A new issue of History in the Making is out now

After months of painstaking effort by our authors, editors and reviewers, History in the Making is pleased to announce a new issue. In this issue, the journal maintains its high standard of inquisitive, thoughtful works by undergraduates, complemented and honed by a dedicated team of postgraduates.

Two articles in this issue exemplify the exciting and diverse source material available to undergraduate history students. Rebecca Hart provides a close analysis of death certificates, wills, obituaries and deceased estate files to reveal the very personal experiences of a Victorian family. Hart focuses on the experiences and relationships of prominent women within the family, and uncovers the rich stories that can be found in often-dry legal documents. David Taylor accesses interactions between white Tasmanians and indigenous Australians through Benjamin Duterrau and Thomas Bock’s portrayals of Truggernana, Mannalargenna, George Augustus Robinson and their contemporaries, concluding that there is more to these artworks than meets the eye.

Eighteenth and nineteenth century United States history remains a popular topic for our contributors. Hope Williams recounts the activities of abortionist Ann Lohman, known as ‘Madame Restell’, in nineteenth-century New York City. Her career, the controversy with which it was met, and the media coverage of that controversy, are evaluated as manifestations of contemporary social issues. Peter Harney also accesses the social issues that loomed large in the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century, by examining the transformation of punishment from physical violence to architectural power and surveillance. Harney places that transformation in a broader social context of disease, secularisation and industrialisation.

History in the Making continues to publish strong works examining early modern and ancient periods. Jennifer Lord explores the portrayal of female mystics by male and female hagiographers, to identify attitudes to gender in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. She concludes that these mystics were constructed in a way that accommodated their spirituality within existing power structures. Debbie Turkilsen reaches further back, closely examining the rhetorical devices used by Julius Caesar to persuade his audience in The Civil War. She reveals that the text is indeed rhetorical, intended to communicate Caesar’s attitude towards the controversial events described in his work.