Feeling Blue - (Social Histories of Medicine) by Victoria Bates (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book is the first historical study of colour in modern British hospitals, examining the use of colour to understand the layered meanings of modernity in twentieth-century Britain.

Book Synopsis

Feeling blue is the first book-length history of colour in modern hospitals. It examines colour in relation to six key themes - hygiene, emotion, humanisation, homeliness, play, consumerism - which are tied together by the idea of the 'modern' hospital. The book does not simply describe changes to the appearance of hospitals over time, but instead thinks expansively about the role of colour in shaping how hospitals felt. It uses colour to understand the layered meanings of modernity in twentieth-century Britain, and its relationship to the 'mundane' or everyday life of hospitals.

From the Back Cover

Feeling blue is the first historical study of colour in modern British hospitals. The book uses colour to understand the layered meanings of modernity in twentieth-century Britain and its relationship to the 'mundane' or everyday life of hospitals.

Colour has long been a crucial part of hospital design and the daily activity of hospitals, from the uniforms that mark out different jobs, to the colour schemes that sort hospital waste. Despite this importance, the history of hospital colour is often overlooked as a subject of study. This book examines colour in relation to six key themes - hygiene, emotion, humanisation, homeliness, play and consumerism - which are tied together by the idea of the 'modern' hospital. The book does not simply describe changes to the appearance of hospitals over time, but instead thinks expansively about the role of colour in shaping how hospitals felt.
Feeling blue opens important new understandings of a wide range of subjects including histories of emotions, health, politics, design, architecture, culture and society, and offers a new framework for thinking about 'modernity' and change over time.

About the Author

Victoria Bates is Associate Professor in Modern Medical History at the University of Bristol