New Books in Museum Studies19 Des 2023

Saving the Brontë Birthplace

Where were the Brontë sisters actually born? If this was a quiz question, most people would give the wrong answer. Even standard books on the Brontë family often gloss over the fact that Charlotte, Emily and Anne – along with their wayward brother Branwell – were all born between 1815 and 1820 in Thornton, a village on the edge of Bradford, and not at the famous Brontë Parsonage in nearby Haworth. The original hearth in front of which they were born – and the modest terraced property in Market Street, Thornton still housing that historic fireplace – is surprisingly little-known even among Bronte enthusiasts. All that is about to change. A group of dedicated volunteers, backed by a couple of grants and a lot of crowdfunding, has just bought the long-neglected house and will soon embark on transforming it into an arts and education project with a difference. Under the banner ‘Be More Brontë’, local youngsters will be introduced to the Bronte sisters, hear about wonderful books such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and be encouraged to explore their imaginations and their own future dreams. By 2025, the Brontë Birthplace will be open to the public, featuring a café, a lively programme of educational, community and creative events, and even three guest rooms (named after Charlotte, Emily and Anne respectively) where visitors can stay the night. In this podcast, Duncan McCargo talks to two Brontë Birthplace committee members about the project, and about what the Brontes mean to them. Christa Ackroyd is a former regional television news presenter, while Steve Stanworth is a local historian responsible for the restoration of the nearby Brontë Bell Chapel site. Your support is still needed: please visit brontebirthplace.com to offer financial assistance, or to find out how you can get involved. Duncan McCargo is a professor of global affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and a host on the NBN Literature Channel. Full disclosure: he is also a patron of the Brontë Birthplace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episoder(205)

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6 Sep 30min

Emily Matson, "China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World ...

6 Sep 33min

Samuel Holleran and Max Holleran, "Scattered Steel: The Afterlife of the World Trade Center" (Cornell UP, 2026)

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21 Aug 47min

Sarah Ellen Zarrow, "Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941" (Cornell UP, 2025.)

Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891–1941 (Cornell UP, 2025.) illuminates the lives and work of Polish Jewish collectors and museologists, who sought to preserve the treas...

14 Aug 1h 2min

Ellery E. Foutch, "A Perfectionist Impulse: The Art of Stopping Time in the Nineteenth Century (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

Cultural studies of the nineteenth century often categorize their subjects as being motivated by one of two opposing notions: a wholehearted embrace of progress or an antimodernist nostalgia. A Perfec...

14 Aug 1h

Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul, "Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest (U Nebraska Press, 2026) centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose marketing materials call it “Utopi...

9 Aug 36min

Marisa Karyl Franz, "Near and Desired Things: Shamanism in Late Imperial Local Siberian Museums" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Near and Desired Things: Shamanism in Late Imperial Local Siberian Museums (Cornell University Press, 2026) reveals nineteenth-century Siberian museums, built on Indigenous land and increasingly popul...

9 Aug 58min

Sara Pappas, "Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century (University of Toronto Press, 2024) examines one of the most revered art historical narratives of Western art: the famou...

5 Aug 41min