With Simon's blessing, I am writing to announce my new Information
Exchange on
Victorian Turkish Baths to be found at
http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/
The history of the Victorian Turkish bath is virtually uncharted, so
the
Information Exchange is an attempt to encourage interest in, and ask for
help
with, an aspect of Victorian life which has been almost totally
forgotten.
The Victorian Turkish bath adds to our knowledge of many aspects of
Victorian life: the working-men who might have been campaigning for the
vote but who selflessly concerned themselves with their country's
foreign policy; the _Free Press_ and the Turkish Bath Movement; attempts
at mixing bathers of different classes; contemporary sanitary conditions
and people's attitudes to cleanliness; the eclipse of the water-cure;
the esoteric ritual of the Turkish bath; the early provision of bathing
facilities for women; the architecture and decoration of the buildings;
the development of heaters able to raise air to the requisite
temperature; the attitudes of the medical 'profession' to what many saw
as the quackery of the Turkish bath; the use of the bath in Victorian
hospitals and asylums; the rise of the limited liability company and the
founding of the Rochdale Pioneers' co-operative bath. The list of topics
is infinitely long and varied—this is a long-term project.
Among recent pages added to the site are one about the ongoing campaign
to
re-open a Victorian Turkish bath in Manchester and one in which Mrs
Doggett, housekeeper of David Urquhart's Jermyn Street Hammam, describes
(in 1862) her 14-hour working day in support of her request for a raise
to her £100 salary.
Other new and recent items are signposted on the Introductory page
which also explains the idea behind the Information Exchange.
Over six hundred Turkish baths have so far been identified in the
British Isles alone; today, less than a score remain, and of this still
diminishing number, less than half were built during Queen Victoria's
reign. It seems important, therefore, and a matter of some urgency, to
document the bath's history.
I am currently adding to the site monthly from October to June each
year.
Malcolm Shifrin
[log in to unmask]
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Visit our website (best on Internet Explorer 4+) at
http://www.victorianturkishbath.org/
It's updated monthly from October to June
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