British Records on the Atlantic World, 1700-1900 from Microform Academic Publishers Americas Collections Blog: Caribbean Ernest Hemingway relaxing in Cuba in the 1940s, sans Martha. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/JFK Library, Boston. I wonder whether Ernest Hemingway, as he chewed his meal of moose after marriage to Martha Gellhorn in November 1940, hadn’t quite understood his new wife's taste for war. Both Ernest and Martha had been war correspondents during the Spanish Civil War from 1937-39. Martha’s return to peaceful Cuba appeared a difficult transition. As Ernest kept up the home front, and Martha finally found a job reporting on the European theatre of war from London, the marriage foundered. Though for a time Martha was heartsick about the separation from Hemingway, what is remarkable in her letters is war’s totally energizing effect on her. Ernest wondered, after their divorce, whether Martha wasn’t a little ‘war-crazy’. Naomi Wood is one of the 2012 Eccles Centre Writers in Residence at the British Library.
Untold Lives Continuing with the series on William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), we look here at his lifelong interest in botany and some of the items now available to researchers through the British Library catalogue. Botany was one of Talbot’s favourite fields of study although he pursued it only as an occasional interest. Nevertheless he was extremely knowledgeable and held in high regard. From the age of 14, Talbot maintained a lively correspondence with eminent botanists such as Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778-1855) and Sir William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), and later with Reverend James Dalton (1764-1843). In 1823 and 1826 Talbot chartered expeditions to Corfu and the Ionian Islands collecting plants which he then spent the following years studying and classifying. Talbot was also interested in botanical specimens collected by others and he often exchanged notes, seeds and herbaria with other botanists, both amateur and professional. Jonathan PledgeCataloguer, Historical Papers
Indian Office Materials The main focus of the catalogues is on the countries of South Asia, although there are also considerable holdings relevant to other parts of Asia and the Middle East. You can: • search the Prints & drawings or Photographs collections separately. • search for visual material in any medium by selecting All images. • read about the scope and history of the two collections. For details of how to use the system, see our search tips. The catalogues for the India Office Private Papers that were searchable on this site are now available on the Search our Catalogues: Archive and Manuscripts service. These catalogues are currently being updated. Please note that these catalogues contain no images at present.
India Office Records On the abolition of slavery in the early 19th century, owners of plantations in the British and French colonies of the Caribbean began to search for a new supply of labour. They found it in India. Workers were recruited, mainly from the Bengal and Madras areas, to work on the plantations for fixed periods. The Government of India became responsible for regulating the emigration and for safeguarding workers' welfare during their stay, under a scheme that became known as the indentured labour system. In the extensive India Office Records collection, there are a number of records that show how the indentured labour system was run and that reveal the political and social problems it provoked. What are these documents about? A 1914 Government of India report gives detailed information on the housing, wages, health and diet of Indian immigrants in Trinidad. An outline of the main record classes, with lists of some individual files, is contained in Timothy N.
Endangered Archives Programme Francophone Caribbean Collections France was at the forefront of the "Scramble for Africa" and accounts of the exploration and colonisation by France can be found in the Library's collections. The first French flag raised at Loango, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) Congo français. Loango. Cahiers d'enseignement no. 71. An early voyage around Africa is described by Jean Alfonce, the pseudonym of Jean Fonteneau, from Saintonge, who died fighting the Spanish in 1544. Jean Baptiste Léonard Durand (1742-1812) became a director of the Compagnie de Sénégal, and held a monopoly of the rubber trade. Books from Africa are still collected. Haiti Haiti was the first French colony to gain its independence, in 1804 after a slave revolt. Four issues of the Gazette royale d'Hayti (1816 - 1818) issued by Henri Christophe, who founded a republic in the north of the island and declared himself its king in 1811, are at shelfmark C.186.f.18, and can be consulted in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room. Martinique Guadeloupe (or Guadaloupe)
Sound Recordings Blog Cheryl Tipp, Natural Sounds Curator writes: Over the past 5 weeks, listeners of BBC Radio 4 have been treated to a series dedicated entirely to sound and its many roles in human culture over the past 100,000 years. Noise: a Human History, written and presented by Professor David Hendy and made in collaboration with the British Library's Sound Archive, has explored a multitude of subjects, from the power of great orators to the significance of resonant spaces. Episode 25, Capturing Sound, looks at new technologies that emerged during the latter half of the 19th Century, making it possible to record and thereby transform sound from something previously transient and elusive. The British Library has an extensive collection of both early recordings and the equipment used to record and playback these sounds. Edison Home Phonograph (1900) Don Bradman, Australian cricketer - How it's Done Amy Johnson, pioneer aviator - The Story of my Flight Franklin D.
Newspaper Collections Newspapers in The British Library British Library Newspapers at Colindale has now closed, and the majority of printed material is under embargo. Find out more at our Newspaper Moves page. We have created a short guide to newspaper collections which you will be able to access until March 2014. The British Library's newspaper collections are founded on two special collections: The Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts, which consist of Civil War and other 17th-century newsbooks and newspapers, which were presented to the British Museum in 1762;The Burney Collection of Newspapers, bought by the Museum in 1818, which consists of 700 bound volumes of newspapers dating from 1603 to 1817, collected by the Revd Dr Charles Burney (1757-1817). Systematic collection of newspapers did not really begin until 1822. The British Library newspaper collections consist of: Search the Newspaper catalogue subset on the Explore the British Library to locate the titles you require. Collections Development Policy
Sport and Society Blog Simone Bacchini writes: It sometimes feels like the case for sport as a vehicle for social change is a bit overstated. Yet, the announcement that London has bid to host the 2018 Gay Games ( might be, well, a game changer. The Gay Games was started in San Francisco, in 1982. Originally, it was called “Gay Olympics” but a lawsuit filed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meant that the name had to be changed. Sporting events for minority groups, some of them facing varying degrees of discrimination have a double function. Sport is one of the favourite arenas in which socially approved norms of gender behaviour are displayed, learned, and reinforced. Obviously, for many LGBT people sport has never been an issue: they simply aren’t interested. The Paralympics has been an important tool in changing views of and attitudes towards disability. References Journal of Homosexuality. London Reference Collection: SPIS Journals Display (open access) Anderson, E. (2009).