Kate So

a brown and white dog is behind a metal fence and smiling . ALT: a brown and white dog is behind a metal fence and smiling .

Me, someone who based her thesis off Piranesi (one of my favourite novels of all time), looking at the Folio Soc copy she couldn't possibly afford.

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Are you an early-career historian interested in radical, public and digital history?

We are currently looking for two part-time, paid Editorial Fellows to join History Workshop.

Deadline is at midnight on 15th August. See below for more details!

www.historyworkshop....

I was just—again!!—getting infuriated this morning about how incredibly disrespectful the AHA is toward archivists and other caretakers of historical records. Making up fake images when there are people whose profession is to preserve and enable the use of real historical images? ffs AHA

a cat sitting on a chair in a living room looking at the camera ALT: a cat sitting on a chair in a living room looking at the camera

Guess who has a complete full draft of her thesis?

Seriously, fuck off.
I say that with all due gravity.

This sounds like a superhero origin story.

So true

In the death registers of early modern Venice, marginalia often marks the cause of death: drawings of daggers for murders, for instance.

In 1696, Giovanni Battista Rinaldi was killed by a dog. This is the drawing by his entry.

kermit the frog is dancing in front of a red curtain on a stage . ALT: kermit the frog is dancing in front of a red curtain on a stage .

I’m at the ✨ googling whether or not having another energy drink will kill me ✨ stage of thesis writing.

Image of Suffragette chained to railings

Did you know that you can watch recordings of our events online?

Check out this talk on the history of maternal health and women campaigners in the prison system! buff.ly/7VQDl78

#HistNursing

life changing**

Anne Lamott's book 'bird by bird' was live changing for me. Here's the eponymous story.

Double O Seventeenth century

It’s truly a special kind of hell!!

a woman is wearing a pillow on her head while sitting at a desk . ALT: a woman is wearing a pillow on her head while sitting at a desk .

The people who bought the flat above us are so unbelievably loud that I am on frequently on the edge of tears and the ONLY way I can even begin to cope with it is by imagining they're a pair of attic poltergeists.

Four popsicles, each labelled with a different galenic humour

Good Humour popsicles, recommended by Galen, loved by serfs everywhere

Painting showing opisthotonos in a patient suffering from tetanus. The naked man is experiencing full body spasms.

I came across some dangerous misinfo on TikTok from a nurse using lots of big words to argue that you only get tetanus on farms. This is not true. You can get tetanus anywhere there is dirt.

As a historian of medicine, I'm obligated to share this 1809 paining of someone suffering from tetanus

Cursed myself with this one

a red light is coming out of a hole ALT: a red light is coming out of a hole

my thesis writing is getting exponentially faster and I am feeling like this is going to actually be finished in the near future*

*do not ask me if I still feel like this tomorrow.

a cartoon says that having fun isn 't hard when you have got a library card ALT: a cartoon says that having fun isn 't hard when you have got a library card

There’s advert that keeps popping up on YouTube that’s annoying me to no end. It goes ‘my sister reads books but I can’t afford to buy her two books a week, that’s why I love this [book shop]’ THE LIBRARY. GO TO THE LIBRARY. The L I B R A R Y. Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a LIBRARY CARD!!!

Paws on Parchment This paws-itively adorable exhibition explores how medieval people thought about, engaged with, and admired cats in books from the period.

🚨 CATS IN MANUSCRIPTS, repeat CATS IN MANUSCRIPTS 🚨 exhibit opening at the Walters in August!
thewalters.org/exhibitions/... #medievalsky #baltimore

Picture of a woman’s feet wearing black high top converse with long pointed toes

Shot from the side of leather converse with a heel and long pointed toe

When you’ve got to get some practise shooting hoops at 4, but need to entertain the king and his court at 7pm. Jester Day to Knight wear.

The go to shoe for rat catchers with pipes.

The first treatise on bedbugs from 1730 — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/treatise-of-buggs

Written by an exterminator, it wanders into a surprising mode: one inflected not by disgust, but rather coy wonder and begrudging awe.

I am absolutely buzzing!

Picture of a 17th century town house

Kate So written on the window

A Valediction of ✨MY ✨ name in the window! 🪟

I have been busy cataloguing the names in the windows of London’s oldest house (still a private residence)

It has been an enormous privilege to uncover the stories behind those names. One added today needs absolutely no research!

I’m one lucky duck!

🚨 Attention: dreamy job alert! 🚨

Oh, these work! This has been keeping me up at night. Motive onomatopoeia?

Someone who is knowledgeable words help! This is absolutely not important but I can’t stop thinking about it. Is there an onomatopoeia but for shapes or movement? E.g. ‘flutter’ ‘swoop’ ’plunge’ all sound like the movement looks. Kiki vs bowba etc. it’s doing my head in that I don’t know!

Black and white drawing of the side profile of a woman wearing a very large ballon-shaped skirt. She also has on a shawl and a cloth head covering.

I spotted this rather fabulous sketch of a 'lady smuggler' (according to the exhibit's title) from 1788 in the Jersey Maritime Museum. Underneath the drawing is a long list of all the items of clothing she concealed under her voluminous skirts and smuggled to France.

A large long room. On the long sides of the room are dark wooded desks and seats which are roped off. The floor is carpet which is cut to reveal a mosaic strip down the middle. There are large windows with stained glass in them down the whole stretch of the room. The ceiling is carved wood. Kate stands in the middle as a reference for size. She looks very small in comparison to the room.

A close up on the tilted desks and seats. The desk is joined to its corresponding seats like a carrell. The seat is made up of a communal bench with a high back. The high back of the bench is flush with the desk behind it. They are a dark wood with carvings. On the side of the each bench’s back rest is a hand writing book list detailing which books are fixed to the desks.

Close up of manuscript book list detailing books in each section (in latin)

The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence was commissioned in 1523 by Pope Clement VII. It was a chained library, meaning books were fixed to the library’s seats by chains. Readers would have find the book they wanted on the book lists on side of the desks and access it at that spot!