Matt Houlbrook
Cultural history, Britain, cities, sexuality & gender, #20s30s.
Now - Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London (MUP)
Next - The Self-Improvers: The people who remade themselves and made the modern world
- Almost like the juice of feeding the fruits of other people's labour into the plagiarism machine really wasn't worth the squeeze, right?
- Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition. TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’ www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
- This is a thing of rare beauty and imagination and also some utterly compelling #20s30s history.
- My next wee bit of drawing, looking forward to it. Might be of interest @tricksterprince.bsky.social ? 100years.scot/the-story/th...
- So much #20s30s loveliness in here...
- Whoop whoop it’s Hippfest lineup announcement day! silentlondon.co.uk/2026/02/04/h...
- You should all read @ladyburglar.bsky.social wonderful new book on the Secret Life of the Hotel in modern Britain. Lovely to see their shelf neighbours too.
- Chuffed to bits as my husband spotted my book in Deansgate Waterstones in Manchester! @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social
- Grim week but am finding some pleasure in the new wall above my desk.
- The 1921 census required every household to identify a 'head' - assumed to be a husband - but it offered no way to record same-sex relationships. So how did women and gender non- conforming people record their lives? Often subversively, as some examples show 🧵 (1/6) #LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26
- Time for another postcards from 1920s and 1930s Seven Dials I think Before there was the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, there was the Cave of Harmony - cooler clientele, and far better food by the sound of it. #London #SevenDials #CoventGarden #History #20s30s #guinness
- Bolton: The Happiest Town on Earth? In the 1930s MO asked he people of Bolton "What is happiness to you and yours?". In this episode researchers knock on the doors of those who live in the same spot as the original correspondents, hearing their reflections on happiness www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
- The Hutments: 551 timber houses were constructed in five local authority areas by the end of September 1921 under this Scottish Board of Health post-WW1 initiative. #housing 📚🗃️ thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com/2024/04/02/t...
