Drenching, Dipping and Dosing: managing unhealthy beasts on British farms c1920-1970
An AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award, at the Department of History, KCL, and the Museum of English Rural Life, Reading
The aim of this project is to produce a history ‘from below’ of livestock health in Britain, c1920-70. Departing from the usual historical focus on government policy and scientific experts, it aims to understand what disease meant to livestock owners and how they coped with it at a time of rapid transition in pharmaceuticals and farming systems. Traversing fields, fells, farm-yards and factory farms, it will explore farmers’ changing experiences and interpretations of disease. It will also analyse their uses of family remedies, patent medicines, modern pharmaceuticals and animal management for the purposes of disease prevention and control. How did these coping strategies change over time, and what factors influenced farmers’ decision-making?
Research will draw heavily upon the archive and object collections of the Museum of English Rural Life, as well as related collections eg in the Wellcome library, and the memories of livestock farmers. It is particularly timely, because MERL is currently incorporating ‘livestock management and animal health’ as a new theme within its gallery development project. Funded by the Heritage Lottery and the Wellcome Trust, this project and the accompanying programme of public engagement and audience development activities, aims to transform how visitors understand the rural past through the MERL collections. The student will have multiple opportunities to contribute to this goal, eg through blogging, contributions to the website, and participation in workshops and seminars.
The award covers fees, and (for UK residents) an annual stipend of c£17,000 pa for 3 years.
Supervisors are Dr Abigail Woods (KCL) and Dr Ollie Douglas (MERL)
More details, and instructions of how to apply are available at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/funding/database/index.php?action=view&id=613
The deadline is May 31.
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