Article
Scotland's Great War Memorials
Penman MA & Smyth J (2019) Scotland's Great War Memorials. History Scotland, 19 (3), pp. 8-13. https://www.historyscotland.com/
About me
About me
Jim Smyth took his first degree (M.A.) at the University of Glasgow and his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. He worked on various research projects e.g. (‘The Social change and Economic Life Initiative’; ‘Politicians, Businessmen and Public Policy’) at both Edinburgh and Glasgow before coming to Stirling. He has held awards from the Economic and Social Research Council, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust.
Research (3)
My original research was in the history of labour politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but I have developed interests into family life and labour, the small firm in the nineteenth century, business and politics in the twentieth century, and housing and neighbourhood identity. I am currently working on a study of patients and hospital records in late nineteenth century Glasgow, which is a continuation of a long-standing project on the lives of the urban poor. I am involved in various collaborative projects including the Scottish Political Archive, War Memorials in Scotland, and the history of crime and punishment, and am a member of both the Research Centre for Environmental History and Policy, and the Centre for Scottish Studies. In broad terms my main field of supervision lies in modern Scottish social history incorporating politics, work, the family and household, the conditions of urban life, particularly health and housing. In association with Dr Michael Penman I have interests in the ‘reputations’ of famous Scots, and the ways in which the Great War was remembered through the construction of memorials to the fallen.
Currently I am developing, with my colleague Stephen Bowman, a project on public health and climate: a study of Atlantic cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The cities selected are Glasgow, Liverpool, Paris, New York and Chicago and we will be using mainly existing digitised sources. Our premise is not that all health problems were solved but that the various efforts and even failures are worthy of study and may hold valuable lessons for us today faced with the immediate threat of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ultimate catastrophe of global warming. By using online records it also our intention to provide a model of comparative research that does not involve leaving a large carbon footprint.
Projects
Hospital Records and patient Narratives.
PI: Dr James Smyth
Funded by: The Wellcome Trust
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Research in the UK and France on women, lodgings and municipality, Glasgow and Paris c. 1881-1914
PI: Dr James Smyth
Funded by: The Carnegie Trust
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2009 CRF/RSE European visiting research fellowship
PI: Dr James Smyth
Funded by: The Royal Society of Edinburgh
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Outputs (15)
Outputs
Article
The Power of Pathos: James Burn Russell's Life in One Room and the creation of council housing
Smyth J (2019) The Power of Pathos: James Burn Russell's Life in One Room and the creation of council housing. Scottish Historical Review, 98 (1), pp. 103-127. https://doi.org/10.3366/shr.2019.0381
Article
Music, emotion and remembrance: unveiling memorials to the fallen of the First World War in Scotland
Smyth J (2018) Music, emotion and remembrance: unveiling memorials to the fallen of the First World War in Scotland. Social History, 43 (4), pp. 435-454. https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2018.1520432
Article
Smyth J & Robertson D (2017) Lost Alternatives to Council Housing? An examination of Stirling's alternative housing initiatives, c. 1906-1939. Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, 37 (2), pp. 117-135. https://doi.org/10.3366/jshs.2017.0216
Article
Thomas Chalmers, the 'Godly Commonwealth', and contemporary welfare reform in Britain and the USA
Smyth J (2014) Thomas Chalmers, the 'Godly Commonwealth', and contemporary welfare reform in Britain and the USA. Historical Journal, 57 (3), pp. 845-868. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X14000016
Article
Local elites and social control: Building council houses in Stirling between the wars
Smyth J & Robertson D (2013) Local elites and social control: Building council houses in Stirling between the wars. Urban History, 40 (2), pp. 336-354. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926813000072
Article
Whigs, Tories and Scottish Legal Reform, c. 1785-1832
Smyth J & McKinlay A (2011) Whigs, Tories and Scottish Legal Reform, c. 1785-1832. Crime, History and Societies, 15 (1), pp. 111-32. https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.1246
Article
Neighbourhood identity: The path dependency of class and place
Robertson D, McIntosh I & Smyth J (2010) Neighbourhood identity: The path dependency of class and place. Housing, Theory and Society, 27 (3), pp. 258-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036090903326429
Book Chapter
Tackling squalor: Housing’s contribution to the welfare state
Robertson D & Smyth J (2009) Tackling squalor: Housing’s contribution to the welfare state. In: Rummery K, Greener I & Holden C (eds.) Analysis and debate in social policy, 2009. Social Policy Review, 21. Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 87-108. http://www.policypress.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781847423733&sf1=series_exact&st1=SOCIALPOLICYREVIEW&sort=sort_date/d&ds=Social%20Policy%20Review&m=6&dc=15
Article
The Raploch: A history, people's perceptions and the likely future of a problem housing estate
Robertson D, Smyth J & McIntosh I (2008) The Raploch: A history, people's perceptions and the likely future of a problem housing estate. Architectural Heritage, 19 (1), pp. 83-97. https://doi.org/10.3366/E1350752408000095
Research Report
Robertson D, Smyth J & McIntosh I (2008) Neighbourhood identity. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/neighbourhood-identity-effects-time-location-and-social-class
Book Chapter
L’évolution du logement social en Écosse; de la norme ả la marge
Robertson D & Smyth J (2007) L’évolution du logement social en Écosse; de la norme ả la marge. In: Laflamme V, Levy-Vroelant C, Robertson D & Smith J (eds.) Le logement précaire en Europe: Aux marges du palais. Habitat et Sociétés. Paris: L'Harmattan, pp. 63-84. http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=24162
Book Chapter
Laflamme V, Levy-Vroelant C, Robertson D & Smyth J (2007) Introduction. In: Laflamme V, Levy-Vroelant C, Robertson D & Smyth J (eds.) Le logement précaire en Europe: Aux marges du palais. Paris: L'Harmattan, pp. 11-16. http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=24162
Edited Book
Le logement précaire en Europe: Aux marges du palais
Laflame V, Levy-Vroelant C, Robertson D & Smyth J (eds.) (2007) Le logement précaire en Europe: Aux marges du palais. Habitat et Sociétés. Paris: L'Harmattan. http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=24162
Article
Resisting labour: Unionists, liberals, and moderates in Glasgow between the wars
Smyth J (2003) Resisting labour: Unionists, liberals, and moderates in Glasgow between the wars. Historical Journal, 46 (2), pp. 375-401. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X0300298X
Teaching
Teaching
My teaching contribution involves lecturing and tutoring across all levels on the BA programme with particular responsibility for our core semester three module, 'Reputations in History'. More advanced modules are 'Nineteenth Century Scotland' (semester 5), 'From Radicalism to Labourism' (semester 6), and the final year special subject 'Government and Society 1800-1914: Problems and Responses'.