoming a Senior Lecturer then Professor. [6]
Cowie published Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain with Palgrave Macmillan in 2014 [7] and Victims of Fashion with Cambridge University Press in 2021. [8] In the former book, Cowie explores the social history of British zoos and travelling menageries in the 19th century. [7] In the latter, Cowie explores the use of animal products in 19th century Britain, including feathers, furs, and ivory. [8]
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the Georgian era and preceded the Edwardian era, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe.
Nonconformists were Protestant Christians who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established church in England, and in Wales until 1914, the Church of England.
The British Agricultural Revolution, or Second Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the 19th century as the population more than tripled to over 35 million.
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.
The history of alternative medicine covers the history of a group of diverse medical practices that were collectively promoted as "alternative medicine" beginning in the 1970s, to the collection of individual histories of members of that group, or to the history of western medical practices that were labeled "irregular practices" by the western medical establishment. It includes the histories of complementary medicine and of integrative medicine. "Alternative medicine" is a loosely defined and very diverse set of products, practices, and theories that are perceived by its users to have the healing effects of medicine, but do not originate from evidence gathered using the scientific method, are not part of biomedicine, or are contradicted by scientific evidence or established science. "Biomedicine" is that part of medical science that applies principles of anatomy, physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, and other natural sciences to clinical practice, using scientific methods to establish the effectiveness of that practice.
Lawrence Goldman is an English historian and academic. He is the former director the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
The Bridgewater Treatises (1833–36) are a series of eight works that were written by leading scientific figures appointed by the President of the Royal Society in fulfilment of a bequest of £8000, made by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, for work on "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation."
The nineteenth century marks the period beginning January 1, 1801 and ends December 31, 1900.
Turquerie, or Turquoiserie, was the Turkish fashion in Western Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries for imitating aspects of Ottoman art and culture. Many different Western European countries were fascinated by the exotic and relatively unknown culture of the Ottoman ruling class, which was the center of the Ottoman Empire. This fashionable phenomenon became more popular through trading routes and increased diplomatic relationships between the Ottomans and the European nations, exemplified by the Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1715. Ambassadors and traders often returned home with tales of exotic places and souvenirs of their adventures.
The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of the British Empire. Historians and their ideas are the main focus here; specific lands and historical dates and episodes are covered in the article on the British Empire. Scholars have long studied the Empire, looking at the causes for its formation, its relations to the French and other empires, and the kinds of people who became imperialists or anti-imperialists, together with their mindsets. The history of the breakdown of the Empire has attracted scholars of the histories of the United States, the British Raj, and the African colonies. John Darwin (2013) identifies four imperial goals: colonising, civilising, converting, and commerce.
A travelling menagerie was a touring group of showmen and animal handlers who visited towns and cities with common and exotic animals. The term "menagerie", first used in seventeenth century France, was primarily used to refer to aristocratic or royal animal collections. Most visitors to travelling menageries would never have the opportunity to see such animals under other circumstances and their arrival in a town would catalyse great excitement. The shows were both entertaining and educational; in 1872 The Scotsman described George Wombwell's travelling menagerie as "[having] done more to familiarise the minds of the masses of our people with the denizens of the forest than all the books of natural history ever printed during its wandering existence."
Jennifer Tucker is Professor of Technology, Law, and Visual Culture in the Department of History at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where she is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns and Society. At Wesleyan, she teaches courses on British and American technology, culture, photography, the role of evidence, and aesthetics of justice and historical storytelling.
History of women in the United Kingdom covers the social, cultural, legal and political roles of women in Britain over the last 500 years and more.
Ellen Eliza Blight (1833–1850), also known as Helen Bright, was an English lion tamer, known as "The Lion Queen", who was killed by a tiger while working in her uncle George Wombwell's menagerie, aged 17. Her shocking death made her a media sensation.
The environmental history of Latin America has become the focus of a number of scholars, starting in the later years of the twentieth century. But historians earlier than that recognized that the environment played a major role in the region's history. Environmental history more generally has developed as a specialized, yet broad and diverse field. According to one assessment of the field, scholars have mainly been concerned with "three categories of research: colonialism, capitalism, and conservation" and the analysis focuses on narratives of environmental decline. There are several currents within the field. One examines humans within particular ecosystems; another concerns humans’ cultural relationship with nature; and environmental politics and policy. General topics that scholars examine are forestry and deforestation; rural landscapes, especially agro-export industries and ranching; conservation of the environment through protected zones, such as parks and preserves; water issues including irrigation, drought, flooding and its control through dams, urban water supply, use, and waste water. The field often classifies research by geographically, temporally, and thematically. Much of the environmental history of Latin America focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but there is a growing body of research on the first three centuries (1500-1800) of European impact. As the field established itself as a more defined academic pursuit, the journal Environmental History was founded in 1996, as a joint venture of the Forest History Society and the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). The Latin American and Caribbean Society for Environmental History (SOLCHA) formed in 2004. Standard reference works for Latin American now include a section on environmental history.
Alan Mikhail is an American historian who is a professor of history at Yale University. His work centers on the history of the Ottoman Empire.
Julie-Marie Strange, FAcSS is a historian. Since 2019, she has been Professor of Modern British History at Durham University.
Hugh St Clair Cunningham is a historian and retired academic. A specialist in the history of childhood, nationalism, philanthropy and leisure, he is an emeritus professor of social history at the University of Kent.
Virginia DeJohn Anderson is an American historian. She is professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder and the author of three books: New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America, and The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution.
John Miller is a British literary historian. He has worked at the University of Sheffield since 2012.
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Episode 208: Victims of Fashion with Helen Cowie Helen Cowie discusses Victims of Fashion on the podcast Knowing Animals |