History Day

Items

• 75 Years of Human-Computer Interaction and its Impact on Society
  Our report From Punch Cards to Brain Computer Interfaces: 75 Years of Human-Computer Interaction describes how HCI evolved from the early years of computing in the 1950s, when the subject was dominated by a small number of mainframes, to today’s world where we talk about Graphical User Interfaces and interactive displays used by billions of people.
• Absolute Units: 'Origin Story (with Adam Kozary)' [the story of the 'absolute unit' meme]
  In April 2018, we shared a photo of a very large sheep on Twitter with the caption 'look at this absolute unit'. Before we knew it, this sheep had changed our museum's fortunes forever. For our first-ever episode of Absolute Units, we're joined by – former MERL social media manager from 2012 to 2019 and father of the Absolute Unit post–to revisit the story behind our most viral moment. What did it take for a museum to go viral on the Internet? What was its role in our history? And what did it mean for our future? Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Absolute Units is the official podcast of The Museum of English Rural Life. This series is made possible through the generous support of and Museums Partnership Reading, a partnership of The MERL with Reading Museum. Themetune by Tai Dawson. Co-hosts: Ollie Douglas and Joe Vaughan Producer: Joe Vaughan
• Auction Catalogues in the Paul Mellon Centre Library
  The library holds approximately 15,000 auction catalogues, mainly dating from the late nineteenth century onwards, but with some eighteenth and early nineteenth century sales.
• Beyond the Botanical in Kew's Persian collections
  The co-curators of the current "Persia Reimagined: From Herbarium to Heritage" exhibition write about the Persian collections in Kew's Library & Archives and the social and cultural histories tucked away within.
• Brian Sewell : an introduction to the archive
  Brian Sewell (1931-2015) was an art historian, art critic, author and media personality. He lead a remarkable life: born in 1931 to a single mother, he studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and found fame both as Anthony Blunt’s unofficial spokesman following Blunt’s exposure as a Soviet spy and later in his role as daily arts correspondent for the Evening Standard. All his life he felt like an ‘outsider’ – this becoming the title of his published autobiographies – a reference to various aspects of his character and also his sexuality (he described himself as gay). This Sewell Archive, documents almost every part of his life and this display provides an introduction to the collection.
• Cataloguing 18th and 19th Century Music Scores
  Emma Poole, Library Assistant, writes about her experience cataloguing rare and historical music items.
• Damaged & Destroyed : Three Stories of Preservation and Loss from the PMC’s Photographic Archive
  In 2021, the Paul Mellon Centre (PMC) published its photographic archive online. The archive comprises more than 100,000 reproductions of paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures. The photographs, which were taken over a forty-year period between the early 1960s to the late 1990s, offer images of objects from across six centuries, and focus in particular on sixteenth- to nineteenth-century British art. This feature focuses on a selection of the damaged and destroyed works that are recorded in the Centre’s photographic archive, and uses them to suggest some of the values and limitations of such archives. It takes the form of three stories. The first offers a glimpse into the work and tragic life of the largely forgotten eighteenth-century artist Hugh Robinson; the second looks at four portraits of women associated with a titled Scottish family, the Rothes, which were totally destroyed during a high-profile warehouse fire in 1997; and the third looks at a damaged sketchbook by the nomadic Georgian artist George Chinnery.
• Dennis Sharp Archive : Concrete and Controversy, the architecture of Connell, Ward & Lucas
  Dennis Sharp (1933-2010) was an architect, designer, author and teacher. The Centre holds Sharp’s archive, which comprises material compiled in the course of his research on the architecture of Connell, Ward and Lucas. The archive is fully catalogued and available for research. This spotlight feature highlights some of the key themes that emerge from the archive and some of the treasures which it contains.
• Discover the groundbreaking multi media exhibition: Our Legacy, Our Home: Club Kali at 30
  In this virtual exhibition we invite you to discover extracts from the materials collected as part of Club Kali’s ‘Where East Meets West’ heritage project: audio and video testimonials, photographic records, archival documents and ephemera, as well as community responses. These materials showcase personal journeys and historical milestones of Club Kali’s 30 years. The original materials are deposited at Bishopsgate Institute, London, and Islington Heritage as a historical and contemporary resource preserving this rich history for future generations. The physical Exhibition was launched in August 2025 at Islington Museum, London, UK.
• Exploration of the Paul Oppé Library and Archive
  Adolphus Paul Oppé (22 September 1878–29 March 1957) was an art historian and collector with a particular interest in British drawings and watercolours from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His scholarly work, like his collecting, focused on figures such as John Sell Cotman, Alexander Cozens, Francis Towne, Paul and Thomas Sandby and Thomas Rowlandson, and contributed considerably to establishing their reputations as major British artists.
• Exploring the Frank Simpson Archive
  Frank Simpson (1911–2002) was a Librarian and amateur art historian with a long-held interest in taste and the collecting of pictures in England in the eighteenth century, particularly from salerooms. The Paul Mellon Centre holds his archive, which includes records from the London office of M. Knoedler & Co., where he worked during the 1950s–1970s. Much of the material in this archive is unique and contains a wealth of information for those interested in the study of provenance, and collections and collecting during the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.
• From Black and White to Colour: Staff Selections from the Paul Mellon Centre's Archives & Library Collections
  This display featured material from across the Archives & Library collections at the Paul Mellon Centre. It demonstrated how various histories of British art and architecture can be told through the unique and sometimes unexpected items held here. The material was selected by staff working in the department and included objects chosen because they are particularly inspiring, unusual, illustrative or hold personal resonance.
• Henry VIII and the IHR Library
  This blog post was written by Sophia Benko, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the IHR Wohl Library.
• Historic View of Illustrated London Periodicals
  A moving snapshot of the archives of The Illustrated London News, The Illustrated War News, The Graphic & The Sphere circa 100 years ago.
• In the Spotlight: Mid-Century Women Artists from the Charles Hasler Collection
  This blog post spotlights and celebrates the work of three women artists who feature in the Charles Hasler collection at the University of Reading Special Collections. All three artists, Eileen Mayo, Barbara Jones and Enid Marx, were very active in the mid-twentieth century, and are notable for developing their own original and innovative styles and interests, and applying their creative talents to a wide variety of different art forms.
• In the Veins
  ‘In the Veins’ resonates through time, using over a century of archive footage to shine a light onto the face of the mining heritage of Yorkshire and the North East of England. A story of hardship and hope, division and defiance, perseverance and pride; this is not a history lesson, it’s an emotional journey that digs deep into the heart of a community built on coal. Commissioned by Teesside University and produced by the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, the film is the result of mining for archive ‘black gold’ in amateur and professional films, promotional footage and regional BBC and ITV television programming and news, totaling over 115 source films, then carefully crafting a respectful production that would represent a proud and often forgotten community. Released in 2024 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the end of the 1984/85 UK year-long coal mining strikes, the 24-minute film has been screened at film festivals, in regional libraries, museums and published on YouTube. Importantly, it has been screened in community centres and village halls in former mining communities across the North of England, many of which are still feeling the effects of the end of the mining industry. Telling the story of the coal industry, but significantly the human experience, through only archive footage and found voices in the vaults of the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, was a massive undertaking. The 13-strong volunteer ‘community curator’ group who have lived and worked in mining communities, at the coalface, in the community, were central to ensure the film was meaningful and authentic.
• Kings and Witches: exploring the sources of Macbeth in the IHR Library
  This blog was written by Michael Townsend, Collections and Metadata Librarian at the IHR Wohl Library.
• Meet the Maker: Dean Morris
  Exploring LGBTQ+ greetings card design with Dean Morris and the Gay Pride Shop in Manchester.
• Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles
  This blog post was written by Kaili Smith and Charlotte Willsmore, Research Support Librarians at IWM London, for History Day 2023 and explores library material relating to the IWM’s exhibition Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles (May 2023- January 2024).
• Oscar Wilde and Classical antiquity: an exhibition
  Between the 31 May and the 13 September 2024, the Combined Library of the Institute of Classical Studies and the Hellenic and Roman societies hosted an exhibition exploring the relationship between Oscar Wilde and the Classical world through the collections of the library.
• Reclaiming a Language: Contextualizing John Eliot’s Genesis
  This blog focuses on how both The Eliot Genesis and Bible were used by European colonisers to enact what Indigenous theologian Tink Tinker describes as a cultural genocide. It also highlights the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project.
• Remembering the East London Gay Community
  The East London Gay Community supported one another and made sure to have a lot of fun! Regular activities ranged from a helpline and coffee evenings to discos and fundraisers. Founded in 1978, the ELGC ran regular events like these for over three decades. Newham Heritage Centre has a significant collection of their newsletters, as revealed in this blog by Heritage Officer, Cas Bradbeer.
• Special Collections at the Institute of Ismaili Studies
  This post is from the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) for History Day 2024. In celebration of History Day, we explore blogs, podcasts and videos, most of which were created by ISCU (Ismaili Special Collections Unit) team members in 2024.
• Special Collections at the Institute of Ismaili Studies
  In celebration of History Day, we explore photo-galleries, upcoming conferences, podcasts, articles and exhibitions which were created by ISCU (Ismaili Special Collections Unit) team members in 2025.
• Ten Minute Talk & Tea: Mine's a Pint of Ale: The History of Drinking at St John's Gate
  Our Events & Partnership Lead Zachariah Young gave a ten minute talk on the history of Drinking at St John's Gate. The Talk starts in the Medieval Period and brewing in the priory and goes all the way to the modern day iteration of the Jerusalem Tavern.