My birthday is in March, so all specialty lists in my Shop are 50% off. Choose from 12 different categories and get links to recent academic journal articles about that topic. Whether you are interested in historical fashion or food or crime (or 9 other topics), there is something for everyone.

Use code: birthday

Academic journals are usually built around a main theme into which all their articles fit. Like historians, journals specialize.

A journal’s theme may be a time period (Victorian Studies), a geographical region (BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review), or a specific subject (Medical History: An International Journal for the History of Medicine and Related Sciences).

A journal may even combine more than one of those specifics, like region and subject (Asian Medicine), or time period and region (Twentieth Century British History). I have 900 journals in the database that I use to create my lists of article links, so you can imagine the combinations and levels of specificity.

Sometimes a journal will get even more specific and publish a special issue about a theme within the theme of the journal. Just to give you an idea, here’s a list of just a few of the special thematic issues that were included in the last four of my weekly subscription lists.

Centaurus: An International Journal of the History of Science and its Cultural Aspects 61:1-2 (2019) Fun and Fear: The banalization of nuclear technologies through display

Information & Culture: A Journal of History 55:1 (2020) A History of Women in British Telecommunications

Early Science and Medicine 24:5-6 (2019) Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy

Food and History 16:2 (2018) Food and Art in the Nineteenth Century

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 32:1 (2020) Cities and Citizenship after Rome

Atlantic Studies: Global Currents 17:1 (2020) African-heritage partner dances: Creolizing connection, transnational movement

What would your dream thematic journal issue be about?

Digital Research Resource

One of the things that gives life to a story, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, is detail about where and when and what people eat. For those of you writing about the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, the New York Public Library has the digitized collection you need.

Right at your fingertips are menus from restaurants and special events. Learn about food, drink, prices, politics, advertising, and design. Careful, though, as you might not be able to tear yourself away for hours.

If you don’t want to dive straight in, here are links to a couple of articles that explain the collection and include samples of the digital menus.

“The New York Public Library’s digital menu collection is filled with classic foods like stuffed pigeon and calf brain soup” by Caitlin Harper.

“The New York Public Library Menu Collection” by Rebecca Federman.

New Specialty Lists

I’ve recently posted five new specialty lists for Februar in my Shop. Each list is a compilation of links to 15 academic journal articles related to the specialty topic, available for only $2.99.

• Clothing, Fashion, and Textiles
• Disease
• Food and Drink
• Sex and Sexuality
• Weddings, Marriage, and Divorce

Use the titles and articles to find inspiration and maybe that historical tidbit that brings your story to life.

One of the benefits of running a business that compiles historical research is that I see articles that I would never think to search for, and therefore would have missed.

The December 2019 (volume 62, issue 4) issue of The Historical Journal from Cambridge University Press includes this open access article, “Male Anxiety Among Younger Sons of the English Landed Gentry, 1799-1900” by Henry French and Mark Rothery. To access the full article from my link, simply choose the button to View HTML or the button to download PDF.

The authors use family correspondence to explore the anxiety of younger sons, and their parents and guardians, trying to find their way within a system that privileged only the eldest son. It is an interesting, though sometimes depressing, read.

To make the most of this and other articles, download your copy of my free ebook sharing the benefits of using these peer-reviewed academic journal articles for your research.

Digital Research Resource

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court, was a periodical published for a commercial audience. These were published accounts of the trials that were held at the Old Bailey. They were not actual transcripts, but rather summaries with the boring parts removed.

The content of Proceedings from 1674-1913 are available and searchable online. This is 239 years of an amazing primary resource. Reading through the articles will tell you not only about the crimes but will also give you an idea of changes in the language people used, occupations, the practice of law, and the practice of medicine. They also included advertisements – a glimpse into what was being sold at any specific time, but also what products and services were targeted to the audience of the Proceedings.

This entire site is a gold mine for anyone writing about history during that period.

I recommend this resource to find inspiration for new ideas or to flesh out your plot with interesting details. Ok, you’re human, you might also just want to search it for the more sensational bits. Either way, have fun!

New Specialty Lists This Week

I’ve recently posted three new specialty lists in my Shop for Disease, Slavery and Abolition, and Medicine and Health. Each list is a compilation of links to 15 academic journal articles related to the specialty topic, available for only $2.99.

You can find inspiration, background information, or maybe even that historical tidbit that brings your story to life.