MOSTLY WOOLGATHERING

In a short essay by Peter Stearns he asks the question -  Why Study History?   [1] Why indeed?  Surely all that matters is the here and now. The present?  After all that is all I am, all any of us are, in the present.  In his summation of why people study history although as he states while there may be many facets and passages of inquiry, his basic thought is when we boil it all down there are two driving notions, relying on two fundamental facts. 1) History Helps Us Understand People and Societies 2) History Helps Us Understand Change and How the Society We Live in Came to Be  I'd agree with that. But for me that is all just a little too dry. For me, struggling to make sense of the world as an independent researcher, history has always been about connections. Connections are exciting. Connections send research down uncharted rabbit holes of adventure, often deviating widely from the planned path theoris...

There has been an upsurge of interest in the Yorkshire landowner and diarist Anne Lister (1790-1840), tumbling out of the recent HBO/BBC series called Gentleman Jack. This beautifully created and executed (based on real diary entries) fictionalised account of the seduction of Ann Walker, by Anne, brought the life of the latter to a global audience. Hitherto this remarkable 'Spireted Yorkshirewoman' as Muriel M Green described her in her unpublished PhD back in the 1930’s remained essentially a person of local or academic interest.  There is no doubt that Anne was, and remains almost 200 years later, a fascinating if somewhat troubling person to research. Today, her sexual encounters with women could be seen as controlling or predatory. On the wider sphere her manipulation of the people around her seems cold, often ruthless. Look back to the early 1800s and Anne was however a product of her time. This was the time of class, social rank, ancestry and money; men ruled, women...

I'm in the last month of my day by day blog posting and it's been enjoyable. At the beginning of this process I had a feeling the latter part of 2018 and into 2019 would provide a catalyst. A catalyst for what was not clear on my horizon of change. But I knew there'd be something and it has done this with spades (not that Catalysts use spades). I never thought when I began this blog back in September 2018 that I'd meet Anne Lister. I used that phrase in it's more esoteric sense as I never met her, having died 124 years before I was born. But her appearance in my life in the spring of 2019, reignited a passion I'd foolishly allowed to become dormant, that of history, archives and researching interconnected associations and attempting to make sense of it all.  Three decades ago when working for a public library I'd spend hours in the 'stack', a dark, underground treasure trove of history in print. Nothing better than moving the compactor shelvi...