David Kuchenbuch

Pioneering Health in London, 1935-2000 (eBook, ePUB)

The Peckham Experiment

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The Peckham Experiment, conducted between 1935 and 1950 in the London Pioneer Health Centre, was one of the most talked-about social experiments of the 20th century. Families from the South London neighbourhood of Peckham were invited to use the facilities of a radiantly modern building. They were encouraged to freely choose and organize their leisure activities, taking advantage of a swimming pool, a gymnasium, and a self-service cafeteria. In doing so, both their health status and interaction with other members of the nascent centre-community were closely observed by a team of physicians.

The first research monograph on the history of the experiment building on archival sources, this book combines a micro-historical perspective with methods from the history of science. It shows how bio-medical holism and evolutionary theories typical of the interwar years informed research on social life in the centre. But it also reveals that the "guinea pigs", too, were trying to make sense of the research they were taking part in. The outcome was an ambiguous social laboratory that generated new insights into the power of social groups to self-organize, which were soon discussed all over the world - and continue to haunt British political debates today.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 210
• Erscheinungstermin: 25. Oktober 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781351757744
• Artikelnr.: 54671503

Autorenporträt

David Kuchenbuch is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction
A laboratory of the present?
"Peckham" as a social generator of knowledge
Structure of the book
2. From C3 to A1 - reforming the working class family (1925-1931)
On Queen's Road
Pioneers?
Helping with self-help
Biographical aspects
Plans for expansion
Responsibility as a biological function: the first book
Internal supremacy
3. St Mary's Road, S. E. 15 - new premises, initial routines? (1931-1935)
Observation platforms and niches for congregation
Success stories
4. "Living Structure of Society" - the magnum opus and its scientific context
The social environment as growth medium
The ideal life
Culture and cultivation
Interwar holisms
Eugenics, evolution and community
5. Looking through the bioscope - research and social interaction in the prewar centre (1935-1939)
Data collection
Chaos and order
Mary Langman's recollections
Revisions: "socialized science"
Genius and autocrat
The biologist as the summit of creation
6. Interim findings
7. The centre in photographs - visual stimulation and participant observation
Holistic perspectives and visual contagions
Moving images: The Centre
A winter evening
8. Guinea pigs? The members between participation and social control
Members' memoirs
"Bouquets & Brickbats"
An experiment in education
9. Missed opportunities - the centre and the welfare state (1939-1949)
War, agriculture and family
"Physician, heal thyself"
Reviews and an enforced reopening
Visitors and lecture tours
"Peckham" in the world's press
10. "The Passing of Peckham" (1949-1959)
Criticisms from within and without
The directors' fall from power
The money trail
From guinea pigs to citizens' group
Proof of the pudding
11."Peckham" after the Pioneer Health Centre and the changing discourse of health (1959)
(Post-)modernization
From social engineer to social entrepreneur
12. Preliminary conclusion: the Pioneer Health Centre as liberal missing link?
13. The promise of Peckham. Hidden legacies
Anarchist appropriations
The Peckham experiment as seen by city planners and architects
Brave new worlds
A "strange laboratory"?
Northfield, Hawkspur & Hawthorne
Experiments in self-organization
Therapeutic experiments
The experimental animal
14. Epilogue
References
Archives