Measuring life with coffee spoons

Brian Cowan

History professor Brian Cowan wonders if his formative years as an undergraduate in Starbucks-laden Portland, Oregon, had any bearing on his research interest in 18th-century English coffee houses. His book, The Social Life of Coffee: Curiosity, Commerce and Civil Society in Early Modern Britain, will be out next year.

Owen Egan

Cowan saw coffee house history as a way to explore both the development of consumer culture in 18th-century Britain and the bourgeois public sphere. Coffee was unknown in Britain before the 1650s, and introduced as a medical commodity to promote "wakefulness," Cowan says.

This new consumer item needed a venue, and so were born coffee houses, convenient social spaces for getting together with like-minded folks to read about and discuss politics. "At that time, coffee and news culture went hand in hand," he says.

Did these venues contribute to political agitation? Charles II felt threatened enough by the rise of coffee house culture that he tried to suppress what he thought were dens of sedition. But there were many varieties of coffee houses, Cowan says. The first stock trading took place in a coffee house, others hosted commercial activity (Lloyd's of London began as Lloyd's coffee house in the 1690s) as well as less savory characters such as gamblers, prostitutes and drama critics.

Cowan's book points out that the development of the public sphere and consumerism was much more difficult than many scholars assume, and it's wrong to think of coffee houses as proto-democratic systems. Coffee houses were actually old regime British institutions, despite elements of modernity, Cowan says. The monarchy still mattered, aristocratic dominance was still taken for granted.

It's too easy to imagine that 17th-century leisured classes are just like our latte-sipping slackers of today, but Cowan cautions against that temptation. It really was different back then, and the era was interesting enough on its own terms without our imposing 21st-century values and understanding upon it.

"That's what the real joy of history is to me. You use the past to understand the present, but the most important part is realizing just how different the past was."

For example: "They thought of coffee in terms of Galenic medicine. We think of it in terms of a stimulant, a light drug, a harmless drug," Cowan says, adding that's what we thought of cigarettes 50 years ago.

From this work, Cowan has started to look at the history of connoisseurship by way of the development of art appreciation and auctions, which were first held at, you guessed it, coffee houses.

Cowan has taught British history at Yale University and the University of Sussex at Brighton, and looks forward to rounding out his experience by teaching in a country with strong British ties. "Teaching English history makes more sense in Canada than in the States," he says, what with the Queen still on our currency.

He finds that the humanities are well supported at Canadian universities, and the culture of interdisciplinary collaboration is particularly rich at McGill. He anticipates much fun and fulfilling work with other professors, both within and beyond his department.

He's keen to explore Montreal and get to know its vibrant culture. So keep an eye out for him sipping a steaming latte at a local coffee house.

Maeve Haldane