City of Gold and Mud

I think the reason I have enjoyed going to places like castles or palaces while in Europe is because now there’s a sense of “I was there.” In the way that when I see a king’s throne room dressed with glamorous portraits that they had posed for hours for and their desks where they worked, fantasies of how history happened give yourself a sense of a story. Comparatively, at the Imperial War Museum, there was the same sense of “this artifact brings me to a moment in history,” but obviously the effect is much more somber and reminded me more about how hard Britain was affected in, particularly, the World Wars. There was sniper camouflage that I had found in one of the exhibits (and had attached as well) that had particularly caught my eye. I remember my first comment that I had made being that it looked like an image straight out of a horror movie. The paint splattered and the whole garb itself looking something cut and sewn with the intention of cranking thousands more for the caus...

Visiting the Imperial War Museum was a strangely rewarding experience for me because of a unique experience provided by an exhibit that the IWM does not particularly approve of. I am speaking about the Graham, the man from Birmingham who grew up during the blitz. While he discussed his experiences in a way that I could clearly tell were scripted. It was only when I was able to ask questions for myself that I found myself enjoying the experience. After I asked him, "did you ever think you would lose?" and he responded by saying, "no, of course not, Churchill said we weren't going to." I have always felt that the feelings of patriotism that Britain likes to tell itself about during the blitz were somewhat exaggerated. The letters we read for this week of reading certainly seemed to display a far greater degree of fear and horror than Britain would like you to believe, yet Graham seemed to look back on his time growing up fondly. He said that he felt like he m...

Living in London today, it is easy to observe and understand why the metropolitan is known as the “world’s city.” The amount of nationalities, languages and cultures within London are so incredibly abundant that I often find myself surprised if I hear someone answer the phone in a British accent on the bus or if I meet someone who is actually from England. Often, Londoners will tell you that the amount of diversity in the city is a recent phenomena, that the demographics have changed vastly over the last 30 years or so. However, while there may be truth to a newfound rise in multiculturalism within London, our class visit to the Prince Albert Memorial allowed to me realize that London has, for centuries, been the world’s promoter of other cultures, customs and goods. The Prince Albert Memorial, commissioned by Queen Victoria to commemorate her love for her husband, stands tall and intricate, the detailing around Albert himself giving homage to the worldly nature of the Prince and ...

Though we visit new destinations each week, there is one part of London that I have gotten to experience in this class no matter where we go. While I have been intrigued and fascinated by the likes of the imperial war museum, transportation museum, and wax museum, I have spent a lot of time paying attention to and thinking about what I see on the actual trips to get to our destination. More specifically, I have enjoyed noticing the scenes around me in and around the underground stations and the trains themselves. Having often ridden the subway in Manhattan growing up, I was very curious to see how this staple of a city-dwellers routine could differ from city to city, country to country, continent to continent. When we analyzed and talked about William Powell Frith's painting "The Railway Station" in class, I started to think more about how my observations were similar to Frith's depiction and in what ways. One thing I see a lot more of in London than I ever used to in...

Marie Aguirre Blog Post Two-The Imperial War Museum The visit last week to the Imperial War Museum will stick with me as one of the most unique experiences of my time in London. Although the exhibitions were extraordinary and showed many aspects of the war that I did not know about, I spend over half the time at the museum talking to the unofficial volunteer, Graham, who came to the museum, pulled up his own chair and spent the day talking to visitors about his personal experience living in Birmingham as a child during World War II. Through his story I was able to gain a new perspective of London and Britain at war. It was interesting to learn through talking with Graham and reading the letters how the reality of wartime Britain differed from the history I was taught in the US. For instance, Graham spoke of his childhood, saying he was a happy child with a great childhood that he wouldn’t trade for the world. This was surprising to me since I understood this period to be scary fo...

Jack Lemkuil 31 March 2019 World City: Representing London Blog #2              When I first came to London, one of the first places that I wanted to go see was the Churchill War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum. My sister studied abroad in London two years ago and went on and on about how life-changing both of these places were. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the two museums are actually a part of a set of museums under the term “Imperial War Museums”. Prior to the class trip, I conducted research into World War I and II in order to really appreciate all the museum had to offer. Even before getting to the Imperial War Museum, I learned so much from reading the museum’s website and watching the documentary from the UW-Madison database. One of the most fascinating parts of World War 1 exhibit was the soldier’s glove that was shrunken as a result of poisonous gases from the war. I have heard for years about the toxic warf...

            When we went to the Imperial War Museum, I noticed a large painting in the exhibit on World War II. It was called “Shipbuilding on the Clyde,” and it was painted by Stanley Spencer. From the plaque in the museum I learned that the War Artists’ Advisory Committee sent Stanley Spencer to the Lithgows Shipyard in Port Glasgow. He was sent there to specifically to paint the work being done on the Clyde.             From what I read at the museum, Stanley Spencer enjoyed painting that the shipyard. Apparently the workers appreciated what he was doing. He even ended up painting himself into the art piece. The piece detailed shipyard workers welding and highlighted teamwork of the workforce. It shows all the workers united by a common mission.             This art piece by Stanley Spencer related ...

https://www.kenthouseknightsbridge.org/about-us/events-in- knightsbridge/events-in-knightsbridge-albert-memorial/            Because I live across from Hyde Park, I have walked by and visited the Albert Memorial many times. The impression I had of the Albert Memorial before the class on ‘Imperial London’ was the same impression I had all those times I walked by and visited the memorial in the past; I felt the memorial was very ornate and grandiose, but I perceived no deeper representation besides the immense love Queen Victoria had for Prince Albert. After reading the assignment for the week, London 1900: Imperial Metropolis, by Jonathan Scheer, I understood a deeper representation present in the memorial. According to Scheer, “It was impossible, in turn-of-the-century London, to avoid the imperial subtext … Indeed, even the environs of the [Victoria and Albert] museum, containing the Albert Memorial, the Royal Albert Hall, and the...