Alysa Levene
Biographic Data
| ID | 1026689 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alysa Levene |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alysa |
| FAMILY NAME | Levene |
| SIGNATURE | LEVENE A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Oxford Brookes University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 26 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain
This book examines Jewish communities in Britain in an era of immense social, economic and religious change: from the acceleration of industrialisation to the end of the first phase of large-scale Jewish immigration from Europe. Using the 1851 census alongside extensive charity and community records, Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain tests the impact of migration, new types of working and changes in patterns of worship on the family and communit…
Rotten Bodies
SIENA, Kevin – Rotten Bodies: Class & Contagion in 18th-Century Britain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. Pp. 333. In 2011, I was privileged to host Kevin Siena as a visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and in the course of his visit we shared many thought-provoking conversations about fever and contagion. What were interesting and well-conceived themes in 2011, however, have now become, in Rotten Bodies, a rich and thoroughly…
Rotten Bodies
Reviewed by: Rotten Bodies: Class and Contagion in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Kevin Siena Alysa Levene Siena, Kevin – Rotten Bodies: Class and Contagion in Eighteenth-Century Britain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. Pp. 333. In 2011, I was privileged to host Kevin Siena as a visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and in the course of his visit we shared many thoughtprovoking conversations about fever and contagion. What were…
Broken Childhoods
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, England underwent a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization. The detrimental effects of urban living conditions and child factory labor on the health of children during this time has been the subject of considerable debate and investigation by historians. It is generally understood that growing up in a rural environment was more conducive to healthy growth and development than within an i…
Jewish Households and Religious Identity in Mid-nineteenth-century Britain
This article tests the impact of industrial life, migration, and religious ties on family life. Specifically, it examines Jewish households, asking whether they conformed to traditional patterns of nuclearity, and what this suggests about wider kinship or community networks. It shows that Jews accommodated a range of people in their households, from family members to Jewish lodgers and non-Jewish servants. Jewish lodgers frequently lived with cor…
Pauper Children and Poor Law Childhoods in England and Wales, 1834–1910
The history of childhood and child welfare has had a steady simmering of interest for a number of years now, and scholars are slowly starting to construct a more coherent picture of experiences, id
Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws
The list of contributors to this edited volume reads like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of the current generation of ‘historians from below’. Edited by two of the leading experts on pauper letters, it has a tone
Childhood, Youth and Emotions in Modern History
This edited book, part of the Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, makes a plea for historians of emotions to talk to historians of childhood. This, the editor says, will enrich both fields: it will introduce historical specificity to the history of emotions and bring new questions to bear on the universality (or not) of childhood in the past. The collection as a whole certainly achieves this aim, and it is to be hoped that it will spark …
The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature . By Cynthia L. Nixon
The Meanings of Margarine in England
Margarine was invented in the 1870s as a cheap alternative to butter. This article examines the ways that consumers felt about the product during the period from the end of the First World War to the end of rationing following the Second World War. It argues that margarine continued to suffer from an association with poverty which was closely linked to feelings about social status and public versus private spheres. However, there was a range of o…
Child Patients, Hospitals and the Home in Eighteenth-Century England
This article seeks to map out some of the principal pathways to medical care used by the parents of poor children. We focus on the most formal provider of healthcare in eighteenth-century towns, the voluntary general hospitals, but we use these institutions as a prism to consider the way that the treatment of child sickness was managed more generally in five local settings. Utilising eighteenth-century hospital admissions and discharge registers …
Parents of Poor Children in England, 1580-1800 by Patricia Crawford
Poor families, removals and ‘nurture’ in late Old Poor Law London
The consideration of the removals aspect of settlement law – that is, the moving on of paupers or potential paupers to the parish where they ‘belonged’ – has focused almost exclusively on working-age adults and labour migration. This article focuses on how removal law affected families with children in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in two large London parishes. It finds that children were a sizeable presence among the removed…
Parish apprenticeship and the old poor law in London
This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 17…
Between Less Eligibility and the NHS
In 1929, the Local Government Act broke up the apparatus of the Poor Law Guardians and Unions, and transferred responsibility for the care of the poor to local councils. In theory, the period between the passing of the Act and the formation of the National Health Service witnessed a large-scale reclassification of the sick poor as patients rather than paupers. In reality, as this investigation of contemporary judgements of hospital quality and be…
Hertfordshire children in war and peace, 1914–1939 – By David Parker
Honesty, sobriety and diligence’
The historical focus on master–apprentice relations has tended to spotlight breakdown and trouble. Apprentices have been classified as part of a conscious sub-society who knew their customary entit
Women's Work in Industrial England
Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain 1918–1960 by Kate Fisher
Family breakdown and the ‘Welfare Child’ in 19th and 20th century Britain
This article traces new cycles of interest in past children as distinct from past childhood. Recent work highlighting that a conceptualisation of childhood existed even in periods with few written records closes the chapter begun by Philippe Ariès in 1960. Instead, there has been a new surge of interest in children on the edges of family life, as well as children in similarly liminal positions between the worlds of adults and children: runaways, …
Investment choices? County borough health expenditure in inter-war England and Wales
This article examines the level of expenditure on health care provision in English and Welsh county boroughs during the inter-war period. It focuses in particular on key individual services such as maternity and child welfare to show that while there was a general trend to increased municipal health care expenditure, when this is disaggregated significant variations emerge between services, between boroughs and over time. It is argued that such a…
From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe
Journal Article From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe Get access Alysa Levene Alysa Levene Oxford Brookes University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 18, Issue 2, August 2005, Pages 331–332, https://doi.org/10.1093/sochis/hki042 Published: 01 August 2005
Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor
Kevin P. Siena, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2004. Pp. 280. £55 (hbk). ISBN I-58046–148–4. This book may deal with an unsavoury subject but it treats it with sensitivity, both to the reality of disease and to the way it played into wider debates on gender, poverty, shame, secrecy, and social structure. Kevin Siena uses a range of institutional sources to investigate his subject and also marshals coroners' reports, advertisements for …
The estimation of mortality at the London Foundling Hospital, 1741-99
The high mortality of foundlings across Europe has long been established by historical demographers but methods of quantification have not permitted comparison with rates in the populations beyond the foundling hospitals. This study investigates mortality rates at the London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth century in a way that addresses the issue. The study finds that although foundling mortality was extremely high at certain periods in the…
Patterns of Municipal Health Expenditure in Interwar England and Wales
This article aims to fill a gap in the history of medical services in England and Wales in the interwar period by focusing on the historiographically neglected municipal sector—a relative neglect that is particularly unjustified given that this sector provided an increasingly wide array of medical services over the period. Focusing on the highly urbanized county boroughs, this article investigates whether and how expenditure on municipal health s…
The Meanings of Margarine in England
Margarine was invented in the 1870s as a cheap alternative to butter. This article examines the ways that consumers felt about the product during the period from the end of the First World War to the end of rationing following the Second World War. It argues that margarine continued to suffer from an association with poverty which was closely linked to feelings about social status and public versus private spheres. However, there was a range of o…
Between Less Eligibility and the NHS
In 1929, the Local Government Act broke up the apparatus of the Poor Law Guardians and Unions, and transferred responsibility for the care of the poor to local councils. In theory, the period between the passing of the Act and the formation of the National Health Service witnessed a large-scale reclassification of the sick poor as patients rather than paupers. In reality, as this investigation of contemporary judgements of hospital quality and be…
Parish apprenticeship and the old poor law in London
This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 17…
The origins of the children of the London Foundling Hospital, 1741–1760
The infants left at the London Foundling Hospital in the first twenty years of its operation have generally been classed as illegitimate. This study examines some of the characteristics of the children who entered the hospital between 1741 and 1760, and points to a far larger component of legitimate infants than has previously been suspected, up to a third being born in wedlock. The backgrounds of the children varied considerably, as did the reas…
Family breakdown and the ‘Welfare Child’ in 19th and 20th century Britain
This article traces new cycles of interest in past children as distinct from past childhood. Recent work highlighting that a conceptualisation of childhood existed even in periods with few written records closes the chapter begun by Philippe Ariès in 1960. Instead, there has been a new surge of interest in children on the edges of family life, as well as children in similarly liminal positions between the worlds of adults and children: runaways, …
From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe
Journal Article From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe Get access Alysa Levene Alysa Levene Oxford Brookes University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 18, Issue 2, August 2005, Pages 331–332, https://doi.org/10.1093/sochis/hki042 Published: 01 August 2005
The estimation of mortality at the London Foundling Hospital, 1741-99
The high mortality of foundlings across Europe has long been established by historical demographers but methods of quantification have not permitted comparison with rates in the populations beyond the foundling hospitals. This study investigates mortality rates at the London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth century in a way that addresses the issue. The study finds that although foundling mortality was extremely high at certain periods in the…
Honesty, sobriety and diligence’
The historical focus on master–apprentice relations has tended to spotlight breakdown and trouble. Apprentices have been classified as part of a conscious sub-society who knew their customary entit
Investment choices? County borough health expenditure in inter-war England and Wales
This article examines the level of expenditure on health care provision in English and Welsh county boroughs during the inter-war period. It focuses in particular on key individual services such as maternity and child welfare to show that while there was a general trend to increased municipal health care expenditure, when this is disaggregated significant variations emerge between services, between boroughs and over time. It is argued that such a…
Poor families, removals and ‘nurture’ in late Old Poor Law London
The consideration of the removals aspect of settlement law – that is, the moving on of paupers or potential paupers to the parish where they ‘belonged’ – has focused almost exclusively on working-age adults and labour migration. This article focuses on how removal law affected families with children in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in two large London parishes. It finds that children were a sizeable presence among the removed…
The origins of the children of the London Foundling Hospital, 1741–1760
The infants left at the London Foundling Hospital in the first twenty years of its operation have generally been classed as illegitimate. This study examines some of the characteristics of the children who entered the hospital between 1741 and 1760, and points to a far larger component of legitimate infants than has previously been suspected, up to a third being born in wedlock. The backgrounds of the children varied considerably, as did the reas…
Patterns of Municipal Health Expenditure in Interwar England and Wales
This article aims to fill a gap in the history of medical services in England and Wales in the interwar period by focusing on the historiographically neglected municipal sector—a relative neglect that is particularly unjustified given that this sector provided an increasingly wide array of medical services over the period. Focusing on the highly urbanized county boroughs, this article investigates whether and how expenditure on municipal health s…
Investment choices? County borough health expenditure in inter-war England and Wales
This article examines the level of expenditure on health care provision in English and Welsh county boroughs during the inter-war period. It focuses in particular on key individual services such as maternity and child welfare to show that while there was a general trend to increased municipal health care expenditure, when this is disaggregated significant variations emerge between services, between boroughs and over time. It is argued that such a…
From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe
Journal Article From Sin to Insanity. Suicide in Early Modern Europe Get access Alysa Levene Alysa Levene Oxford Brookes University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social History of Medicine, Volume 18, Issue 2, August 2005, Pages 331–332, https://doi.org/10.1093/sochis/hki042 Published: 01 August 2005
Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor
Kevin P. Siena, Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2004. Pp. 280. £55 (hbk). ISBN I-58046–148–4. This book may deal with an unsavoury subject but it treats it with sensitivity, both to the reality of disease and to the way it played into wider debates on gender, poverty, shame, secrecy, and social structure. Kevin Siena uses a range of institutional sources to investigate his subject and also marshals coroners' reports, advertisements for …
The estimation of mortality at the London Foundling Hospital, 1741-99
The high mortality of foundlings across Europe has long been established by historical demographers but methods of quantification have not permitted comparison with rates in the populations beyond the foundling hospitals. This study investigates mortality rates at the London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth century in a way that addresses the issue. The study finds that although foundling mortality was extremely high at certain periods in the…
Family breakdown and the ‘Welfare Child’ in 19th and 20th century Britain
This article traces new cycles of interest in past children as distinct from past childhood. Recent work highlighting that a conceptualisation of childhood existed even in periods with few written records closes the chapter begun by Philippe Ariès in 1960. Instead, there has been a new surge of interest in children on the edges of family life, as well as children in similarly liminal positions between the worlds of adults and children: runaways, …
Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain 1918–1960 by Kate Fisher
Hertfordshire children in war and peace, 1914–1939 – By David Parker
Honesty, sobriety and diligence’
The historical focus on master–apprentice relations has tended to spotlight breakdown and trouble. Apprentices have been classified as part of a conscious sub-society who knew their customary entit
Women's Work in Industrial England
Between Less Eligibility and the NHS
In 1929, the Local Government Act broke up the apparatus of the Poor Law Guardians and Unions, and transferred responsibility for the care of the poor to local councils. In theory, the period between the passing of the Act and the formation of the National Health Service witnessed a large-scale reclassification of the sick poor as patients rather than paupers. In reality, as this investigation of contemporary judgements of hospital quality and be…
Poor families, removals and ‘nurture’ in late Old Poor Law London
The consideration of the removals aspect of settlement law – that is, the moving on of paupers or potential paupers to the parish where they ‘belonged’ – has focused almost exclusively on working-age adults and labour migration. This article focuses on how removal law affected families with children in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in two large London parishes. It finds that children were a sizeable presence among the removed…
Parish apprenticeship and the old poor law in London
This article offers an examination of the patterns and motivations behind parish apprenticeship in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. It stresses continuity in outlook from parish officials binding children, which involved placements in both the traditional and industrializing sectors of the economy. Evidence on the ages, employment types, and locations of 3,285 pauper apprentices bound from different parts of London between 17…
Parents of Poor Children in England, 1580-1800 by Patricia Crawford
Child Patients, Hospitals and the Home in Eighteenth-Century England
This article seeks to map out some of the principal pathways to medical care used by the parents of poor children. We focus on the most formal provider of healthcare in eighteenth-century towns, the voluntary general hospitals, but we use these institutions as a prism to consider the way that the treatment of child sickness was managed more generally in five local settings. Utilising eighteenth-century hospital admissions and discharge registers …
The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Law and Literature . By Cynthia L. Nixon
The Meanings of Margarine in England
Margarine was invented in the 1870s as a cheap alternative to butter. This article examines the ways that consumers felt about the product during the period from the end of the First World War to the end of rationing following the Second World War. It argues that margarine continued to suffer from an association with poverty which was closely linked to feelings about social status and public versus private spheres. However, there was a range of o…
Childhood, Youth and Emotions in Modern History
This edited book, part of the Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions, makes a plea for historians of emotions to talk to historians of childhood. This, the editor says, will enrich both fields: it will introduce historical specificity to the history of emotions and bring new questions to bear on the universality (or not) of childhood in the past. The collection as a whole certainly achieves this aim, and it is to be hoped that it will spark …
Pauper Children and Poor Law Childhoods in England and Wales, 1834–1910
The history of childhood and child welfare has had a steady simmering of interest for a number of years now, and scholars are slowly starting to construct a more coherent picture of experiences, id
Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws
The list of contributors to this edited volume reads like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of the current generation of ‘historians from below’. Edited by two of the leading experts on pauper letters, it has a tone
Broken Childhoods
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, England underwent a period of rapid urbanization and industrialization. The detrimental effects of urban living conditions and child factory labor on the health of children during this time has been the subject of considerable debate and investigation by historians. It is generally understood that growing up in a rural environment was more conducive to healthy growth and development than within an i…
Jewish Households and Religious Identity in Mid-nineteenth-century Britain
This article tests the impact of industrial life, migration, and religious ties on family life. Specifically, it examines Jewish households, asking whether they conformed to traditional patterns of nuclearity, and what this suggests about wider kinship or community networks. It shows that Jews accommodated a range of people in their households, from family members to Jewish lodgers and non-Jewish servants. Jewish lodgers frequently lived with cor…
Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain
This book examines Jewish communities in Britain in an era of immense social, economic and religious change: from the acceleration of industrialisation to the end of the first phase of large-scale Jewish immigration from Europe. Using the 1851 census alongside extensive charity and community records, Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain tests the impact of migration, new types of working and changes in patterns of worship on the family and communit…
Rotten Bodies
SIENA, Kevin – Rotten Bodies: Class & Contagion in 18th-Century Britain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. Pp. 333. In 2011, I was privileged to host Kevin Siena as a visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and in the course of his visit we shared many thought-provoking conversations about fever and contagion. What were interesting and well-conceived themes in 2011, however, have now become, in Rotten Bodies, a rich and thoroughly…
Political science (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (15 works) · History (15 works) · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Economics (9 works) · History (9 works) · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices (8 works)