POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH PAPER

  • Home
  • Clothing
  • Heating, Lighting, Plumbing
  • Furniture
  • Cooking
  • Servants
  • Infant care
  • Child-rearing
  • Women-class distinctions, gender distinctions
  • Men-class distinctions, gender distinctions
  • City vs. country
  • Seasonal amusements
  • Toys and games
  • Social activities
  • Washing day
  • Gardening
  • Education
  • Dames' schools
  • Tutors and governesses
  • Public schools (Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster)
  • Girls' schools
  • Charity schools
  • Dissenting academies
  • Oxford and Cambridge
  • Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin
  • Apprenticeships
  • Inns of Court (law)
  • The Grand Tour
  • Work
  • Professions:
  • barristers and solicitors,
  • clergymen of the Church of England,
  • officers in the army and navy,
  • physicians,
  • ??authors,
  • ??artists,
  • ??scholars and professors (University only);
  • land owner
  • Work for "genteel" women:
  • homemaker,
  • companion,
  • governess;
  • as widow, or, exceptionally, as single heiress: landowner
  • marginally, with capital, landlady or school mistress (owner only)
  • Upper and middle middle-class jobs (some available to women as well as men):
  • mill owner,
  • mine owner,
  • shipping, 
  • banking, surgeons and man-midwives,
  • school masters
  • gentleman farmers
  • brewers
  • printers and book-sellers (=publishers)
  • linen drapers (cloth)
  • ?? estate managers
  • ??theatre owners
  • Middle and lower middle-class jobs: trades that involved personal service, such as 
  • tailors, 
  • hatters, 
  • shoemakers, 
  • glaziers
  • hardware mongers
  • owners of pubs, livery stables, inns, and hotels
  • apothecaries
  • master weavers
  • architects and builders
  • skilled artisans, such as
  • glass blowers, 
  • cabinet makers, 
  • makers of riding boots, 
  • typesetters, master weavers, architects and builders
  • butchers
  • grocers
  • drivers of stage coaches, etc.
  • Trades that paid little but were "genteel"
  • clerks (secretaries and assistants to those in upper and middle middle-class jobs and professions),
  • ushers (lower teachers in schools),
  • lower clergy (curates), 
  • scriveners and other copyists
  • correctors of the press (=copy editors)
  • ??music and dancing masters
  • Trades that might pay a lot but were dubiously genteel: 
  • actors and other performers, 
  • overseas entrepreneurs, 
  • creators of patent medicines
  • midwife
  • Lower class jobs: hard, dirty labor, including 
  • farm laborers, 
  • workers in the new factories,
  • soldiers and sailors
  • assistants to the workers in the less desirable middle-class jobs
  • Night watchman
  • Servants: Servants had their own hierarchy. A boy might work up from 
  • stable-hand to coachman, 
  • from gardener's boy to master gardener, 
  • from boot-boy to footman to butler or "gentleman's gentleman" (valet); 
  • a girl might work up from scullery maid to housemaid to parlormaid to housekeeper, lady's maid, or cook; or from nursery maid to nurse or nanny (not governess). 
  • Public places and activities
  • Pleasure gardens (Vauxhall, Ranelagh)
  • Transportation (boats and ships, stage, mail, post; hackney carriages, chairs)
  • Theatres
  • Pubs
  • Coffee houses
  • Clubs
  • Eating houses
  • Concerts
  • Fairs and shows
  • Puppet theatres
  • Prisons
  • Hospitals
  • The Tower of London
  • Public gardens and promenades (Kew, Kensington, Pall Mall, etc)
  • Shopping emporia
  • Religion
  • The Church of England
  • Catholics
  • Jews
  • Dissenters 
  • Quakers
  • Methodists
  • "Freethinkers"
  • Exploration
  • The Microscope and new science
  • The Telescope and new science
  • Technology and engineering
  • Nursing
  • Parliament
  • Court of Chancery
  • Criminal law
  • Bow Street Runers
  • Employment Agency (Henry and John Fielding)
  • Bankruptcy and debt
  • The Postal System
  • Insurance (Lloyd's Coffee House)
  • Gambling
  • Cock fighting
  • Boxing
  • Hunting

  • Football and cricket
      Some Confusing Words in 18th c. and 21st c. English

    candour does not mean frankness; it means kindness, good will
    discover doesn't always mean find or find out; it often means reveal ordisclose
    disgusting doesn't mean repulsive, just distasteful
    eat may be used instead of ate
    general means wide ranging, not abstract
    great means powerful, not necessarilyexcellent
    meat can mean any kind of food
    nature can mean reality
    sentiments can mean thoughts, not feelings
    vulgar means ordinary, commonplace, not coarsely low
    slut means untidy person, not sexually licentious woman
    enthusiastic often implies inflated religious opinions, not excited approval of something
     

    (based on Donald J. Greene, in his edition of Johnson's Works (Oxford Standard Authors)