Adventures in skating historiography
Yesterday I put the finishing touches on my snavelschaatsen. I started them back around the end of February or the beginning of March, so it took me about 9 months to make them, start to finish. My finished snavelschaatsen. These skates are based on a couple of Hieronymus Bosch paintings and some archaeological finds. The… Continue reading My new snavelschaatsen
The International Skating Union (ISU) was founded in 1892 and held its first official competition in 1893—the European championship in Berlin. The speed skating events went well. The figure skating event began the tradition of judging controversies. The problem was figuring out whether Eduard Engelmann or Henning Grenander won. Engelmann had won the previous year,… Continue reading The 1893 European championship
In the first printed book on metallurgy, the Pirotechnia, Vannoccio Biringuccio describes a process for purifying iron used "outside Christendom": They say that the file it, knead it with a certain meal, make little cakes of it, and feed these to geese. They collect the dung of these geese when they wish, shrink it with… Continue reading Goose poop in the smithy
I haven't been writing much here lately, but some new things are up on Schaatshistorie.nl: Two videos from my new Evolution of Skating series: Bone skates and Archetype skates. Those links are to the English versions, they are also in Dutch here and there."Whither bone skates research?", a short article summarizing the state of research… Continue reading New publications
Early skating authors had a lot of bad things to say about deep hollows on ice skates. I have said nothing of those skates whose surfaces are grooved, and are commonly called fluted skates, because I think their construction is so bad, that they are not fit to be used; in fact, they are so… Continue reading Fluted skates
My article on English skating just came out! Here's the citation: Thurber, B.A. 2021. "The English Style: Figure Skating, Gender, and National Identity." Sport History Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1123/shr.2020-0023. Abstract During the second half of the nineteenth century, a unique style of figure skating developed in Great Britain. This style emphasized long, flowing glides… Continue reading English skating and national identity
I used Gephi to make a graph of all the keywords connected to bone skates in the WBRG reference database. Graph generated using Gephi. Most of the results aren't very surprising. Of course bone skates are strongly linked to worked bone, bone, Europe, and the Middle Ages (1000–1500). More surprising are the links to North… Continue reading Bone skates and keywords
There is no skating in this book. I'm posting it anyway because My name is on the cover.It's officially out today. You can read it for free at Sidestone.com.
Arthur MacGregor is one of the heroes of bone skates studies. He proved that bone skates really were skates in 1975 by making a couple of pairs and skating on them. The next year, he published a really great review article. His dissertation Skeletal Materials presented the bigger picture. And then his book Bone, Antler,… Continue reading Arthur MacGregor
Last week I visited the statue of Leif Erikson in St. Paul, MN. Leif is known for discovering North America around 1000 CE. His exploits are described in Grœnlendinga saga (The Saga of the Greenlanders) and Eiriks saga rauða (The Saga of Erik the Red). The Leif Erikson statue in St. Paul. I was interested… Continue reading Leif Erikson in St. Paul