An old woman with a pointy hat, cauldron, broom, cat, and smelly brew? Why, she must be a witch! This tableau has titillated and thrilled and terrified Europeans and Americans for centuries. But this woman is not communing with the devil or cursing her neighbors. She’s not even making herbal Read more…
Marissa and Sarah discuss Georgians’ and Victorians’ love affair with Tuberculosis and the tuberculean aesthetic in fashion and art. In Georgian London, some diseases started to seem fashionable, desirable even. Gambling was popular, elites were using snuff and drinking spirits, powdering their hair, whitening their faces with toxic creams, damaging Read more…
In early modern Europe—that’s about 1500 to 1800—warfare changed dramatically, mostly due to the rise of gunpowder weapons. The introduction of artillery and shoulder arms to early modern European warfare had immediate consequences such as changing fortress design, necessitating the switch from cavalry to infantry, and the building of large Read more…