Definition of Social History

Social history examines the lives of everyday people, generally combining women’s history, African American history, immigration studies and working-class history. (Source: CSU/Fullerton)

The pic above, by Théodore Géricault, is called "A Paraletic Woman" (1820). It's part of the "Images of London's Poor" exhibit at The London Museum.  (Source)

Social History/Women

In the 1700s in England, women considered "troublesome" could be punished by being forced to wear something called a "scold’s bridle" in public, and were also sometimes beaten. The use of the scold's bridle was abolished in 1856. (Source: My Learning) (Source for Image)

Science: Luigi Galvani & "animal electricity"

In the late 1786, Italian surgeon Luigi Galvani was experimenting with electricity and dead frogs. By applying sparks of static electricity to the legs of dead frogs, he discovered he could make frog legs twitch. He would also hang dead frogs from brass hooks during thunderstorms (so the metal would conduct electricity), which would also result in twitching. He called this "animal electricity," but it was soon renamed "galvinism."

In the early 1800s, Galvani's nephew toured Europe, demonstrating galvinism on ox heads and even on recently executed criminals. In one case, a London paper reported that the man's the whole body quivered, the right arm raised, and one eye opened, and that it looked as though the whole body were coming back to life. (Source: Frankenstein, a Cultural History)

The image above is a political cartoon from the United States in 1836. So, galvinism was known in the U.S. as well. ("In this 1836 American political cartoon, Jacksonian newspaper editor Francis Preston Blair rises from the grave after receiving a jolt from a galvanic battery." (Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine)

The British Empire.

The British Empire was the empire consisting of Britain and the territories it controlled. It began in the early 1600's and peaked around the end of World War I, around 1920. At its height it included the British Isles, parts of the West Indies, Canada, Guyana, parts of West Africa, parts of East Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand. (Princeton)

By 1815, Britain had become the dominant world power--it's power and wealth having been built on the slave trade and on the growing world demand for crops grown in British colonies, like sugar, tobacco, cotton, tea, and coffee. (George Mason University)

Jooyean Posts

Technology, science and Frankenstein

Mary Shelley must have been inspired from the improvement in science and technology for some parts of the novel. Enhancement in science and by unveiling secrets of nature brought Victor Frankenstein (or the author) the whole idea of creating another being, hoping to make improvements on the original one. He imagines it as some kind of a  superhuman  that is safe from disease and other harmfulness and looks up to the creator, which is Victor himself. When Victor was 13 years old, he became aware of natural philosophy by reading books written by philosophers including Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and Albertus. He shows such passion to  penetrate the secrets of nature . To quote from the book, he says  what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!  From this quote, we can see Victor s thirst for knowledge. At that time, Victor did not know what he was getting himself into  he did not know that the knowledge he was so captured with were dangerous and forbidden knowledge. (Source: Shelley)

Posted by Frankenstein102 at 7:02 PM 0 comments

Labels: Jooyean(Jenny), Science in the late 18th century through early 19th century

Shareef's Empire Posts

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means of getting these slaves, in some cases by raiding villages and kidnapping the people. They would torture them, deprive them of basic necessities such as food and drink, even fresh air on the ship coming to the new land. These people were treated worse than animals, beaten and abused. They had enough and resisted. Even though they resisted the slave trade since it began. The Slaves retaliated as a whole, in some incidents in the thousands. Major slave revolts followed throughout the Caribbean. The successful slave revolt which made Haiti independent in 1804 was an inspiration to other countries such as Barbados, Cuba and Jamaica. The revolts shocked the British government and made them see that the costs and dangers of keeping slavery in the West Indies were too high. Plantation owners were finally ready to accept abolition rather than risk a widespread war. Great Britain suffered and did not want to fight another war after the series of wars they fought at this time as in 1812 against America and the French Revolution in 1815. The French Revolution also brought ideas of liberty and equality, which inspired those seeking an end to slavery. Besides, the industrial revolution in the 18th century, Britain no longer needed slave-based goods. The country was more able to prosper from new systems which required high efficiency, through free trade and free labor. Cotton, rather than sugar, became the main produce of the British economy and English towns. The British the British Empire passed a Bill to abolish slave trade in 1807 and in 1833, slavery was abolished for good. The act, did not free enslaved people, they were to become "apprentices" for 6 years and some were paid small wages as planters. Protests finally forced the government to abolish the apprenticeship system in 1838(Sources:http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/DIASPORA/REBEL.HTMl, http://caribbean-guide.info/past.and.present/history/slave.rebellion)

Posted by Frankenstein102 at 2:52 PM 0 comments

Labels: British Empire, Shareef Khan

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Frankenstein's creature a "colony"

Mary Shelley, portrays Victor Frankenstein s Creation as a sophisticated and intelligent creature. The creature is misjudged because of his appearance. He is seen as a hideous and a strange thing, even Victor, who created him, looked at him and fled. Frankenstein s creature is looked down and is seen as a  colony  in some shape or form. He is judged and misunderstood, the only person who appreciates him is a blind man. Hence, because he cannot see what this creature really looks like. The creature can be also be seen as a  rebellion colony , he wants to prove his point and show Victor that he is more than what he appears to be.

(Source:http://past.oxfordjournals.org/content/85/1/99.extract)

Posted by Frankenstein102 at 2:19 PM 0 comments

Labels: British Empire, Shareef Khan

British Empire in the West Indies.

The British West Indies were colonies of the Kingdom of the Great Britain. This affected me as an individual because my family descended from this area from the countries Trinidad and Guyana. The West Indies, also known as the Caribbean is a tropical area of over one million sq. feet of 27 territories. Britian took advantage of the region's sugar industry, owning five of the ten most profitable sugar islands. Slaves and indentured servents worked on the sugar, cotton and rice fields and plantations. Some were given the opportunity to work in the factories, but were still deprived of their rights. From the 17th century until the 19th century, almost twelve million Africans were brought to the New World against their will to perform back-breaking labor under terrible conditions. The Africans were sold in many ways. Some were sold to traders by other Africans, others were forced aboard ships to be taken across the Atlantic on a voyage that was called "the middle passage . Africans were chained and packed into quarters unfit for movement or proper breathing. The only hope of escape rested in suicide by jumping overboard. They had the right to punish slaves in any way with any weapon, Slaves were preferable choices over indentured servants. Slaves had no right to food or shelter like indentured servants. When slavery ended in the British Empire in 1833, plantation owners turned to indentured servitude for inexpensive labor. These servants arrived from across the globe; the majority came from India. Slaves and Indentured Servants were tortured on these plantations. Britain influenced this region with the religion of Christanity; Sports, cricket, rugby and soccer; food, tea, bread and cheese; and the English language.(Source:http://www.caribbeanislands.us,http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/gothic/imperial.html)

Posted by Frankenstein102 at 11:35 AM 0 comments

Labels: British Empire, Shareef Khan

Dev's Enlightenment Posts

“I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world” said Victor Frankenstein. The quote exemplifies the idea of misused knowledge which spurred Victor to create the Monster. Knowledge was very important to the enlightenment thinkers and they wanted secular knowledge and so Shelley says in this quote that the misuse of knowledge can lead to your downfall. This idea relates to the French Revolution that was sparked by the Enlightenment and led Napoleon Bonaparte to power. Shelley also states the relationship between creator and being, giving a sort of satire of God and us as we were created by God.

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“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.’ Said the Monster. This quote ties into my previous research because it precisely demonstrates to us that the Monster is an evil being worthy of no person’s affection. The hate of the world against him, The Monster does not fight back which unlike the stereotypical perception of a monster we have in our minds. In this way, we can say that The Monster has some compassion and empathy for human life even though he is so despised he wishes he were never born.