St. Thomas history professor Janet Mullin launched her first book last Friday. The book, A Sixpence at Whist: Gaming and the English Middle Classes, 1680-1830, explores the gambling culture of the English middle class. Mullin said that while gambling was rampant, people overlooked the middle class’ gambling
“Everyone played cards in the 18th century, and a lot of people gambled. A lot of people assumed that the middle class did not gamble,” said Mullin. “Everybody knew that [the rich] gambled. Everyone knew that the lower orders gambled because they had no morals. But everybody assumed that the middle classes did nothing of the sort.”
Gambling had many of the same effects then as it does now. Gambling is know to be addictive, and many people rack up huge debts because of it. Eighteenth century England was no different.
“I just read a book about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire[…] She gambled like a fiend, and she actually died with an enormous amount of debt,” said Mullin. “Her son spent most of his life paying off her gambling debts.”
Writing an academic book is not easy. Mullin said after outlining what she wanted in the book, her research required extensive traveling.
“It involved several research trips to England,” said Mullin. “It also involved a lot of sorting through things, looking for common themes, and tying it all in with what we already know about the middle class.”
Mullin’s book launch is sandwiched between two other book launches. Gerontology Professor William Randall launched his new book, The Narrative Complexity of Ordinary Life: Tales from the Coffee Shop, on Friday Oct. 23. This Friday Political Science Professor Mikhail Molchanov will launch his new book Eurasian Regionalisms and Russian Foreign Policy.
Michael Dawson, associate vice president of research at STU, said this is a return to form for STU.
“We’ve sort of reinstated the book launches. About [six] years ago we used to hold these things, and then they didn’t happen for a little while,” said Dawson. “So we made a big effort to recognize this kind of impressive scholarly achievement.”
Mullin said the research department at STU was instrumental in getting the book published.
“STU research has basically funded this research. They have sent me on research grants, and conference council grants many times. I have had seven research trips and five of those were funded by STU,” said Mullin. “So yes they’ve been enormously helpful.”
Even with her first book just being released, Mullin is not thinking about taking a break.
“I’ve already started [my next book],” said Mullin. “I was over in England this summer and I’ve already started looking at a study of drinking.”
–With files from Joseph Tunney
