Josh Rhodes
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joshrhodes.bsky.social
Josh Rhodes
@joshrhodes.bsky.social
180 followers 160 following 23 posts
Lecturer in Digital History at UCL. All things census related + agrarian/industrial development of Britain 16th-19th centuries.
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joshrhodes.bsky.social
Josh Rhodes @joshrhodes.bsky.social · Jan 21
So pleased my article on geo-coding addresses of 121 million + people in British censuses 1851-1911 is now out with Historical Methods! #openaccess

- map any census info (ages, occupations, birthplaces etc) by address

- link census to other spatial datasets

Get the code and data 👇
Map of London in 1901 showing percentage of people born overseas by street.
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
kmcdono.bsky.social
Lovely videos from @bucksarchives.bsky.social showing value of archival work. ALSO a perfect demonstration of why older traditional NLP approaches to Named Entity Recognition (NER) fail in historical contexts where people and place are not always mutually exclusive, nor easily distinguishable.
bucksarchives.bsky.social Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 19d
Let's play Bucks Name or Name Name
November 10, 2025 at 10:32 AM
joshrhodes.bsky.social
Any ideas what the word/s between 'necessary' and 'Registrar' are in this marginal note from the 1851 English census? I thought I was pretty sure but keep doubting if I've got it right!
Image of part of 1851 England Census return
November 7, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
timhitchcock.bsky.social
Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
London Lives
www.londonlives.org
November 5, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
emvchung.bsky.social
Was Manchester really as segregated as Engels said? What kept the rich and poor apart.... if anything? My first article is out today in @historicaljnl.bsky.social and I'm so pleased to share it with you all! doi:10.1017/S0018246X25101246
@stjohnscollege.bsky.social @camunicampop.bsky.social
October 21, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
hggaddy.bsky.social
🚨 The Economist has been telling you for years that polygamy causes civil war by locking men out of marriage. A new article with @rebeccasear.bsky.social and @anthrolog.bsky.social explains that the demography of marriage markets doesn't actually work that way. 🧵

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
High rates of polygyny do not lock large proportions of men out of the marriage market | PNAS
There is a widespread belief, in both the scholarly literature and the popular press, that polygyny prevents large numbers of men from marrying by ...
www.pnas.org
October 6, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
adamcrymble.bsky.social
Job Advert to join my team at UCL

💭Lecturer in Humanities Data Science
💭£54,931 - £57,979
💭Open Ended Contract
💭Great interdisciplinary team

Closes 15 September 2025

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
www.ucl.ac.uk
August 14, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
bucksarchives.bsky.social
If you've ever wondered what life in an archive is like, we've discovered this 2005 mobile phone box we've somehow got that's a completely accurate depiction.
A colour photograph of a hand holding a water damaged Nokia box. On it are three men in business attire playing football.
August 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
pietersender.bsky.social
I’m no expert but I would’ve got a person to do it.
A BBC news headline which says “Penguin says it did “all necessary due diligence” with The Salt Path
July 9, 2025 at 12:39 PM
joshrhodes.bsky.social
Excited to try this out! 👇
 Emily Kadens @ek27.bsky.social · Jul 6
Just pushed the button on running the Egerton model for the last time before we make it public. We hit 1.1 million words in the training data and 126,000 in the verification set. This has been three years in the making, but it's a great model and really accurate. @transkribus.bsky.social
July 7, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
lsangha.bsky.social
Wow - so many people already signed up for our Wills Project Transcribathon later this month! 🙏

If you drop by you can transcribe some lines & help make 25,000 English wills more accessible for all.

In person & online, join us here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

#EarlyModern 🗃️ #Palaeography
A poster advertising the 'Wills Project Transcribathon' on Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, in the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Exeter, and on zoom. The poster features black text on green and yellow backgrounds, and three images - a box of folded will manuscripts, an unfolded will manuscript, and the painting Thomas Braithwaite of Ambleside making his will, Abbot Hall, 1607. Photo: Lakeland Arts.
July 7, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
katrinanavickas.bsky.social
My new article on protest marches and processions in London,1780-1915, has just been published online!

Thanks to the editors and reviewers of Historical Research for making it such a smooth process.

academic.oup.com/histres/adva...
The development of political procession routes and policing the right to march in London, 1780–1915
Abstract. Processions and marches were an integral part of popular politics, protest and urban life. This article maps the routes of 101 civic, political a
academic.oup.com
June 30, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
lsangha.bsky.social
📢WILLS TRANSCRIBATHON KLAXON📢

Join us on Thursday 24 July to transcribe wills and go behind the scenes of the wills project!

In person and on Zoom - full details & registration here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

#EarlyModern 🗃️ #transcription @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social
Promotional image advertising 'Wills Project Transcribathon, Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, Digital Humanities Lab University of Exeter and on Zoom. The image also features a portrait of a man making his will, a photo of a box of wills and a page of a will.
June 24, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
ndecon.bsky.social
New @nber.org working paper from our colleague Kasey Buckles @kaseybuckles.bsky.social (along with Joe Price and Zach Ward), "Grandchild? Multigenerational Mobility in American History." Check it out:

www.nber.org/papers/w33923
Like Great-Grandparent, Like Great-Grandchild? Multigenerational Mobility in American History
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
June 16, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
bengtssonz.bsky.social
📢 new paper klaxon 📢

@felixkersting.bsky.social and I reconsider agrarian inequality in German and Swedish history and the role played (or not played) by landlordism in the road to fascism in Germany and democracy in Sweden. I’m very happy about this one!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
June 10, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
bucksarchives.bsky.social
Welcome to the archives.
June 10, 2025 at 8:02 AM
joshrhodes.bsky.social
Very proud to see @charmianmansell.bsky.social on this shortlist!
royalhistsoc.org Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · May 29
The shortlist for the Society's 2025 First Book Prize for early career historians is now available bit.ly/4kkm4lW

Eight titles have been selected, following an open call for submissions of books published in 2024. Two winners of the 2025 prize will be announced in July.

#Skystorians
Image of the eight titles shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's First Book Prize for early career historians, 2025. Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485-1547, by Laura Flannigan (Cambridge University Press) Intimate Subjects: Touch and Tangibility in Britain’s Cerebral Age, by Simeon Koole (University of Chicago Press) Female Servants in Early Modern England, by Charmian Mansell (British Academy / Oxford University Press) The Capital Market of Manila and the Pacific Trade, 1668-1838: Institutions and Trade during the First Globalization, by Juan Jose Rivas Moreno (Palgrave MacMillan) Segregated Species: Pests, Knowledge, and Boundaries in South Africa, 1910–1948, by Jules Skotnes-Brown (Johns Hopkins University Press) The Quislings. The Trials of Norwegian Wartime Collaborators, 1941–1964, by Anika Seemann (Cambridge University Press) Pistols in St Paul’s: Science, Music, and Architecture in the Twentieth Century, by Fiona Smyth (Manchester University Press) Desire and Disunity: Christian Communities and Sexual Norms in the Late Antique West, by Ulriika Vihervalli (Liverpool University Press)
May 29, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
louisefalcini.bsky.social
I have finished posting the 420,000 words in Thomas Turner's diary of 18thC rural life ( as transcribed by Dean K Worcester). This is significantly more than the published edition (Vaisey, 1984). www.thomasturner.org.uk It's a work in progress. #18c
Thomas Turner – The Diary, 1754–1765
www.thomasturner.org.uk
May 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
kmcdono.bsky.social
✨✨Maps & newspaper research from LwM & MRM teams (@danielwilson.bsky.social @joshrhodes.bsky.social @jonhistorian61.bsky.social @nottinauta.bsky.social @ruthahnert.bsky.social @npedrazzini.bsky.social @kallewesterling.bsky.social + more) featured in @pnas.org this week!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Historians use data science to mine the past | PNAS
Historians use data science to mine the past
www.pnas.org
May 2, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
danravenellison.bsky.social
Just finished a day with the #SlowWays team in #Birmingham, charting big plans for a giant extension of our people-powered walking network.

Can't wait to share more.

❤️⭐🐌⚡
A map of part of the Slow Ways network, covering Wales and the middle of England. We can see all towns and cities connected by straight lines, revealing the structure of the walking network.
April 7, 2025 at 4:43 PM
joshrhodes.bsky.social
Are there any UK based academics out there who've successfully claimed back withheld tax from a US fellowship? I'm trying to claim tax back from a Huntington Library fellowship and have no clue if I'm filling in the right forms! 🤔
April 4, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
benecarnaghi.bsky.social
Here's the schedule for 'Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism', a conference that
@drhelenroche.bsky.social and I are organizing on March 28-29 for @durhamhistory.bsky.social. We'll spark fresh conversations about resistance to power—and have a few laughs too! Please join us!
Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism schedule Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism schedule Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism schedule Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism schedule
March 20, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
thorntonsbooks.bsky.social
Big news! The digital edition of Alice Thornton's four Books is now complete and online. There are 1,019 pages (c. 270,000 words) of Thornton’s life-writings in both modernised and semi-diplomatic versions and they are fully searchable.
#EarlyModern 🗃️ 📚 📜
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/posts/news/2...
Full and Final Edition Now Available
News article - 24 February 2025
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk
March 7, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
mmpawlikowski.bsky.social
Hey Cambridge people. If you want to hear about othe most challanging project where we pulled whole arsenal of imaging technologies. Join a talk @bird-gerhl.bsky.social & Blazej Mikula to learn more. languagecollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/2025/03/04/c... #DH @camdiglib.bsky.social #HeritageScience
Cambridge festival talk: the medieval French fragment of Merlin re-discovered at Cambridge University Library
Back in 2022, library staff from Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Conservation & Heritage, Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory, and Collections and Academic Liaison was awarded funding from Ca…
languagecollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk
March 6, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
camunicampop.bsky.social
📣New blog post alert!📣
Today @charmianmansell.bsky.social gives us 5 reasons why service in the past was not always like Downton Abbey...
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog
#skystorians
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge Top of the Campops: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages
www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk
March 6, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Josh Rhodes
chezvoila.com
When we visualize data, we reorganize the world, grouping and degrouping people and things across categories and time.

We remove a certain order as much as we create one. 📊
Top: the word order with a short fir tree branch on a white background. Bottom: the word chaos with a decomposition of the fir tree branch: three twigs and all needs organized like a bar chart.
February 25, 2025 at 1:44 PM