- argues that what constitutes old age is a social construct
- looks at concepts about old age, which sources to interrogate, and the narratives historians have used to portray old age
- when does old age begin? with an age? with a loss of ability? when the government says you're old?
- age is an important social construct, and has been since the athenians used age to exempt older people from military service
- from 19th century, owing to the newly developed census, it became easier to figure out how many people lived or died, and at what age
- some people believed that old age was merely the stage at which you became incapable of labouring
- age depicted as a rise and fall; we are born, rise up and grow into middle age, before declining into death
- early modern beliefs of old age relied on imbalance of the humours, with heat and moisture of youth making way for the cold and dry of the old
- geriatrics and gerontology age from the 20th century, promoting the study of ageing
- relatively new notion of "third" and "fourth" age demonstrate that our understanding of old age is fluid and ever-changing
- defining old age has always been difficult and fluid, with a notable gap between chronological age and "felt" age, the difference between the experience of the body and age in years
- argues that old age is a prescriptive category imposed on old people by authorities
- use of early modern sources like recipe books, philosophical and religious texts, portraits and material artefacts to look at old age at the time
- now in the 20th century, there's use of newspapers, magazines, radio, television, as well as government procured media
- always interrogate the purpose and motivation of a source, never just take it at face value without it earning your trust
- argues that old age is a gendered experience, though of course gender is a performance even in old age
- never ignore the power dynamics between writer and reader, especially if from a government source to the people
- always look into how knowledge is gained, whether it's ethical, whether there's a power imbalance between interviewer and interviewee etc.
- when we say "interrogate a source" we really do mean interrogate it; squeeze as much information out of it as possible by looking meticulously at EVERYTHING :)
- earlier retirement around the 1950s and 90s led to falling demand for older people's labour (especially on the production line) and a falling supply of older people's labour owing to stronger social and cultural inducements to embrace retirement
- also included greater pension income from the state and occupational pensions
- new social norms around marriage saw some mothers undertaking part-time work while their kids are at school, alongside young people wanting stable full-time work, led to more people in the labour market
- unions encouraged earlier retirement because less people in the labour markets owed the people still working more importance, giving unions more power
- retirement became an aspirational destination in the late 20th century, becoming more of a social norm
- 20th century saw interesting shifts where people could expect to live into an old age with a lower chance of infant mortality
- average life expectancy went up and most people could expect to live into old age
- idea of retirement is predicated on the belief that you can live long enough to retire
- social inequalities around health meant many working class people (especially those doing dangerous or strenuous work) were dying before retirement even in the late 1900s
- notion that husbands and wives wanted to retire together was broken down by a challenge of gender roles, but still informed the pension gap between women and men
- industrial revolution and the need to differentiate labourers was essentially the start of institutionalised old age
- how to apply the word 'empire' to the us
- hawaii's natural beauty has been used to sell the place as a holiday destination
- indigenous people have been sold as part and parcel of hawaii as a destination, alongside the appropriation of their culture
- appropriation of the term 'aloha', meaning love, affection, peace and compassion to sell
- hawaii is the most recently accepted state to the union in 1959, with Obama being born in Honolulu, hence giving him US citizenship and letting him run for presidency
- the myth of Hawaii has been challenged by recent wildfires in Maui leading to more interrogation of the colonial past of Hawaii having a hand in the fires
- similarly, issues surrounding race, militarisation and repression of kanaka maoli people have begun to permeate the public conscience
- argues that tourism is violent and contributing to settler colonialism
- indigenous activists have been arguing that hawaii is an occupied state, where tourism conceals and contributes to the colonialism
- hawaii is roughly 2.3k miles away from the US, making the US' geographical claim to the islands tenuous at best
- hawaii would have been closer to polynesian islands like tonga, tuvalu, samoa and the cook islands rather than the US
- polynesian people had developed reliable, efficient and advanced methods of navigation, far before Europe did, allowing them to remain connected to other islands
- captain james cook arrived in hawaii, with some of his crewmates drawing photos of the place, disseminating the notions that these islands were exotic as well as useful for trade.
- cook was later killed in hawaii
- as an american, you'd have to leave from New England, all the way around the bottom of South America and all the way up to Hawaii if you wanted to get there, a dangerous voyage that took about 6 or 7 months
- the first monarch of Hawaii, Kamehameha the Great, took advantage of European trade and technology to gain advantage, presenting themselves in European dress
- hawaiians were not just passive recipients of European and American traditions, but actively accepting and engaging in the culture, styling themselves as equals to them in a family of nations
- this generally succeeded, with King Kalakaua going on tours of the world in the late 19th centuries as a real diplomatic state
- american protestant missionaries arrived in Hawaii around the middle of the 1800s to attempt to convert hawaiians to protestantism, largely accepted by the people and monarchy
- missionaries introduced the technology of print, and hawaii largely saw converting to christianity as beneficial for their standing on the world stage
- native hawaiians had at this point carved out their position in the world, with real civilisation
- hawaiian monarchy is overthrown forcefully in 1893, before being annexed and becoming a territory of the US, largely by white americans, many of which were businessmen or sons of missionaries
- native hawaiians mobilised to oppose the occupation, but could not stop it
- hawaii's strategic importance for security and trade made it very useful, with plantations and military bases like Pearl Harbour being built on the islands
- overdevelopment of tourist sites have increased the vulnerability of indigenous groups to the climate crisis
- a strong sense of US exceptionalism still permeates the belief that the US is not an empire and has not colonised Hawaii, challenged by activists arguing that the country is still occupied
- some americans at the time opposed the annexation of hawaii because it would introduce non-white people into the american body politic
- ensure you engage with history, and be confident in forming opinions