1st Edition

Germs in the English Workplace, c.1880–1945

By Laura Newman Copyright 2021
226 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

226 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

226 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book looks at how the workplace was transformed through a greater awareness of the roles that germs played in English working lives from c.1880 to 1945. Cutting across a diverse array of occupational settings – such as the domestic kitchen, the milking shed, the factory, and the Post Office – it offers new perspectives on the history of the germ sciences. It brings to light the ways in which... Read more

Introduction

1. Germs and the Working-Class Body: Redefining Tuberculosis at the Post Office Sanatorium Society

2. Handling Germs in the Post Office

3. Learning About Dairy Germs in the Midlands

4. Eradicating and Instrumentalising Dairy Germs

5. Poisons, Pastes, and Pigs: Shippams of Chichester and the Industrial Food Germ

6. Domesticating the Germ Sciences: Jams and Gender in the English Kitchen

Conclusion

Biography

Laura Newman is currently  Postdoctoral Research Associate based at King’s College London.

"The major strength of this monograph is the remarkable number of subdisciplines to which it speaks. As the book is primarily pitched as a history of science, it will of course be of interest to historians of science and medicine. And, naturally, it should be considered essential reading to labor historians for its insights into workers’ everyday lives. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of subdisciplines from which scholars should be eager to get hold of this book. Germs in the English Workplace offers content of interest for historians of education, women and gender, material culture and empire, and many more, and it has a rich potential to attract readers from outside academia." - Katie Carpenter, Journal of British Studies