Our final team portrait is of our project lead, Dr Ann-Marie Einhaus, who is the only literary scholar on the team.
What do you do?
I’m an Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Northumbria University, where I teach and research (among other things) the literature and culture of modern war, short fiction, literature and identity, modernism and early-twentieth-century British writing more generally.
Where do you live?
Though I work in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I live in Edinburgh with my other half and our cat Archie, a beautiful ginger tom with a tendency to nip at our ankles if dinner isn’t served on time. I have a long-ish but beautiful commute along the Northumberland coastline, so I get to do some of my musing on ephemera while also gazing out the window at the sea.
Which interests, personal or professional, link you to this project?
Writing about the First World War from 1914 to the present is my first academic passion, but in recent years, I have also been doing a lot of work with early twentieth-century British periodicals, particularly weekly and monthly magazines that published both news articles and fiction. I’ve found these a really fascinating type of ephemera, particularly when you are lucky enough to look at them in printed and not digitised form. Often, the library that has preserved the printed issues and bound them will have kept all the advertisement pages and occasionally little inserts – postcards advertising items, or calling for written contributions. I love finding these! Our War Ephemera project allows me to combine my two main research interests.
What kinds of ephemera would we find preserved in your home?
I’m one of those people who loves to keep scraps of paper. Concert programmes, orders of service, old cards, tickets, notes – I always make a point of using shopping lists, postcards and receipts as bookmarks and leaving them in the book because I love rediscovering them at regular intervals. It makes me a little sad that I can no longer expand my collection of physical cinema tickets or ticket stubs, but there are still plenty of ephemeral items to be collected in my messy souvenir boxes.
Do you have a favourite kind of historical ephemera?
Anything handwritten or hand-drawn, ideally with blotches, deletions and other imperfections that make me feel I have a direct connection to the person who held the pen (or pencil).