Jack the Ripper Museum – RIP?

The museum that opened in 2015 to a cacophony of protests, petitions and national outrage has run out of money. News of the insolvency spread like wild fire online (although thanks to Dr Louise Raw discovering this fact, not because the museum itself announced it.) And understandably, thinking the museum was out of money and, again, with no word from The Jack the Ripper Museum, people assumed it was about to shut its doors.

Apparently not – a spokesperson for the museum told me:

‘I am confirming we are not closed; we have closed for a few days due to Covid 19 and lack of tourists in London.  You can check our website for updates and there is a notice in our window.’

I did ask for a statement regarding the insolvency and financial future of the museum, none has been given at the time of writing. So according to the museum, they are not closed (admitedly, they didn’t say they wouldnt be permantly closing, despite being asked…but benefit of the doubt). Which is good news for the museum’s staff, because hey, during covid the museum sector has already seen far to many redunacies. BUT that being said, it’s not all good news, because having declared themselves insolvent, The Jack the Ripper Museum is on pretty shaky ground.

So, what went wrong and can the museum ever be turned around? Let’s look at the issues:

Issue one – Lack of Trust

It would not be unfair to say that The Jack the Ripper Museum was founded on lies. The community who live around the museum were told that it was going to be a women’s history museum. It wasn’t until the signage came up that anyone knew otherwise.

And it wasn’t just the local community. The museums architect, Andrew Waugh, publicly came out and said he was ‘duped’ into working on the museum, after being told it was a women’s history museum. Saying:

“The local community was duped, we were duped. They came to us and said they had no money but that this is a real heartfelt project. It is incredibly important to celebrate women in politics in the East End. We really ran with it. We did it at a bargain-basement fee, at cost price because we thought it was a great thing to do.”

To make amends, the museum announced that they would be partnering with a women’s domestic violence charity – which again, turned out to be wholly untrue. The charity had never been contacted by the museum and later asked to be taken off their website.

Then came the museums claim that the name of the museum was never actually, The Jack the Ripper Museum. In a 2015 interview with The Londonist, museum founder, Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe explained:

‘The full name of the museum is ‘The Jack the Ripper and the History of Women in East London’. The frontage is not finished and still in the planning stage.’

Yet the name remains the same, as did the frontage until the local community demanded it was taken down in 2017.

Issue Two – No comment

In light of all of this, The Jack the Ripper Museum choosing to disengage from social media and press seemed understandable, if a little petulant. Faced with this utter shit storm immediately upon opening, museum management could either apologise, shutter and makes amends, or just dig their heels in and weather it out. And of course, they chose the latter option.

But the issue here is that this phase of battening down the hatches has never stopped. The museum regularly either refuse or ignore requests for statements (even getting that tiny quote at the top of this article was like pulling teeth). And of course, they have set an unparalleled precedent for social media account blocking. Whenever there is even a hint of online criticism or discontent, that block button is quickly pressed.

Having worked in museum communications I can tell you that I’ve never seen a museum do this before. And that’s not because The Jack the Ripper Museum are ground-breaking communication mavericks. No – it’s because this strategy of refusing to engage and burying their heads in the sand is, frankly, insane.

For one thing by doing this the museum alienate themselves from journalists, the history community and you know, general visitors. Which has massively reduced the amount of press and social engagement they are able to generate after that initial wave of negative publicity when they opened. When was the last time you saw them in a museum Twitter chat or an article on them that wasn’t wholly negative and from 2015-2017?

But arguably the biggest example of why this communications strategy is so catastrophically bad is that when the internet found out The Jack the Ripper Museum had declared insolvency and could be shuttering its doors – the museum seemed to have had no idea. When I asked them about this claims, they said they had never seen or heard anything about them. If true, that’s almost certainly because they’d blocked everyone who was sharing the news from their social media (with the vast majority of these people being female historians)

This meant that for several days The Jack the Ripper Museum management were seemingly totally unaware that news that their museum was closing was being spread around social media. And to really emphasis what a monumental clusterfuck that is, let us remember this: the news of the museums insolvency and probable closure was readily accepted – without a statement from the museum needed. That’s a pretty damning indictment of how The Jack the Ripper Museum chooses to engage with the public,

Issue Three – the actual experience

Ok, lets hit pause on talking about the topics and contents inside the museum (don’t worry I’ll get to that momentarily). What about the actual visitor experience? Is it any good?

Well for £10 general admission (£8 for kids) you get access to the small museum, which lies over six floors with roughly one room per floor. These rooms are a mix of walk-in scenes with little to no interpretation (for example the ‘Mitre Square murder scene’) and walk in scenes with light interpretation (e.g the ‘morgue’ and ‘one of the Ripper victims rooms’)

It’s clearly designed to be immersive, as you flit from streets to ‘Jack’s living room’, with each room having its own soundscape, which runs the gamut from a women’s screams and cries of ‘murder!’, to light folky singing. Effort has been made; there just seemingly wasn’t the budget for it to be well executed. Many areas are very sparsely dressed and most of the rooms are inhabited with some kind of dodgy waxwork with an equally dodgy wig.

The Mitre Square ‘scene’

Then there’s the total lack of quality historic content. It’s all very vague; ‘here’s a Victorian bonnet, maybe a victim wore one like it.’ With short and non-descript panels on the walls and staircases to provide light information. It all feels very last minute presentation and you can see why some visitors have compared it to a live version of the Jack the Ripper Wikipedia page.

On the whole, you can see the entire museum in an hour, but when I’ve visited I’ve seen people in and out within ten minutes – shuffle around, take a selfie with a murdered woman’s waxwork and you’re done. There’s no revisit value. Even the most hardened Ripperologist would struggle on finding a reason to return. Once you’ve gotten past the end of the pier house of horrors ‘I can’t believe this exists’ cheap thrill – there is nothing there.

And that can in no small way have contributed to The Jack the Ripper Museums money troubles. After all, no small museum can finically survive on a diet that consists solely of one off ‘well I was going to the Tower of London, might as well pop in’ visits.

Issue four – It shouldn’t exist

At least not like this. Of course, there’s the argument that a museum that claimed to be a women’s history museum and then turned out to be a Jack the Ripper museum shouldn’t exist in the first place. But it does. And (at least according to their management) it will continue to exist.

But it shouldn’t as it is now. Way back in 2015 we were living in a world that was pre-Hallie Rubenhold’s, The Five. When people could say to The Jack the Ripper Museum, please don’t just shove up pictures of the victims dead bodies in a make shift morgue and say that’s their whole story. And they could shrug, because it would be hard to find out more information on every victim and they were such a small team that they just didn’t have capacity…

Well, welcome to 2020, when Hallie Rubenhold has published a bestselling book on the lives of each victim. It’s been out for a year, proving that:

1. Yes, the information does exist and you have easy access to it
2. People are clearly interested in knowing more about these women and their lives.

So now is the time to change The Jack the Ripper Museum. Take down the morgue, the murder scene and ‘Jack’s sitting room’ and replace it with new content that has substance, isn’t wholly degrading and might just draw people into your museum.

Because, let’s be real here Jack the Ripper Museum – after your insolvency and the last five years of hate being blasted your way – what do you have to lose? Clearly, you can’t go on like you currently are. Something has to change for you to survive. So maybe that something doesn’t have to be sticking in another mutilated waxwork.

Maybe it could be having several rooms dedicated to telling the lives of the five known victims. Maybe you could have more space explaining what life was like in the East End at that time. How 1 in 5 women were sex workers. How the 1885 Law Amendment closed brothels and put many of these women in danger. How in fact there is no hard evidence to suggest that three of those five victims were sex workers, but what would it matter if they were?

We will never know who Jack the Ripper was, but we should use that mystery to uncover a troubling but fascinating past. And yes, that will still be interesting, there’s now hard data to show people are interested. Yes, you can still have selfie moments in foggy London streets and things for people to play with (e.g try out a penny bed!). You just don’t need to capitalise on the violent deaths of women to make money.

Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine ‘Kate’ Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly

The Jack the Ripper Museum is never going to be the museum we were promised and wanted it to be (luckily, The East End Women’s museum is opening soon, so we now have that space) However, if The Jack The Ripper Museum really is going to stay open, that it doesn’t just need to change – it has to.

Greatest Generaton vs Snowflakes – Covid 19 edition

Over the last few weeks chances are you’ve heard someone say something along the lines of:

‘We’d be screwed if this was World War Two!’ 

or

‘If the snowflakes were the greatest generation, we’d be out of lockdown already!’

Or this great tweet by Lord Ashcroft

And lets be real, using the idea that society was way better in the Second World War, to back a half baked idea isn’t new. For example, during the Brexit campaign, my Facebook was awash with people pointing out that under Winston Churchill we weren’t part of the EU and that was the golden age of Britain! Which completely overlooks the idea that both the world economy and society as a whole is er, slightly different now…but I could see where they was coming from, so you know; you do you Aunt Karen and I’ll see you at the next family wedding/funeral.

BUT this new ‘Greatest Generation’ argument is really getting under my skin. Mainly because it is categorically and catastrophically incorrect from the beginning. 

Ok so lets break this down. The main line of the argument is that the country is crumbling because people are breaking lockdown rules, hoarding and generally being very moaney. And that in the Second World War, when faced with huge lifestyle changes everyone just buckled down and did them. Which is why we won that war and are losing this one.

Here’s the thing. That didn’t happen. 

Ok, lets use rationing as our first example. When rationing was announced in January 1940, The Daily Mail immediatly went on the warpath. They did side by sides of British rations vs German rations, bemoaning the amount the British were getting. They even ripped William Morrison, the Minister of Food, a new one, comparing his rationing plans to if: “Dr Goebbels were asked to help-to devise a more harmful piece of propaganda for Great Britain.”

As time went on, the majority of people got behind rationing. It wasn’t fun, but it was necessary. However, there were a minority of people who didn’t, which is why there was a thriving black market. As with breaking lock down rules, there were fines for breaking rationing and going to the black market. But people still did it. So much so that we have gone on to romanticise the black market ‘spiv’ as a loveable rogue (like Private Joe Walker in Dad’s Army) 

Private Joe Walker – kind of a dick

Now lets quickly score off some of the other parts of the argument:

In WW2 nobody criticised how the government were doing things like we’re doing now – Sorry to burst your bubble, but people are people… of course they criticised the government! And often they well within their rights to!

For example, in the early stages of the war people were understandably not thrilled that Britain had equipment shortages and machinery that kept breaking. Loudly questioning why the hell the government hadn’t ensured they had stockpiles and a better equipment plan before the bussed a load of boys to the front line.

People were stronger. None of this ‘anxiety’ business! – The idea of the Blitz spirit has really been mythologised. Did those city dwellers living under constant threat of bombing keep on? Of course! But did they just merrily bounce out of bed each day after a night of bombs falling. No.

In 1941 after a series of bombings on Hull, a team of psychiatrists surveyed just over 700 people. They found that under the blitz people were drinking more, as well as experiencing extreme low moods, bouts of crying, and even loss of bladder control. Mental Health was a real issue, but it wasn’t something that was talked about to the level it is today.

Nobody would have broken the government guidelines to take a silly risk – Once again, it was a minority. But yeah no they totally did. For example, Writer Vera Brittain has talked about how young people would go party hopping during air raids, which became known as ‘Playing No Man’s Land’.

Were those who lived during The Second World War amazing people. Oh god yes! But were they perfect? No. We’re they better than todays people? Well they’ve been remembered as better, but not necessarily.

I’d be surprised if history remembers us as failures. It seems more likely this time will remembered much like the greatest generation. For people who kept going, joined together and clapped for the NHS and supported each other however they could.

So next time you see someone say we’d be screwed if this was World War Two. Well, first off, tell them the facts on that! But also remind them that just like World War Two, we’re all in this together. So maybe it’s time to stop trying to score points and instead realise that we need each other to get through this. After all, we’re stronger together.

So it turns out your history hero was racist? What now?

There is one thing that unites every history nerd out there. And that, of course, is the heart wrenching sucker punch of finding out your history hero was actually kind of an arsehole.

I remember the first time it happened to me. I was 15 and just getting into suffrage history, when I came across Millicent Fawcett. It was immediate infatuation. Her work revolutionising suffrage, women’s rights and education, all just bloody brilliant.

But then I started to read into her work on the Boer War concentration camps and discovered that although she helped shut them down, beforehand she’d been very much team concentration camp and arguably incredibly racist in her argument for supporting them.

How do you recover from that? After all there’s finding out your history hero did something morally dubious and then there’s that.

And believe me when I say, my history hero is far from alone in this historic bullshittery:

• Teddy Roosevelt – big fan of eugenics
• Florence Nightingale – kinda racist
• Winston Churchill – Where do I even begin?

So, why does this keep happening? Was everyone in the past just a massive dick?!?Put simply, no.

To break out it down to the a very basic level, the major problem with time is that it keeps going and as such, we as people get better. Science medicine, psychology and culture all continuously level up and offer us totally a new understanding of those around us and the world at large.

Now admittedly humanity becoming better as a whole doesn’t really sound like a problem, but in terms of reading history, it kind of is.

Today when we look back at history the flaws of our ancestors are more apparent than ever before. We now know how deeply wrong and inhumane it is to be racist, homophobic and sexist. To persecute minorities and help with one hand but slap down with the other.

We know that this is intolerable. But in the past it often wasn’t seen that way. Which is why so many of histories greatest figures are guilty of these sins.

So where does this leave us? What do you do when you find out your history fave was actually an arsehole? Well there are two options:

Option 1: Whitewash 

I know. Stay with me on this one!

Just because you know your fave did something awful, doesn’t mean everyone else has to! Get that tippex out, quickly slap it on and you can just pretend this whole thing never happened.

Sounds abhorrent right? Maybe, but this is by far the most popular option.

And it’s frighteningly understandable. Lets take it back to Millicent Fawcett. 

Over the last decade or so, modern history at large has finally started putting more of a spotlight on Millicent Fawcett and her work. She is presented alongside the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst as a key figure in women getting the vote and has become a pretty prominent feminist hero. Hell, she recently became the first woman to ever have a statue in Parliament Square!

That’s all awesome, especially when you think about how long her achievements were overlooked and how few major modern female history heroes are widely known.

Which is probably why when writing about Millicent for publications with a massive reach (like national newspapers and magazines) a lot of journalists and history writers have just casually left out her support of the Boer War concentration camps…even if in the same article they say how she helped eradicate them.

Because why complicate things by veering off into morally muddy waters. It stops you creating a clean empowering narrative and instead makes one that’s pretty damn thorny.

Well. Because we have to.

Because when we whitewash over these moments in history, we’re taking away from what made up the person and the world around them. That’s pretty vital stuff to just gloss over.

Gotta admit it makes sense

Option 2: Delve into the why

Yes, occasionally there is someone who was just the worst and born an awful human being (figured I’d quickly circumnavigate that one before anyone puts Hitler in the comments!) but that’s not really the case for the 99.9% of the people you’ll encounter during your history reading.

You have to don that deerstalker and channel your inner Holmes.  Look at the world around the person. What made them think and feel this way? 

In the case of Millicent, it was a combination of things. A little bit of self superiority (as a white person living in an imperialistic world) as well as going into the concentration camp debate very pro Boer War and wanting Britain to come out with a win. Plus she believed what the British press were saying about the camps. That the women and children imprisoned in the concentration camps had been helping in the fight against British forces and as such, needed to be locked away just as a matter warfare.

That doesn’t make it right for her to have been pro concentration camp. But it did help me better understand why she thought this way.

Doing this not only helps you better understand the era beyond the person, but it also impacts how you think on a day to day level. 

Because by learning why these otherwise good people made bad choices, we can better understand the world around us.

It means we don’t just look at someone in a MAGA hat and say ‘fuck you!’ But ‘why did you get here’ and visa versa.

It’s the ability to better understand those around us, because we have learnt from those before us. Living in a world of cancel culture, that skill has never been more important!

But what do you think? What would you do if you found out your history hero had some serious flaws? 

More like this

• What’s the difference between Suffragettes and Suffragists? 

• Why are we so awful to female historians?

• If we don’t stop fighting we’re going to kill women’s history 

The Spanish Flu – Your Great Granddad’s Coronavirus

Assuming you haven’t been living in a hole, you’ve definitely heard of Coronavirus. The big bad that might turn out to just be a pretty gnarly flu outbreak or could wipe out millions. Yeah, it’s a pretty scary either or situation.

Whilst the world waits to see which side of the coin Coronavirus lands on, global media are passing the time by unearthing the ghost of 1918’s Spanish Flu pandemic and excitedly shining a spotlight on it, shouting ‘Look, this will happen again! We’re all going to die! Boogety boo!’

It’s being repeated again and again from country to country: this virus is as infectious and deadly as the 1918 flu strand.

But what exactly caused was the 1918 flu outbreak? Why did so many people die and with the knowledge of time is there anything we can do to stop this happening again?

Basically – are we totally fucked? Let’s find out!

What was the Spanish flu?

Fun fact, The Spanish flu didn’t originate in Spain, it’s just got a confusing name. Sadly we can’t pin point the exact geographic location this flu strain started, however we do know that the first officially recorded cases were in a military base in Kansas.

Between that first recorded case in March 1918, to the last known case, two years later in March 1920, an estimated 50 million people world wide would die from ‘the Spanish flu’ (though it’s now thought this was estimate could be as high as 100 million, roughly 5% of the worlds population.)

The flu hit in three waves. First in Spring 1918, then autumn 1918 and finally through winter 1918 to spring 1919. With the second outbreak being the deadliest.

US soldiers being treated during the Spanish Flu pandemic. A Pandemic is when a medical epidemic spreads across multiple countries.

The initial Spanish Flu symptoms were similar to that of most flu’s. Including a fever, headaches, feeling weak and joint pain. However it was what happened after these initial symptoms that was what made Spanish Flu so deadly.

In September 1918, Dr Roy Grist, described what happened to the men he treated at Camp Devens in Massachusetts:

‘…They very rapidly develop the most vicious type of pneumonia that has ever been seen. Two hours after admission they have the mahogany spots over the cheekbones and a few hours later you start to see the cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white. It is only a matter of a few hours until death comes. It is horrible.’

The majority of people died not from the flu itself, but from complications that came with it.

What really made the flu stand out was those that it killed. Generally people who die from flu tend to be old or very young, often with pre-existing health conditions.

However, the big killer of ‘the Spanish flu’ was young adults.

This is even crueller when you consider that just as the flu hit the The First World War was starting to come to an end. So now the millions of soldiers that had survived the traumatic trenches got a congratulations prize of another thing that might kill them. In fact more US servicemen died from the flu than in combat.

Spanish Flu patients being treated at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington

How did the flu spread?

There is never just one route that a pandemic uses to spread (they’re tricksy like that) however in this instance, The First World War was a key factor in the spread.

The Spanish flu was highly infectious. Take for example that first case in Kansas. Within hours of the soldier being taken to the infirmary, over one hundred other men at his base were also reporting symptoms.

Thousands of men all gathered together in cramped quarters, it’s the perfect brewing ground for infection.

But this was war and war doesn’t stop because some soldiers are feeling a bit peaky. Men with symptoms were still deployed, which resulted in people on all sides catching Spanish Flu.

Just to make this worse, The First World War was the era of trench warfare. Already living shoulder to shoulder in unhygienic holes in the ground, surrounded by death, the soldiers were given something unbeatable to contend with.

Then there were those soldiers that were in the most dangerous stages of the flu, who were sent to field hospitals. To get there they were often transported along with hundreds of other people, military and civilian. So the virus easily hopped from the infected person to dozens of others, with those people then heading off to unknowingly continue the spread.

With infected troops travelling all over the world, it’s no surprise that the flu spread so quickly.

But don’t worry. It gets worse.

Clipping from Oct 17 1918’s edition of Santa Ana Daily Record and Register – Let’s not let a silly thing like a deadly pandemic stop this great war we have on!

Because the world was at war, public morale was key. Those countries at war, didn’t want to expose their people to just how lethal this pandemic was. So they didn’t.

Newspapers in America, Britain and countries across Europe were censored so they didn’t reveal the true magnitude of the pandemic. Spain was one of the few countries that was covering the spread in its early days and their wide coverage of the pandemic led to the flu being named ‘The Spanish Flu’ (they were unsurprisingly not happy about this)

The impact of media not telling people how bad the pandemic was shouldn’t be underestimated. When people are aware of a public health crisis, they tend to be cautious. If you know there’s something going around, you’ll naturally do things like washing your hands more, be less likely to go to crowded areas and generally take more precautions.

That’s not to mention the other ways many countries chose to put propaganda above public health.

For example in America several cities held mass morale boosting events, despite knowing that large gatherings were a breeding ground for Spanish Flu. Don’t see why that could end badly? Let’s talk Philadelphia.

In late September 1918, the city had planned a huge parade to boost morale and raise money for the war effort. Doctors urged the city to cancel the event. There had already been local cases of the Spanish flu and a massive crowded event was sure to make the situation worse. But the city needed to cheer up its citizens and raise cash, so the parade went ahead.

Over 200,000 people watched the parade on 28 September. Music filled the streets, Boy Scouts marched along with uniformed soldiers. There was dancing, heaps of patriotism and tons of Liberty loans sold. The parade organisers patted themselves of the back for a job well done.

72 hours later and every bed in the cities hospitals were full. Within weeks, thousands were dead.

By 3 October Philadelphia was shut down. Morgues struggling to manage the influx, with bodies stacked up and families struggling to find somewhere to bury their loved ones.

Members of the Lit Liberty Loan Brothers Loan Comittee of Parade at the ill-fated Philadelphia Parade

How was Spanish Flu prevented?

Hypothetically it was a good thing that the Spanish Flu hit when it did. For centuries people had believed epidemics were an act of god. However with the emergence of ever improving medical science, people were starting to put their faith into medical science. Recent epidemics, like the ‘Russian Flu’, had been studied to find a root cause.

With an arsenal of medical research, combined with peoples believe in science, the chances of beating this thing looked pretty darn good!

Sadly it didn’t work out like that.

In 1892 German bacteriologist thought he’d discovered the cause of the Russian flu, a bacterium he called, Bacillus influenzae (or Pfeiffer’s bacillus). The idea that deadly bacteria could be behind 1918’s pandemic made perfect sense, after all bacteria causes things like cholera and plague (and the 1918 pandemics symptoms had a lot of similarities with the plague!). So scientists across the world went all in on locating Pfeiffer’s bacillus in sick patients.

HOWEVER, influenza is a virus. It’s not caused by bacteria. So although loads of research was being done to stop the 1918 pandemic, they were looking at the wrong thing.

Those depending on religion to save them, we’re often also out of luck.

In the Spanish city of Zamora, a bishop went against all governmental guidelines and called the cities people together to pray for protection against the flu. The result of the gathering? Roughly 10% of Zamora’s people died from Spanish Flu.

Chart showing mortality from the 1918 influenza pandemic in the US and Europe. from National Museum of Health and Medicine

What was the aftermath?

Around 1% of the European population died and that figure rises as you go across the world. It’s though that in India around eighteen million died. We will never truly know just how many lives the Spanish Flu claimed, but globally estimates vary between 50-100 million people.

It didn’t matter if you lived in a city or a village, the flu could impact you. In fact small communities who lay outside of the local mass populace were often utterly devastated if the flu reached them. For example in some parts of the Gambian countryside it was reported that

‘whole villages of 300 to 400 families (were) completely wiped out, the houses having fallen in on the unburied dead, and the jungle having crept in within two months, obliterating whole settlements.’

You were also far more likely to die if you came from a poor background. The working class, minorities and immigrants were far more likely to be living in cramped conditions without good access to decent sanitation, which meant the Spanish Flu exploded in these areas.

So will Coronavirus be Spanish Flu 2.0?

Well…it’s unlikely.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why so many media outlets are saying it will be – hey we all love click bait! However, in this instance history repeating itself just isn’t a super tangible outcome.

So many of the key factors that led to the spread of the 1918 flu are not even vaguely comparable to today’s landscape.

To be blunt. There’s not a world war on. That makes a difference. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of men crammed into tight often unhygienic environments that act as a perfect virus breeding ground. Those infected men are not then flitting all over the world, sprinkling the virus everywhere they go.

Yes, today we’re travelling the world more than before. But borders have already started to close, checks are being made and even when the virus slips past that, those are small numbers of isolated cases. It’s not remotely the same as the speedy global spread the First World War created.

Then there’s the science. Unlike 1918, medical science has far more of a clear handle on what makes up a virus like Coronavirus. In addition thanks to new fangled inventions like the internet, scientists worldwide are able to be a lot more open with their research. Meaning teams across the globe are able to be up to the minute on the latest findings. With clinical trials up and running, massive amounts of data and round the clock work being done by countless teams, we’re so far ahead cure wise than 1918, it’s not even comparable.

So whilst we may be in an international public health emergency, we’re in a far better place than we were 100 hundred years ago.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t learn from the lessons of the 1918 pandemic, but by no means should we be treating it like a crystal ball!

That was interesting where can I find out more? Definitely check out Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney, along with these papers, Influenza – exposing the the true killer by Heather L Van Epps and Spanish Flu Part II, the second and third wave by Milorid Radusin.

More like this

• How arsenic poisoning swept Britain 

• Why an STI epidemic sparked a women’s sexual rights movement 

• The 7 best hangover cures in history – because fuck me I need a drink after writing about all this virus business. 

Why Drag Race will one day be taught in schools

Dear future history teachers, I can only apologise. After all, we’re living in the kind of hellscape that will be impossible to break down into hour long chunks that teenagers can understand (I’m living in this mess and I can barely keep up!)

The UK is dancing an unending hokey kokey with Europe, America’s President is possibly Voldemort with a spray tan, the poorest of us have never been worse off and even the Royal Family are unable to keep their shit together. Oh, and that’s not even starting on the countless elections, riots and this tiny little thing called global warming. Future history teachers, I can only wish you good luck and god speed; those lesson plans will need a miracle.

BUT there is one great thing that has come out of this whole mess. One thing that will  make the history classes of fifty years from now not only bearable, but the best damn lesson ever. 

I am of course, talking about Ru Pauls Drag Race. 

Same Ru, same

Ok, this might seem a little unorthodox, but don’t forget this:

There is no way that in 50 years LGBT+ history won’t be taught with the same respect that civil rights are taught in todays schools. 

LGBT+ history will become part of the curriculum. That’s just fact. It’s already starting to happen. In America several states require it to be taught and countless schools across the world eagerly embrace LGBT History Month. This is just the beginning. Pretty soon LGBT history won’t just be something you squeeze into lessons where possible, it will be a key part of what kids learn.

That’s because queer culture isn’t just a societal side piece. It’s part of who we are as a whole. It’s taken us centuries, but we’re starting to wake up to that fact. Just as with civil rights, LGBT rights aren’t ‘a nice to have’ or something only those in that community need to worry about, they effect everyone.

Which brings me back to Ru Paul’s Drag Race. It’s irrefutable that Drag Race has helped bring queer culture to the mainstream (no matter what you think on it’s representation of drag). It’s introduced millions of people to not only drag, but also major LGBT issues, with episodes frequently including debate and discussion of rights. Viewers have turned into allies, advocates and campaigners. Don’t get me wrong, Drag Race is not perfect by any means, but it’s contribution is HUGE.

This is what societal importance looks like

Oh and to the argument that Drag Race isn’t high art enough to be remembered, take a seat. MASS ENTERTAINMENT IS HISTORY. Just ask William Shakespeare. 

Audiences to Shakespeare’s plays were anyone and everyone. The insanely rich bought pricey seats and dressed to see and be seen. Then there with those that paid a penny and flitted between watching the show to hawking merch to make some extra cash.

Those stories were for everyone. They commented on current issues and played into trends. William Shakespeare might as well have retitled Macbeth, ‘Hey King James I heard you were well into witches now, so thought you might like this.’. It’s the perfect meld between fantastical flight and commentary on history building moments. Kind of reminds you of something, huh?

Oh and that’s not even getting into the language! Just like those sonnets of yore, slang rooted from within queer culture is part of everyday language. Who knows, maybe one day teens will be forced to both read aloud from Macbeth and Drag Race.

But said in monotone by an introverted 15 year old from Leeds

Then there’s the action off screen. The queens that are making history right now. 

Trans activists, Sonique and Monica Beverly Hillz fighting for rights for everyone in their community. Outspoken Queens like Bob The Drag Queen, working to stop the racism that many of the shows black contestants face. It’s yet more evidence that as the fight continues, Drag Race’s does too.

So yes. I do see Drag Race being taught in schools. Right alongside Marsha P Johnson, Section 28 and the Aids crisis. 

Drag Race will be a leaping off point, a place to start before delving into centuries of struggle and prejudice.

The introduction to the brave heroes who fought back and were all too often forgotten. A rhinestoned beacon of hope, so needed when your traversing for the seemingly endless mires of bleakness, that yes, it does get better.

More like this:

• Discover the history of Molly Houses and some of the roots of drag

• The 1533 law that changed queer history forever 

• The arrest of Mae West and the Queens that worked with her

MIA Red Queens: The Lost Political Heroes of The Crown and Peaky Blinders

*SOME MINOR THE CROWN AND PEAKY BLINDERS SPOILERS AHEAD*

I’ve waiting with bated breath and a faux cigarette holder at the ready for the third instalment of Peter Morgan’s The Crown, alongside many of my fellow historians and friends.

It feels like we’ve been treated this autumn with excellent historical fiction – particularly those that ties so closely to contemporary problems. And whilst I welcomed the majesty of Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies breathing emotion and life into two of the biggest characters of the twentieth century, I was most excited for the era of politicians that this series would bring.

I prayed, I hoped, that I wouldn’t suffer the same disappoint I felt at the equally brilliant Peaky Blinders.

From a historical point of view, there was still so much missing from Tommy Shelby’s journey between the streets of Birmingham to the gloomy, hallowed halls of Westminster. Making Tommy a Labour MP and introducing him to the unsavoury, darker side of inter-war social change was genius, there’s no doubt about that. In context of today’s politics it felt weirdly Black Mirror-esque – seeing the charisma and the tide of populism that far-right politics can get swept up on, before we even realise, is a vital part of our history.

And still, it was also missing something vital. 

The series was set in 1929. The first election year where all women aged 21 and over could vote. Female MPs came to parliament, including Ellen Wilkinson, MP for Middlesbrough. Young, unmarried, full of passion, power, and socialism.

She is perhaps the most important woman in early 20^th century politics, and if Tommy Shelby was playing the part of socialist MP well enough, he would have undoubtedly been hatching plans and hanging out with her. I could fully imagine Ellen, with her blaze of auburn hair, drawing herself up to her small height and reckoning with Tommy, showing him who really had the power in parliament. She could have shone on screen, could have slotted into the story so perfectly – Tommy should have been helping her fight fascism and Mosley from the start.

But he wasn’t… 

The fact we we’re denied this double act will never not be devastating!

Now I do understand that decision. Of course, I get that you can’t have everybody onscreen. That it’s historical fiction for a reason and fiction should be the operative word. But I was so grumpy (immediate cross messaging my Peaky WhatsApp group level grumpy) not to have seen her brought to life on screen when she fitted so perfectly into the story.

Was it because Jessie Eden – the trade unionist rousing the workers of Birmingham – already took that part? Was it that the other female characters were already too much, too powerful, too challenging of social norms?

Don’t get me wrong – I love seeing challenging, tricky, revolting women on screen, on stage, in books, in art.

But are we too used to seeing portrayals of women fighting to be heard, to be let in – rather than women who are on the inside, who are being listened to? It’s food for thought.

So, with my disappointment in the lack of Ellen Wilkinson aside, I hoped and prayed that this series of the The Crown would treat me better, and we’d get to see one of the most prominent, unique, and inspiring politicians of the time.

And no, I don’t mean not Harold Wilson! 

Ok, yes, I did like seeing Harold Wilson there, especially looking so uncomfortable, so ill at ease in his first meeting with the Queen. After all, it fitted perfectly. Gone were the Prime Ministers who worshipped the Queen as a goddess, yet who also tried and sway and shape her views. This was a woman in power, a woman who knew herself, her mind, who has seen much and fully embodies ‘The Crown’. Her relationship with Wilson wasn’t friendly, nor intimate; it’s frank, open. It’s a business arrangement, each recognising the other’s advice and knowledge.

BUT, in another world – a forward-thinking, progressive world, there would have been another person sat opposite the Queen. More left-wing, with a sharper tongue and a wealth of experience in the political arena…if Barbara Castle, long-serving MP for Blackburn could have been selected as the Leader of the Opposition in 1960, then it may have been a different conversation, a different story. And this story should have at least nudged it’s way into The Crown.

Barbara Castle

Barbara Castle was the legacy that Ellen Wilkinson had left behind. Unashamedly socialist, a force of energy, enthusiasm, and outspokenness, Barbara had stormed into the House of Commons ready to take up the mantle female MPs had been putting into place – to battle the gender inequality that was inbuilt in society, and to disprove that women MPs were only in place to speak out for other women.

During her 24 years as an MP, Barbara not only ensured the passing of the Equal Pay Act, but took on the role of Minister for Overseas Development and then Minister of Transport, where she introduced the 70mph speed limit, breathalysers and – would you believe it – seat belt rules. Harold Wilson even said of her:

‘…she was good at whatever she touched.’

She was an incredible politician, who helped mould the era. And yet, in The Crown, she is limited to just a couple of lines in a cabinet meeting, where she lambastes Prince Philips plea for more money. Then she is later briefly mentioned by Harold Wilson as one of the lefties who might topple the monarchy right over if they had the chance. In fact, her full name is never explicitly spoken – she’s recognised simply by her tell-tale red hair.

The fact that Barbara Castle’s appearance in The Crown as a mere flash in the pan, is a waste. Like Ellen, she would have been a total scene stealer.

The Crown celebrates the merits and the shortcomings of the Queen and the women around her. But, when it comes to women outside of the royal household, they are few and far between. As they are in far too many period drama’s. This can’t continue.

Women like Barbara and Ellen should have places in these dramas.

Not only because it’s right. But because their stories are vivid, bold and simply fascinating. To miss them out is a huge disservice on a creative level and also on an ethical one – when we don’t see them on our big television screens, when the perfect opportunity presents itself…when will we see them?

It’s because of this lack of storytelling and inclusion that these women were outliers in their time, and lets be blunt,  today they still would be. It’s far past the time where women in politics should be included in television, film and books. We need to shine a light on these women, past and present.

Fingers crossed, next series will bring better.

Why won’t museums pay their staff fairly?

This week staff at Museums across the UK have gone on strike. Everyone from curators, explainers, archivists and front of house staff are calling to not just be fairly paid, but to be a paid a reasonable wage to live on.

Since 2011 Science Museum staff have seen a real terms pay cut of 10% since 2011. It’s estimated that 25% of staff earn less than the real living wage, which is frankly disgusting.

For those who don’t the national living wage is the bare minimum you can legally pay someone over 25. Currently this is £8.21 (or if you are under 25, it’s £7.70). HOWEVER, when you actually factor in silly little things like rising rent costs, inflation on food, transportation and general goods and services, the national living wage doesn’t cut it.

Instead it’s advised that companies pay the real living wage (which for you economics lovers out there, is £9 or £10.55 for those in London, because everything is more expensive in London!). But the key word here is ‘advised’. You don’t actually have to pay the real living wage and you best believe many museums are choosing not to pay it.

So what’s the big deal?

It’s not a matter of pounds but pennies right? And yet, those pennies make a difference. It’s knowing you have enough money for the bus to work at the end of the month, It’s having enough food on the table and putting the heating on when it’s cold. It’s the teetering point, between a good quality of life for you and family, or scraping by perilously close to the poverty line.

That’s an incredibly hard position to financially be in. And it’s made worse when you realise that whilst a quarter of staff are counting the coins to get by, The Science Museum Groups director is on over £100k.

As Prospect negotiator Sharon Brown said:

“It is clear from the accounts that SMG (Science Museum Group) can afford to pay a reasonable way. It’s time for management to sort this out so our members can get on with the jobs they love”.

And the Science Museum staff are far from alone. Also striking are staff at the Museum of London, who have seen a 6% real terms pay cut since 2013, but also watched on as the number of those in higher up positions earning over 100k has doubled. Oh and despite being in a period where the museum is undergoing a location move costing hundreds of millions and they apparently can’t afford to pay all their staff fairly – the museum Director took home a 5% raise.

Because although this is THE WORST – museum staff know how to break it down. Courtesy of Prospect

Having worked at one of these museums in the last few years, I can categorically tell you that there is a startling disparity between how those at the top are paid and those at the ‘bottom’ are paid.

To give full disclosure, until Nov 2018 I worked as a press officer in one of the striking museums and I was paid around 31k. I didn’t negotiate for that, that’s just the set level. To put that into context at the same museum (according to glass door for an average as this fluctuates!) an archaeologist might be on something between £19-22k.

So why was my pay so much higher? Well to be blunt, because my role exists outside of the sector. If you work in something like museum PR, marketing, or events, having knowledge of history, collections and how the sector works is of course a bonus, but it isn’t necessary. You’re expected to know your area and because all these roles exist outside of museums, your generally paid the going rate that most companies would pay a PR, marketing officer or events organiser.

But that fair pay all goes to shit when it comes to the people who are the very glue of a museum. The people who look after the collections, put together exhibitions, care for archives and are the boots on the ground, making people fall in love with a museum.

The reason for this low pay is simple but bleak.

According to Fair Museums Jobs: 

‘why do museums pay so badly? Short answer: because they can. There are numerous museum related courses churning out graduates who need jobs, not to mention other academic courses for whom museums are a “back-up” career option, so there’s a constant supply of applicants for most jobs. Why would trustees or directors think they should pay more when they are getting applicants at every level? 

Science Museum strikers, Courtesy of Prospect

What makes this worse are that The Museum Association guidelines for pay are kind of screwing people over. For those becoming a curatorial or conservation assistant, with a post graduate degree (or decent experience working in collections, which they probably had to do for free FYI) The Museums Association advises they are paid a just 17-22k. Break that down to an hourly rate and its £8.17. Which you guessed it, is below the real living wage!

Whilst museums can get away with paying people a pittance, they will. Which is why strikes like this are so needed. As Fair Museums Jobs put it:

“If we want to see change in this area, then actions like these strikes are crucial. They have brought the issue to the mainstream UK media and increased awareness with visitors about the unfair practices of their organisations. More visibility = more pressure = we hope, change!”

Change is a coming, but it is happening slowly. 

The Science Museum Group have now agreed to pay their lowest paid staff the living wage (and London living wage for those based in their flagship museum) they won’t actually do this until April 2020. Which means months more of a quarter of their staff having to just about scrape by.

In addition, The Institute of Conservation recently announced that entry level conservators should be paid at least £27,108, which is fantastic! Recognising all the years of work and training these people do. BUT, it’s just a suggestion, museums don’t actually have to do it. And lets be real, until they are made to, they won’t.

Striker, courtesy of Prospect

So what happens now?

Well it looks like industrial action will have to continue. And we can expect to see more museum workers unionising and going on strike in the coming months. At least until museums realise these three key things:

1. ‘What I did for love’ is not a decent hiring strategy – This is not A Chorus Line. Do museum workers love what they do? Yes. Can you keep on depending on being able to retain amazing staff based off of the love of museums rather than actual pay? No. Sadly you can’t feed a family on passion.
2. You can’t diversify museums with low pay like this in place – It’s a fact that museums are facing a diversity crisis, especially in areas like curatorial and conservation. A huge reason for this is that the extraordinary low pay for entry level roles in these departments simply prices out many candidates from low income and minority backgrounds.
3. People outside the sector are realising how shady this is – These strikes are drawing attention, not just at the museum sites but in the national press. The longer this is drawn out, the less people will want to come and drop their cash at a place that doesn’t care about it’s staff.

 

Fair Museum Jobs kindly gave as the below statement on this issue. It’s definitely worth a read: 

“The Science Museum Group and Museum of London strikes highlight the fundamental issue that many jobs in museums and heritage just do not pay enough to live on. In such a highly qualified sector, where expensive post-grad qualifications are constantly deemed essential; that many organisations pay 25% of their staff less than their directors annual bonus is ridiculous.

“So why do museums pay so badly? Short answer: because they can. There are numerous museum related courses churning out graduates who need jobs, not to mention other academic courses for whom museums are a “back-up” career option, so there’s a constant supply of applicants for most jobs. Why would trustees or directors think they should pay more when they are getting applicants at every level?

“If we want to see change in this area, then actions like these strikes are crucial. They have brought the issue to the mainstream UK media and increased awareness with visitors about the unfair practices of their organisations. More visibility = more pressure = we hope, change!

“Some organisations are leading the charge for this: Institute of Conservation recently announced that entry level conservators should be paid at least £27,108 – recognising the training conservators go through before their first job. 

“In short, if you want highly qualified, accredited, candidates, you must be willing to pay for them.

“More work could also be done by the Museums Association; their salary guidelines are a good starting point and we would welcome some robust implementation of these across the sector. Funding bodies should also take a look at their policies and requirements: for example, we would love to see National Heritage Lottery Fund, Art Fund and Arts Council England add salary and recruitment requirements for project posts.

“Nobody goes into this sector to become a millionaire, but all of us deserve to be fairly recompensed for our time, skills, knowledge and qualifications.
Fair Museum Jobs campaigns on fair and transparent recruitment, pay and jobs in museums and heritage. Find out more about our manifesto here: https://fairmuseumjobs.wordpress.com/manifesto/ “

 

 

News flash: Exhibitions don’t have to be boring

When I was little, one of my favourite videos to watch was Passport to Paris, a Mary-Kate & Ashley film that, being a twin and a child of 00s, I was obsessed with.

What’s always stuck with me, however, is a scene in Passport to Paris, where the twins walk through the Louvre, and slowly, their fascination turns to utter boredom. The painting fly past them, barely noted, as they walk, shoulders slumped, through gallery after gallery.  (Oh, and while we’re here, FYI other 00s kids, I can tell you  that in real life twins don’t make their prospective boyfriends tell them apart by dressing the same, it is not a done thing).

Do not trust them on twins or museums

That scene in the Louvre represented, to me, how people often saw museums. Lengthy, complicated interpretations, medieval paintings, some marble and if you’re lucky, some decent taxidermy.

So, when I started to work in museum, my greatest fear was that people would walk through my exhibitions the same way that the Olsen sisters walked through the Louvre – without looking at a single thing, uttered uninterested.

But, having been on the inside, I can say with authority that museum people are no longer the tweed jacket and elbow patch wearing people that the Olsen twins (and many of others!) thought they were. Museum folk aren’t out there just to recite some lengthy historical facts and bore visitors to tears.

The museum world has fought against this tired image and today, exhibitions and events in museums, galleries, historic houses and archives are becoming more and more engaging, accessible, fun and inviting. 

In 2017 I started putting together an exhibition on the suffrage centenary, Represent! Voices 100 Years On, for Manchester’s Peoples Museum. At first, the main goal was to ensure that the people visiting the exhibition didn’t trudge through a’la Mary-Kate and Ashley. That they were able to discover stories of incredible women and leave excited and engaged. 

It turns out that saying you want your exhibition to inspire and engage is a lot easier said than done… 

Putting together Represent! was was the best of times and the worst of times – like with any job, huge amounts of stress was involved, but also so many rewarding moments. So lets look at all the lessons I learned!

Represent! Voices 100 Years On at the People’s History Museum, Manchester

What struck me throughout the process was how different it felt. People’s History Museum worked with so many different community groups and individuals to interpret the stories, contribute their own opinions and ideas, and actually make the story we were telling relevant, and impactful.

See, that’s what was missing from Passport to Paris – impact. (FYI, something the Louvre has a lot of – don’t believe those sneaky twins). Visiting a museum or an exhibition shouldn’t be about expectations. If you’re expected to appreciate, understand, or even celebrate what’s on display, then you’re going to feel out of place. You’re going to feel lectured at, and you’re going to switch off.

But that’s where most museums are changing.

If you see yourself reflected in the objects, in the labels, in the interpretations – something you might have thought, or said, something entirely not curated or edited – you might feel a stronger connection to what you’re seeing, or reading. That realisation that one voice – the voice of a curator – is not the most important voice in the room is the biggest change that museums have made to exhibitions, for the better.

 Now, of course, working with communities has its challenges. Traditionally, you source your objects, working with the Collections team and Conservation to ensure everything in the collection that we want to use is in a good condition and is able to go on display. Loaning objects might also be part of the process, from other institutions, or sometimes just individuals. A lot of work goes into preparing these loans, so it’s always a relief when they finally make it into the building.

Working with communities, you don’t always get that level of planning. Even if you do plan, things might go awry.  

One of my favourite moments from Represent! was when I spoke to a well-known group of activists, and met them to discuss potentially lending some objects to the exhibition. They turned up to our meeting with a treasure trove of objects – only I was stranded without an entry form or the paperwork.

Sometimes, working with activists and grassroots groups means that proper museum practice can’t always be as black and white as it traditionally is. Flexibility, and to an extent, spontaneity are definitely needed.

That’s the best part of mixing the past and the present, though! Getting a glimpse into the heart of campaigns today, then seeing it reflected back in objects from 100 years ago is what made the exhibition what it was.

That’s the beauty of it! How can you look away? Real people make you feel included, and part of something.

There’s more, though. The raw truth that community groups and individuals are able to deliver – untamed by the voice of the museum – offers a sort of uncomfortable reality whilst also being authentically inspiring.

Honest reflections like these fill the walls of Represent!, with phrases including “The vote was for white women” and “Feminism is about equality and if the values were actually played out, maybe I would believe in it.”  Alongside these quotes, narratives and stories of the continued fight for equality show that it still very much needed.

Platform guests at the Represent! Preview, recreating the Caxton Hall photograph

Right until the end of the process, we kept this community-led focus on the exhibition.

We launched the exhibition by recreating the below photograph, taken at Caxton Hall in 1910, just before this deputation of suffragettes led by Emmeline Pankhurst marched on Parliament and were brutally attacked for hours on end (on the orders of none other than Winston Churchill).

We filled the platform with activists and campaigners of today, and it was a moment where the past and present combined, to commemorate those who had gone before, and to champion those who were carrying on their struggle.

WSPU members, including Emmeline Pankhurst and Sophia Duleep-Singh, on the platform at Caxton Hall

Different, from start to finish. Different, diverse voices. Unique, unsung narratives. Costumes,newspapers, banners, placards, arrest warrants, pink pussy hats, maiden speeches, paintings and pamphlets.

I don’t think Mary-Kate and Ashley would have been bored in this one.

Helen Antrobus is 1/3 of F Yeah History. She’s also a curator (formerly for Manchester’s Peoples History Museum) with a passion for telling the stories of radical women and working class history.