July HistoryCAT: Social History

Social history is a relatively new type of history which became a discipline around the 1970s. It is particularly concerned with how people lived in the past. For many years when one studied history it was about politics, geographic expansion, military endeavors, or the history of famous people. Groups and individuals such as common women, blacks, and indigenous people were not included.

Social history can be divided into subfields such as women's history, racial history in various countries (called African-American in the United States), indigenous history, labor history, urban history, rural history, and history of topics such as education or the family.

For this challenge either nonfiction or fiction is acceptable.

Below are a few suggestions, most of which are nonfiction.
Daily Life in Medieval Times by Frances Gies
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman
If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Y. Davis
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Many historical novels have been written on social history topics.

For example, three recent novels are about packhorse librarians in rural Kentucky:
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moys, and Along a Storied Trail by Ann H. Gabhart.

The Underground Railroad is featured in:
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier, and The Third Mrs. Galway by Deirdre Sinnott (available in early July).

Links to social history books include:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/15812191 (actually social history bestsellers)
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/social-history

Remember to post your reading on the HistoryCAT wiki, https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2021_HistoryCAT

I think I might read Necropolis: London And Its Dead by Catherine Arnold or The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

I seem to have a lot of choices for this one: Radium Girls, The Underground Railroad, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Debt: The First 5000 Years are the top contenders. Even The Scarlet Letter or The Witch of Blackbird Pond would work here.

Excellent, I wasn't sure what this would entail. I have The Five, so will aim to read that.

I'm thinking of Svetlana Alexievich's Last Witnesses or possibly The Five.

I have lots of options. In looking through some of the print ones on hand, two emerged as leaders for filling this: Beyond the Household: Women's Place in the Early South, 1700-1835 by Cynthia A. Kierner and Children Bound to Labor: The Pauper Apprentice System in Early America by Ruth Wallis Herndon. Who knows? I might even read both.

P.S. - I almost forgot. We're reading The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live by Danielle Drelinger for my online book club, so that one will fit too.

>2 Robertgreaves: Ooh, I have Necropolis as well! Maybe I'll read that one.

Even before you mentioned it in >1 sallylou61:, I had Caste / Isabel Wilkerson as an option.

Another that might come in at the library for me next month (it was meant for this month or last!) is The Last Runaway, which you've also mentioned in >1 sallylou61:.

One other option I was thinking of:
And the Violins Stopped Playing / Alexander Ramati

I'm going to read The Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer. I like mysteries, and this is one. But it's also supposed to be a good look at Eastern European society under Russian occupation during the Cold War.

I read The Bridge of Sighs a few years ago and thought it fairly good.

I finished my book early, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. This is a great book! Highly recommended! A true story in novel form about: 1) "blue bloods" 2) Great Depression and FDR's WPA programs 3) Traveling pack mule library routes.

I have finished A la table des seigneurs, des moines et des paysans du Moyen Âge which explains how your standing on the social pyramid defines what you eat. Full of interesting facts and gorgeous pictures from illuminated manuscripts.

I'm counting The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe for this CAT. The main character becomes a police matron in 1907 Los Angeles, and the novel touches on issues of prostitution, police corruption, and the role of women in society.

I finished The Five, which was interesting,but could have been a more rounded book than it was.

G'ah. Well, the one I wanted to read says there's one copy available at the library (audio), but it won't let me check it out for some reason. So, I'm on a hold list. Had I known it wouldn't allow me to check it out when I was ready (despite saying it's available!), I would have put the hold on earlier.

Anyway, I will get to it; it just might not be this month.

Oh, the book:
Caste / Isabel Wilkerson

>10 hailelib: It was nicely done. Bleak, but I was expecting that.

Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra presents the Nebra Sky Disc, its discovery, analysis and interpretation, and how this changed our view of Bronze Age society in Germany.

August thread is up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/333707

I just finished Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres, which looked at the lives and work of several 18th and 19th century British governesses. An interesting look at how women coped, and didn't, in a time of limited options.

I'm counting My Lady Ludlow and Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell because they are about day to day life in a country village. I found the social distinctions particularly interesting, and enjoyed both books for their kindness and gentle humour.

I was able to get my hands on the book via a "skip the line" copy. I only had 7 days to read it for this one, so I did manage to finish this month, after all!

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents / Isabel Wilkerson
3.75 stars

In this book, African-American author, Isabel Wilkerson, argues that the United States has a caste system with African-Americans at the bottom. She makes comparisons to the caste system in India (with Untouchables at the bottom) and with the Nazi regime in Germany. Caste is a bit different from social class in that you are born into your caste and you can never get out of it.

This was interesting. I was particularly drawn in by the Nazi comparisons, and I think that’s what I will remember the most of this book. I have to admit I unlikely to remember the list of “pillars” of the system (she did a chapter on each). I’d like to say the first half (which included those pillars) wasn’t as interesting, but it just depended on what she was talking about at the time. She has plenty of anecdotes through history, including her own. She also discusses politics, particularly the 2016 election, as well as the elections that brought Barack Obama to power. Of course, there is a lot about slavery, the Jim Crow laws, and the Confederacy, as well. She does do a really good job explaining and making the comparisons. This is – most definitely – well worth reading.

I immersed myself in England in Transition: Life and Work in the Eighteenth Century by M. Dorothy George.

I read The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. A gentle story, sad, but with little sentimentality. Dean did a remarkable job of portraying the degeneration of Marina's mind, and of the Hermitage Museum.

COMPLETED The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Starting A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders

I've read Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts. This novel is a fictional account both of the lives of Frank and Maud Gage Baum and of the filming of the Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland. When the Baums were married Frank was an actor in his own traveling company. However, the company failed and the Baums lived in poverty on the prairie in the Northwest and later in Chicago. Frank, an optimist, had several wonderful ideas and would put money into achieving them only to have them fail. However, he was a wonderful storyteller, and eventually became an author writing The Wizard of Oz and many books after that. The story of the Baums ends with his writing The Wizard of Oz. However, that novel was made into a movie, and Maud Baum, nearly twenty years after her husband's death, was involved in attempting to ensure the movie was true to the book and at the same time being a support to Judy Garland. This book describes both the difficult 19th century life on the prairie and the treatment of movie stars at work in the 1930s. Although it is fictional, it is heavily based on facts.

COMPLETED A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders

>26 Robertgreaves: How was it? I almost borrowed it to listen to, but decided it might make more sense on paper. I remain intrigued by it.

>27 Helenliz: TBH I found it rather dry and a bit of a slog to get through. The ancient world/early middle ages and modern times were interesting, but say the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries were more detailed than I really wanted and rather repetitive.

I just finished Ann Granger's The Companion, a mystery set in Victorian England that discusses London slums, orphanages, and poor working conditions.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this challenge. It sounds as if you read some interesting books. Hope you enjoyed your reading.