History of Work Information System

[msmcknittington]

I stumbled across this website while looking for pictures of 16th-century milkmaids. It's an encyclopedia of the history of work, and seems to be exclusively European. I haven't run into anything that isn't from Western Europe, yet -- that is, nothing from Russia or Eastern Europe.

There are engravings from the 16th and 17th centuries there, of various professions. For example, this plate by Jost Amman of a cook at work (16th century Germany). I will note that the cook is really, ridiculously burly. Look at his left arm. What the hell, Herr Amman?

Comments

[jayjaybear.livejournal.com]

o/` He's Popeye the Cooking-Man.
He's Popeye the Cooking-Man.
He's strong to the finich,
cause he boils the spinach.
He's Popeye the Cooking-Man... o/`

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

It made me laugh! Just think of the amount of spinach you'd have to boil to look like that.

[tattycat.livejournal.com]

Okay, that plate has the same problem I noticed on several of the Tailor entries-- the description doesn't match the image. Very odd.

But I am bookmarking that site anyway. Tremendously useful.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

There are a few others where the text doesn't seem to match up with the image either, but the source is cited if you look at the extended version. This one appears to be a book about Bramer's drawings, who is a completely different artist working in an entirely different century, in a different country. Very strange.

I wish they had an image search, but of course they don't.

ETA: They do, sort of. Uh, go me!

[quincy134.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Appears to be from Leuven U, which I believe is in the Netherlands. They have a pretty good econ department. This is the list of countries and languages they've coded into the database:

Countries

Belgium
Canada (Quebec)
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Spain
Sweden

Languages

Catalan
Danish
Dutch
English
French
German
Greek
Norwegian
Portugese
Spanish
Swedish

So mostly W Europe

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

If they have a good econ department, the history of work thing actually makes a lot of sense. Assuming, of course, they've got somebody studying the history of i or are on good terms with the history department.

[quincy134.livejournal.com]

Someone from Leuven presented a paper here last semester. It was pretty good.

European universities are way more cool about collaboration between economics and history, compared to US schools. Though my department has a couple good economic historians.

[tedeisenstein.livejournal.com]

Huh. That seems to be the same Jost Amman who did the woodcuts for Cleri totius Romanae ecclesiae subjecti, a collection of the garb of 103 religious orders, in 1585, a book I've come across more than once.