Eleanora Carus-Wilson

Eleanora Mary Carus-Wilson (1897 – 1 February 1977) was a British economic historian. She is known for her work on rural Medieval textile industries in England. She made significant contributions to the understanding of Medieval technology in the region.

Eleanora Mary Carus-Wilson, circa 1960s from the LSE Library.

Biography

Carus-Wilson was born in Montreal, Canada. Mary Carus-Wilson was her mother.[1] She grew up in London, England[2] and attended St. Paul's Girls' School. She then went on to Westfield College where she graduated in 1921 with a bachelors and 1926 with a master's degree.[2][3] She taught part-time at a boarding school for around 10 years until in 1936 she received a Leverhulme Scholarship so she could focus on research full-time.[2]

During World War II, she worked as a civil servant in Colwyn Bay, where she worked for the Ministry of Food.[2][3] After the war, she returned to London to teach at the London School of Economics (LSE).[2] At LSE, she was mentored by economic historian, Eileen Power.[4] In 1948, Carus-Wilson was made a Reader and then went on to become a professor of economic history.[2] She taught at LSE from 1953 until she retired on 1965.[2] She was a Ford's lecturer at Oxford between 1964 and 1965, where she taught English history.[3]

Carus-Wilson also worked on creating a publishing program for the Economic History Society between the years of 1951 and 1967.[5] She was made an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1961 and a fellow of the British Academy in 1963.[2] She also was given an honorary doctorate in 1968 from Smith College.[2] Carus-Wilson died on 1 February 1977.[2]

Work

Carus-Wilson focused on medieval economic history.[2] During the beginning of WWII, she started publishing her research on the cloth industry in England.[5] Her paper, "An industrial revolution of the thirteenth century," was "widely read," and discussed how medieval textile workers made significant contributions to the technology of textile work in England.[6] Her work led to the "discovery of the importance of rural industry in late-medieval England," according to The Economic History Review.[5] She, along with scholars, Lewis Mumford and Marc Bloch, "captured the imaginations of a younger generation of scholars in the emergent field of the history of technology with their new vision of medieval technological prowess."[7] Carus-Wilson studied 13th century England's textile industry and described a "rapid adoption of waterpowered fulling."[8] Her article used research drawn from primary sources such as royal and ecclesiastical records.[9] Her research showed a type of revolution in technology that was similar to the Industrial Revolution in the amount of change it caused in 13th century England and how quickly it was adopted.[10] In the early 1960s, she contributed 2 chapters on the wool industry to the second volume of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe (1963), which The Economic History Review called "valuable."[11]

Publications
  • Medieval Merchant Venturers (London, 1954) - collected essays, 1929 to 1950.
  • England's Export Trade 1275–1547, with Olive Coleman (Oxford, 1963).
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References
  1. https://findingaids.library.emory.edu/documents/P-MSS018/printable/&ved=2ahUKEwiSqvnx7LLiAhVBTd8KHf1KAbYQFjABegQIBhAG&usg=AOvVaw1UQaAavClG3LbP_1UqGzWn
  2. Youings 1977, p. iii.
  3. "Carus-Wilson, Eleanora Mary (1897–1977)". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  4. "Eleanora Carus-Wilson". University of London. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  5. Youings 1977, p. iv.
  6. Lucas, Adam (2006). Wind, Water, Work: Ancient And Medieval Milling Technology. London: Brill. pp. 201–202. ISBN 978-9004146495.
  7. Lucas 2005, pp. 2–3.
  8. Lucas 2005, p. 4.
  9. Lucas 2005, p. 19.
  10. Parsons, Ben (2018). "Trouble at the Mill: Madness, Merrymaking, and Milling". The Chaucer Review. 53 (1): 34. ISSN 1528-4204 – via Project MUSE.
  11. Lane, Frederic C. (1963). "The Cambridge Economic History: The Medieval Period". The Journal of Economic History. 23 (2): 215–223. doi:10.1017/S0022050700103833. JSTOR 2116438.

Sources
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