So for this week’s assignment, the focus was on creating a sort of chart that tells a little something about our final project topic. If you haven’t noticed the trend towards coffee, maybe this post will help. Its got really nice graphs and stuff. Everyone knows graphs are fun, right?… right? Well, even if you don’t like’m, I got’em!
Coffee is something we don’t associate with the Brits much, but it did have a fairly influential effect on the British in the 1600s and forwards. Coffeehouses in particular. The coffee may not have been grand, but for men with too much time and lots of opinions about every subject out there, there was no better place to spend your day. Among intellectual men interested in discussing politics, social rights, and philosophical debates over a cup.
As this new scene for social interaction grew, so it did in books and literature as well. It even encouraged the newspaper genre to grow. Papers, pamphlets and other sorts of newsletters became a popular way to keep conversation growing and to get ideas out there.
So, to show this, I made a very basic search for the word ‘coffee’ through the British English search. The graph pretty much shows exactly how interested people had become in coffee… and maybe a little bit about how addictive coffee can get.
So here’s the graph I promised:
And a fun little wordle too. For this, well... let me explain. I couldn't find a good article about the coffeehouses, least, not one that I wouldn't have to hand-type out as it was an image. Wasn't about to try and do that. Instead, I found this. An article by the Spectator. One of the early newspapers that began its circulation in coffeehouses. The two main writers of this rag actually met in one. Makes it a good enough fit to what the purpose of these places was. This is from Volume 1, 1711.
