@camunicampop
Interdisciplinary research group at the University of Cambridge. https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/ Follow our blog: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages. https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
📣New blog post alert!📣
Christoph Hess shares his research uncovering the forgotten history of Chinese serfs who picked tea leaves on the mountainous slopes of East China - tea leaves that were then enjoyed in homes across Victorian England. www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
Read about Emily's life-changing move across subjects and continents:
www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/califor...
Emily Chung is a PhD student in History at @stjohnscollege.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk and @camunicampop.bsky.social, supervised by @pramospinto.bsky.social
How epidemic disease offers new perspectives on economic history—and vice versa. Honoured to blog for @camunicampop.bsky.social about my new book “Controlling Contagion”: www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/11... @oxford-esh.bsky.social @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social @PrincetonUPress
"Friedrich Engels 'took creative liberties' with descriptions of class divides in Manchester": @camunicampop.bsky.social PhD student Emily Chung's work featured in @theguardian.com today
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Manchester has long been a model for the class divisions characteristic of British Victorian cities, and this segregation has largely been attributed as a spatial phenomenon as informed by qualitative sources from the period. The digitization of historical source material, however, allows for quantitative assessments of residential differentiation. By analysing patterns of residential distribution using nineteenth-century, individual-level census data, it is revealed that early Victorian Manchester was characterized more by residential heterogeneity than segregation. In light of this finding, this article revisits the source base for early Victorian Manchester in order to reconcile the differences in the physical and social dimensions of segregation for a more accurate and holistic understanding of urban dynamics and the mechanisms of class formation. It explains this dissonance by exploring the city’s architectural, occupational, and cultural structures: while rich and poor lived cheek-by-jowl in the industrial city, temporal rhythms of employment, institutionalized cultures of class, and emerging modes of urban maintenance and discipline all produced practices which differentiated and isolated one class from another.
📣Out now on #firstview!
Emily Chung (@emvchung.bsky.social) (@camhistory.bsky.social) (@camunicampop.bsky.social) on 'Proximity and Segregation in Industrial Manchester'
#Industrialisation #Class #Social #Wealth 19thc 🗃️🏠
👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Was Manchester really as segregated as Engels said? What kept the rich and poor apart.... if anything? My first article is out today in @historicaljnl.bsky.social and I'm so pleased to share it with you all! doi:10.1017/S0018246X25101246
@stjohnscollege.bsky.social @camunicampop.bsky.social
Research by @emvchung.bsky.social one of @camunicampop.bsky.social brilliant PhD students in the Guardian today www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Campop blog #59: Some say rises in lone motherhood since c.1950 indicate breakdown of the nuclear family & call for returns to Victorian values. But 19C levels of lone parenthood & reconstituted families were similar to today's ...
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...
Campop blog #56: >1 in 3 English men in the late 14th C were called John; in 2023 less than 1% of baby boys were given the most popular name, Muhammad. In today's blog Kevin Schurer charts the long evolution of British forenames
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/07...
Now on Early View:
'The disappearance of malaria from Denmark, 1862–1900'.
By Mathias Mølbak Ingholt, Maarten van Wijhe, Lone Simonsen & Daniel Weinberger.
@camunicampop.bsky.social @roskildeuni.bsky.social @yaleemd.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Campop blog #55: Most weddings in the UK take place on Saturdays. @awakelam.bsky.social explains that this is a fairly recent phenomenon, but the rhythms of the working week (as well as costs) have always been important
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...
Campop blog #53: the word 'spinster', like so many words for women, has derogatory implications. Amy Erickson describes its origin in an occupation so ubiquitous for women that it came to be used as a term for any unmarried woman
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...
Campop blog #51: Are uber/deliveroo workers employees? Bob Bennett discusses changes in self-emploment linked to tax structures, and examines how builders, publicans, sales agents and outworkers (etc) were defined in the past
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/06...
Campop blog #50: In 2021, 76% of UK women with children at home were employed: a century earlier about the same % were engaged in 'home duties'. @awakelam.bsky.social explores patterns and implications from the 1921 census
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
Campop blog #48: Are Mrs and Miss, for married/unmarried women, relics of a patriarchal system? Amy Erickson explains that Mrs used to denote a woman of status irrespective of marital status. Read the blog for the history of Miss!
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
If you don’t know your Miss for your Mrs I strongly suggest you read our new @camunicampop.bsky.social blog by Amy Erickson on the history of these titles. www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/05...
Great to spot @camunicampop.bsky.social ‘s data used in the Guardian www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...
Look at this wonderful new paper by @emvchung.bsky.social from @camunicampop.bsky.social !
Image: Sydney Curnow Vosper, Interior with Large Fireplace. Royal Watercolour Society.
2/2 As the pursuit of net zero policies dominate headlines, the next #CAMPOP blog from Prof Paul Warde explains how and why organic fuel gave way to coal - a shift we now know brought hazards on a global scale.
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/
@camunicampop.bsky.social @amrcampop.bsky.social
📣New blog post alert!📣
Why did the transition to a coal-fuelled economy happen where it did, when it did? Paul Warde charts the history of a crucial shift that we now know has brought about dangerous consequences on a global scale.
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
#skystorians
Campop blog #46: For World Vaccination Week, Romola Davenport explains the long history of lockdowns and quarantines (used to control COVID-19 before the vaccine), and how they were used to control plague and smallpox
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...
Campop blog #45: before universal state pensions, did older people rely on family, charity, or community support? Richard Smith explains
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...
📣New blog post alert!📣
Continuing our discussion of older adults in the English past, today's post asks: who looked after the elderly when they were no longer able to work and earn? Did they rely on family, or could they turn to the community for support?
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
#skystorians
Campop blog #44: The law has often been seen as a tool of particular benefit to the rich, particularly in the past. In today's blog Chris Brig outlines ways medieval manorial law could be used to benefit more disadvantaged people
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...
📣New blog post alert!📣
What relationship did ordinary peasants have with the institutions of the law in medieval England? Find out in our latest post from Chris Briggs:
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
#skystorians #medieval
Try the garden kitchen at kettles yard - vegetarian and vegan, plus you're in an art gallery :) @kettlesyard.bsky.social
📣New blog alert!📣
Did anyone retire in the past? What options did older people have before widespread retirement (funded by a pension) became the norm- were they expected to labour until work was no longer physically possible? Find out in our latest post:
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
#skystorians
Campop blog #43: Did anyone retire in the past? Richard Smith explores the options for older people in the past, differing by gender and social status. Until the mid-20C retirement was a luxury not an entitlement
@camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/04...
Read the full paper here: doi.org/10.17863/CAM...
Learn more about the Cambridge Working Papers in Economic and Social History: www.econsoc.hist.cam.ac.uk/working_papers.php
How can we raise the Human Development Index? Life expectancy at birth = 1/3 of the HDI. Infant and maternal deaths started to fall around 1650 – but why? Alice Reid's analysis of a complex, 300-year story. @amrcampop.bsky.social @camunicampop.bsky.social
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/03...