IHR Digital History Seminar - 10 November 2015 History has not been kind to Victorian jokes. While the great works of nineteenth-century art and literature have been preserved and celebrated by successive generations, even the period’s most popular gags have largely been forgotten. In the popular imagination, the Victorians have long been regarded as terminally humourless; a straitlaced society who, in the words of their queen, were famously “not amused” And yet, millions of jokes were written during the nineteenth century. They were printed in books and newspapers, performed in theatres and music halls, and re-told in pubs, offices, taxicabs, schoolrooms and kitchens throughout the land. Like many other forms of ephemeral popular culture, the majority of these jokes were never recorded and have now been forgotten. But all is not lost. Millions of puns, gags, and comic sketches have been preserved – often by accident – in archives of nineteenth-century print culture. Some appear in dedicated joke books and comic periodicals, but most have survived as stowaways in the margins of other texts. They are scattered throughout thousands of Victorian books, newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. While some were organised into clearly demarcated collections, others were used more haphazardly as column fillers or sprinkled randomly among other tit-bits of news and entertainment. Until recently, the only way to locate these scattered fragments amidst the ‘vast terra incognita’ of Victorian print culture was to identify a promising host-text and then browse through it manually. The digitisation of Victorian print culture has opened up new possibilities for this kind of research. However, as this talk will argue, the structure of digital archives means that jokes are still buried among millions of pages of other content. In order to make these, and other marginalised texts, more visible, we need to rethink the organisation of our digital collections and open up their contents to creative forms of archival ‘remixing’. In 2014, Bob Nicholson (Edge Hill University) teamed up with the British Library Labs on a project that aims to find and revive thousands of forgotten Victorian jokes. Their ‘Victorian Meme Machine’ automatically converts old jokes into images and posts them on social media using a ‘Mechanical Comedian’ (@VictorianHumour). In this presentation, Bob will report on the progress of the project and outline his plans for a new transcription platform designed around the principles of ‘meaningful gamifaction’.

1. Remixing Digital Archives
The Victorian Meme Machine
Bob Nicholson // @DigiVictorian // #dhist

2. Funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation

7. Remixing Digital Archives
The Victorian Meme Machine
Bob Nicholson // @DigiVictorian // #dhist
 The problem with Victorian jokes
 Archival Remixing
 Creative Remixing
 The Victorian Meme Machine

8. We Are Not
Amused

18. “the most fitting place
for [this] book is in the
hands of the young
gentleman who has
undertaken to amuse an
assembled party brought
together […] for the
purpose of spending a
pleasant evening.”
- Morning Post, 5 Dec
1867.

19. … it has been the custom of
certain individuals frequently
encountered in society (who are
desirous of being called ‘droll
dogs,’ ‘smart fellows,’ ‘capital
company,’ ‘funny creatures,’
‘agreeable rattlers,’ ‘wags,’ and
similar appellations) to maintain
their reputations by pilfering the
jokes of other people, and thus
trade on false capital…
- Lancaster Gazette, 25 January 1845

20. Hugh Rowley, Puniana: or,
thoughts wise and other-wise,
(London, 1867), p. 157.
1875

22. • March 1859
• Told at Punch contributor’s dinner
• April 1859
• Reprinted in: North Wales Chronicle, Hampshire Advertiser, Family Herald, Leeds Times,
Manchester Times, Cheshire Observer, Leeds Intelligencer, Berrow’s Worcester Journal,
Westmorland Gazette, Berkshire Chronicle, Hereford Times, Belfast News-Letter.
• 1863
• Sherborne Mercury, Riddles and Jokes Collected by the Editor of Every Boy’s Magazine.
• 1867
• Puniana, Bedfordshire Times and Independent
• 1870
• Judy, Belfast News-Letter, Lancaster Gazette, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Cardif and
Merthyr Guardian, Jackon’s Oxford Journal.
• The Huron Expositor, Hamilton Spectator
• 1885
• Australian Town and Country Journal

23. Dynamics of laughter
Access to popular attitudes/ideas
Language / Culture
Historical significance
Media Networks

27. Title
Issue
Headers
Article Text
KEYWORD
Search ‘why is Lord Overstone’
Article TextArticle TextArticle Text

28. Title
Issue
Headers
Article Text
KEYWORD
Search
Banking OR banker OR
money… etc.
Article TextArticle TextArticle Text
Finding jokes about bankers

29. Title
Issue
Headers
Article Text
KEYWORD
Search
Banking OR banker OR
money… etc.
Article TextArticle TextArticle Text
Finding jokes about bankers
Article title: ‘jokes’ OR ‘wit’
OR ‘humour’ OR ‘jests’

30. Poetry
Jokes Fiction
Gossip
Children
Letters
Recipes
Reviews
Miscelleny / Human Interest

31. • SOURCE TYPE: Newspaper
• SOURCE TITLE: Lloyd’s Weekly News
• PUB. LOCATION: London
• PUB. DATE: 5 January 1896
• COLUMN TITLE: ‘American Jokes’
• JOKE TITLE: ‘A USEFUL PRESENT.’
• ATTRIBUTION: Puck
• AUTHOR: [--]
• JOKE FORMAT: Conversation
• JOKE SUBJECTS: Mother-in-Laws; Christmas
• NATIONALITY: American
• CHARACTERS: ‘Mrs Henry Peck’; ‘Mr
Henry Peck’; [Mrs Henry
Peck’s Mother / Mr Henry
Peck’s Mother-in-Law]
• JOKE LOCATIONs: [--]
Character One
• Name: ‘Mrs. Henry Peck’
• Gender: Female
• Identity: Wife; Daughter
• Age: Adult
• Class: [--]
• Emotion: [--]
• Appearance: [--]
Character Two
• Name: ‘Mr. Henry Peck’
• Gender: Male
• Identity: Husband; Son-in-Law
• Age: Adult
• Class: [--]
• Emotion: Anger
• Appearance: [--]

33. I don’t know what to buy mother for a
Christmas present. Do you?
Yes! Buy her a travelling bag!

34. Poetry
Jokes Fiction
Gossip
Children
Letters
Recipes
Reviews
Miscelleny / Human Interest

35. Jokes

36. Jokes

37. Remixing the Archive: Challenges
• Digitization
• Extraction from existing archives
• Access / Copyright
• Data format
• Automatic or Manual?

41. Remixing the Archive: Challenges
• Digitization
• Extraction from existing archives
• Access / Copyright
• Data format
• Automatic or Manual?
• Integration into new database
• Data format
• Image Segmentation

42. Remixing the Archive: Challenges
• Digitization
• Extraction from existing archives
• Access / Copyright
• Data format
• Automatic or Manual?
• Integration into new database
• Data format
• Image Segmentation
• Meta-Data
• OCR
• Annotations

43. lad.y Patieut 1to doctor,
alout the rocent
w-inter):'Achl .Doctor
donr, ehure ttiis
woctlrer's killetl. oE
ruany a.li mo::y
wlionevel
dicd before.*]fooris}dn
e, .. .
FACT BrRoxaEn THAN-
Tiorr. · LlrisL
Lm Pltutieut (to..
Doctor). About the
recept
WWter) "Ach l Mctor"
'dear, '-Bhlue tMEl
weallier's kiuedl oE mny
an' mmy who Dev6tl'
died before. Monshiw."
A Fact Stronger than
Fiction.—Irish Lady
Patient (to doctor,
about the recent
winter): Achl Doctor
dear, shore tliis
weather’s killed off
many an’ many who
never died before.—
Moonshine, >• ■
Canon MP OCR Samsung Optical Reader ABBYY FineReader
OCR

44. A Useful* Present,—Mrs* Heart £ (whose mother
has been visiting them for® four months): I don't
know what to D mother for a Christmas present.
Do J0?. -# Mr. Henry Pecks Yes I Buy her a travel
bag!
ABBYY FineReader
OCR

46. • SOURCE TYPE: Newspaper
• SOURCE TITLE: Lloyd’s Weekly News
• PUB. LOCATION: London
• PUB. DATE: 5 January 1896
• COLUMN TITLE: ‘American Jokes’
• JOKE TITLE: ‘A USEFUL PRESENT.’
• ATTRIBUTION: Puck
• AUTHOR: [--]
• JOKE FORMAT: Conversation
• JOKE SUBJECTS: Mother-in-Laws; Christmas
• NATIONALITY: American
• CHARACTERS: ‘Mrs Henry Peck’; ‘Mr
Henry Peck’; [Mrs Henry
Peck’s Mother / Mr Henry
Peck’s Mother-in-Law]
• JOKE LOCATIONs: [--]
Character One
• Name: ‘Mrs. Henry Peck’
• Gender: Female
• Identity: Wife; Daughter
• Age: Adult
• Class: [--]
• Emotion: [--]
Character Two
• Name: ‘Mr. Henry Peck’
• Gender: Male
• Identity: Husband; Son-
in-Law
• Age: Adult
• Class: [--]
• Emotion: Anger

47. Crowdsourcing

48. Gamification / Reciprocal Impact

49. Remixing Digital Archives
The Victorian Meme Machine
Bob Nicholson // @DigiVictorian // #dhist
Archival Remixing
Creative Remixing

50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GRgj7Q5OM0

51. www.DigitalVictorianist.com
@DigiVictorian