Posts
Victorian Print and Popular Culture Seminar Series
(Research Centre for Literature and Cultural History)
Liverpool John Moores University
Tuesday 7th May 2013
Dr Annemarie McAllister (UCLAN) The Temperance and the Working Class Project: public engagement with academic research on popular culture
The teetotal temperance movement, from its beginnings in Preston in 1832, swept the country and numbered millions of members by its high point just before the first world war. It remained fairly strong in its heartland of the North West for much of the twentieth century, and yet had almost disappeared from popular knowledge by 2012, 180 years after the signing of the first total abstinence pledge. This talk will explore how the 'Temperance and the Working Class' Project has managed to raise the profile of temperance history locally and nationally, an undertaking involving oral history, performances and re-creations, three 'Demon Drink' exhibitions, local and family history events, guided tours, and of course much traditional and social media work. From mounting a pop-up exhibition with volunteers in a local shopping centre and tweeting about it, to singing temperance ballads in costume, the life of an academic takes some strange turns when in receipt of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The story of the Project reveals how nineteeth- and twentieth- century cultural history can provide a focus for the social creation of, recapture of, and debate about community identity. Engagement with historical ideas and artefacts can also relate to current social concerns and influence individual life choices. For more information please see www.demondrink.co.uk and www.demondrinkextra.wordpress.com.
To be held in room 112, Dean Walters Building, St James Road, Liverpool, 5:30pm to 6:45pm. Refreshments to be provided.
For more information contact: Dr Clare Horrocks (Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication) C.L.Horrocks@ljmu.ac.uk.
Liverpool John Moores University
Tuesday 7th May 2013
Dr Annemarie McAllister (UCLAN) The Temperance and the Working Class Project: public engagement with academic research on popular culture
The teetotal temperance movement, from its beginnings in Preston in 1832, swept the country and numbered millions of members by its high point just before the first world war. It remained fairly strong in its heartland of the North West for much of the twentieth century, and yet had almost disappeared from popular knowledge by 2012, 180 years after the signing of the first total abstinence pledge. This talk will explore how the 'Temperance and the Working Class' Project has managed to raise the profile of temperance history locally and nationally, an undertaking involving oral history, performances and re-creations, three 'Demon Drink' exhibitions, local and family history events, guided tours, and of course much traditional and social media work. From mounting a pop-up exhibition with volunteers in a local shopping centre and tweeting about it, to singing temperance ballads in costume, the life of an academic takes some strange turns when in receipt of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The story of the Project reveals how nineteeth- and twentieth- century cultural history can provide a focus for the social creation of, recapture of, and debate about community identity. Engagement with historical ideas and artefacts can also relate to current social concerns and influence individual life choices. For more information please see www.demondrink.co.uk and www.demondrinkextra.wordpress.com.
To be held in room 112, Dean Walters Building, St James Road, Liverpool, 5:30pm to 6:45pm. Refreshments to be provided.
For more information contact: Dr Clare Horrocks (Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication) C.L.Horrocks@ljmu.ac.uk.
