We started our search with the IUCAT to find related materials with similar subject matter. Since the second phase asked us to mainly focus on finding textual and visual ephemera, we focused our search around illustrations or books with illustrations. First, we went to IUCAT website, which can be found by navigating to the libraries section of IUB’s main website. After making sure to choose Bloomington as our campus, we entered in “venereal diseases” into the “keywords or anywhere” bar of the search box. We also made sure the Bloomington’s Lilly Library was selected to ensure that our search results were refined. This search produced 11 results, and from there we started exploring our options.
The ninth entry interested us because it was full of information and pictures related to venereal diseases. It’s called, “A manual of venereal diseases: being a condensed description of those affections and their homoeopathic treatment” Edward Carroll Franklin. The manual was published in 1883 in Chicago. Since it was published in Chicago and written about thirteen years after the pamphlets in the London Lowlife Collection, we thought that this resource could give us a look into the situation and public opinion about venereal diseases in America, thereby giving us a transatlantic understanding of the general outlook of the diseases. The link to further information about this resource is: http://www.iucat.iu.edu.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/8CRJmeX0ud/B-WELLS/301921447/9
We were also intrigued by the fifth entry produced by our search. This material also included illustrations, but the main reason why it interested us was because it was published in 1916 and provided follow up information on the success of The Contagious Diseases Acts. It is entitled: “Final report of the Commissioners / Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases.” It was printed in London and could provide insight as to whether or not the letters written in response of the acts were ever listened to or not. This link to further information about this resource is: http://www.iucat.iu.edu.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/dwn4DdA3AP/B-WELLS/301921447/9
Beyond using IUCAT to find resources, we also looked at the Lilly Library’s illustrated medical books. In particular, the book that we looked at was “Notable Medical Books.” It included authors and subjects from various time periods. We found an entry written by Philippe Ricord on page 191 that was published in 1851 and included a picture of a man suffering from syphilis. The entry also included information about the disease, along with others.
As well as searching for visual ephemera, the second phase also suggested looking at the Pall Mall Gazette, an evening newspaper and review. We went back to the IUCAT website and did a periodical search, typing “Pall Mall Gazette” into the keywords search. This gave us three results, the Pall Mall Gazette as an electronic resource, on microfilm, and in its original state, which was located at the Lilly library. We felt that seeing the material for ourselves would enable us to get the most out of the experience, so we noted down the call number and went to the reading room at the Lilly Library to request the material. We were required to fill out a card indicating what we wanted to see, and then we waited for them to bring the material out for us.
The newspaper was bound together into two books and contained numerous issues from 1885. While this was fifteen years after the material we had already read from the London Lowlife Collection, the newspapers offered interesting material on our topic. We found a story entitled “Babylon” which ran for a number of days in July 1885. The story addressed the issue of child prostitution, looking at who was responsible for protecting children from entering into prostitution, as well as the how to prevent the spread of disease within the industry.
The articles were from Tuesday July 7th 1885 No.6337 Vol xlii and Wednesday July 8th 1885. For more information on this source, please see:
http://www.iucat.iu.edu.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/z8UDXAPo55/B-WELLS/293211418/9
We also found an article called “The church and the new crusade” which focused on the Church of England purity society, which was involved with helping manage the issue of prostitution. The article was from the August 7th 1885 issue No.6364 Vol. Xlii and was written by E.D.W. Cantuar.
3 comments:
Alyssa and Charlotte,
I like that you used multiple types of source material covering a range of topics because it will really help to make a solid thesis for the paper. I am personally interested in taking a look at the article examining the church's role in curbing prostitution since religion was mentioned in I believe all three of the primary sources we looked at for Phase 1. It might be interesting to see if Cantuar finds any of the church's tactics to be positive, since it has gotten some harsh criticism from the women writers we have looked at so far.
Alyssa and Charlotte,
Because of my interest in Charlotte's first post on this topic, I decided to return and see the development of your research and, in general, how things are going. It seems from this post that you found quite a lot of interesting things to keep your research of the London Lowlife Collection going strong.
I originally found it a little funny how risky your first search may have been, but it seems like it gave way to some very informative materials. It was impressive to see you actually pursue the manual that was written by Edward Carroll Franklin. Many would have written this off as it did not happen in London, but I think that it is vital to get as much information about public perception as possible. I think it could potentially be very interesting if you used this research later and maybe did a little compare/contrast between the thoughts of London, and the thoughts of those across the pond.
I would have maybe liked a little more description about the picture that you found associated with Philippe Ricord. You certainly peaked my curiosity with this as it seemed to be a very concrete piece of visual ephemera. Was the picture rather sympathetic towards men? What did it look like in general? Was it rather persuasive, or simply informative?
It seems like you both found a lot of textual ephemera, but only limited visual evidence. I was just wondering if you perhaps checked outside solely the Lilly for these images. While this project is centered mostly around the Lilly Library, it seems to me like the Wells might house a lot of medical books that could provide wonderful visuals for you to consider in other phases of your project. If not the Wells, then I am sure the internet can lead you to some older depictions of venereal disease.
Finally, I truly appreciate the links, but they did not work. The effort was there though, and it was certainly a good idea.
As I have said on other posts, well done. Clearly with all the questions I had you have held on to my interest in the development of your project. I wish you all the best with phase three.
Alyssa and Charlotte,
I thought your post was really informative and specific. The links are a really nice touch so if someone wanted to find the information then they could get directly to it. I think it's interesting that you decided to go for images and newspapers. Sometimes it's better to try to find other resources besides just essays and I think you both acknowledged that. I also like your comparison between England and America.
I would like to see what other resources you could bring in to really explore the London Lowlife Collection and how it applied to women of that time period. Good luck on phase three.
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