A blog from Gale International
│ By Kyle Sheldrake, Marketing Manager – Insights and Development│
As we approach fifty years since man first set foot on the moon, it feels like a good time to reflect on attitudes and opinions in the lead up to one of humanity’s greatest scientific achievements. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to think that the space race was always seen positively, receiving unanimous public support and the unity of the scientific community, but this was not necessarily the case.
│By Carolyn Beckford, Gale Product Trainer in the UK and Europe│
As we come to the end of the first week of Wimbledon, with the annual buzz and excitement very much in full-flow, we decided to use Gale Primary Sources to look back at the evolving history of tennis and the Wimbledon Championships.
│By Karen Harker, Gale Ambassador at the University of Birmingham│
Anyone familiar with Gale Primary Sources knows that it provides archival access to major periodicals such as The Times, The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, and The Economist. The longevity and sustained popularity of these publications mean that they are often the first place a student or researcher might look for information on a historical topic, but it is worth remembering that a vast majority of the articles found in these newspapers are written by white, heterosexual, cisgender men. This is particularly true of anything published in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Even as women, people of colour and members of the LGBT+ community are increasingly employed by these newspapers, their contributions still exist in a notable and significant minority. While these newspapers are fantastic resources, they often only tell one side of the story.
│By André Buller, Gale Ambassador at the University of Portsmouth │
Doctor Who, possibly Britain’s most famous science-fiction television show, has enjoyed success in both its original running from 1963 to 1989, and its reboot from 2005 to the present. Centering around the eponymous ‘Doctor,’ the show follows the adventures of this eccentric and benevolent shape-changing alien around the cosmos in a premise that has remained largely static throughout the 56 years of its circulation. As a child, I was both terrified and enthralled by the television show, and such interest in the fantastical has persisted into my studies (as evident in my previous supernatural post about witchcraft!)
| By Pauli Kettunen, Gale Ambassador at the University of Helsinki |
Whilst it is undoubtedly quality entertainment, the 2017 Hollywood film The Greatest Showman should not be taken as an accurate history lesson… However, among all the drama, singing and dancing, it does portray some facts; P.T. Barnum did start small and end up as a household name; he did bring ‘The Swedish Nightingale’ to the United States and make her tour a success like never before. Indeed, the concert tour amassed him a sizeable fortune, and the humble Scandinavian singer donated her own share – which was by no means small – to charities of her choice.
![“Pop Career for Noddy." News Review. Sunday Times, 16 Nov. 2003, p. 14[S3]. The Sunday Times Digital Archive, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/FP1803638499/GDCS?u=webdemo&sid=GDCS&xid=141de559](https://review.gale.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/main-image.png)
│ By Rebecca Bowden, Associate Acquisitions Editor │
Everybody knows Noddy. Created by Enid Blyton in 1949, the Noddy books – and subsequent television show – tell the story of a wooden man who runs away from the toy store and finds himself in Toyland. There he makes his home after the town’s residents have established that he is, indeed, a toy. The adventures of this blue-hatted man and his friends (Big Ears, PC Plod, Dinah Doll, Tessie Bear et. al.) are a staple of the British childhood, enduring through years of changes and controversy. With this year marking Noddy’s 70th birthday, we take a look in Gale Primary Sources to uncover the history of the little man in the red and yellow car.
│ By Maya Thomas, Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford │
From Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind to Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean, it seems that no pretty woman in a historical drama is complete without participating in the infamous “corset scene”. You know the one: the beautiful protagonist reluctantly sucks in her stomach, gripping onto the bedposts as a maid furiously tugs at her corset strings. We watch with morbid fascination as her tiny waist is made tinier still, compressed painfully in an ornate whalebone cage.
│ By Rebekka Väisänen, Gale Ambassador at the University of Helsinki │
The English Philology corridor at the University of Helsinki has an area which we call the Aquarium, a glass-walled space that is often used for smaller faculty events, informal gatherings, and course “end offs” (the last meeting at the end of a course). On the 17th of April, I arrived there to see the poster presentations for the “Archives to Arguments” course, a module in which students use the Gale British Library Newspapers and other archives to do linguistic research into democratization.
│ By Tania Chakraborti, Gale Ambassador at Durham University │
The idea of what is monstrous has perhaps metamorphosed somewhat since the nineteenth century. Nowadays audiences root for the vampire (Netflix’s The Originals) sympathise with the werewolf (Twilight) or even cheer on the Devil (Netflix’s Lucifer). But in the time of Shelley, Verne and Stoker, monstrosity was far more complex (and far less American high school-orientated!)
│By Lyndsey England, Gale Ambassador at Durham University │
‘What should we suppose must naturally be the consequence of our carrying on a Slave Trade with Africa?’ asked William Wilberforce in a speech in 1789. ‘Does anyone suppose a Slave Trade would help their civilization? That Africa would profit from such an intercourse? Is it not plain, that she must suffer from it?’ With these questions in mind, the famed abolitionist made a decisive judgement: ‘We are all guilty,’ he said, ‘we ought all to plead guilty’.