'Chemists to the Nation, Pharmacy to the World': Exploring the Global Dimensions of British Healthcare and Beauty with Boots the Chemists, 1919-1980

这个项目将探索鲜为人知的英国保健和美容的国际历史，使用英国最知名的连锁药剂师Boots the Chemist作为中心案例研究。该项目的时间跨度从1919年该公司向海外派驻第一个销售代理，到1980年精简其部门。它研究了Boots如何在海外确立自己作为探矿者、零售商和制造商的地位，但它也如何不断地吸收国际影响，作为其国内营销战略的一部分。利用博姿庞大的、未被开发的档案(约5000盒约500,000件物品)，该项目将医疗、社会、文化、商业、殖民和跨国历史联系在一起。项目团队对写一本博姿成功和成长的经典商业传记不感兴趣，相反，他们感兴趣的是探索博姿的故事揭示了英国健康和美容行业的国际动态。研究的核心问题是：Boots的国际档案如何让我们绘制出塑造和维持英国国内外医疗保健和美容经验的全球网络？为了回答这个问题，专注于主题的工作包将在六个产品领域(疼痛管理、个人卫生、手术用品、维生素、香水和护肤品)内重建本地、国内和国际空间的关键产品的生命周期。之所以选择这六个重点领域，是因为它们拥有丰富的档案资源，并有潜力展示帝国和其他全球材料、知识和人员网络如何支撑着英国国内外医疗保健和美容的发展。这项开创性的研究将发表在历史人文学科的领先学术期刊上，并将出现在一本合著的书中。它将通过聘请全职博士后研究员来提高早期职业能力，并为已经资助的M4C博士生提供额外的机会。三个跨学科的学术研讨会将探索英国美容和医疗行业国际化的新视角，并将向地理、药学、医学、文学和语言学的同事开放该项目。该项目团队将通过一个易于导航的网站展示发现，网站上有关于该项目的信息、相关资源的链接和季度更新的项目故事，并用档案图像进行吸引人的插图。其中一些故事将由项目团队撰写，另一些将由“公民研究人员”撰写。这些贡献者将通过社交媒体、Boots时事通讯和当地媒体的号召来确定，他们可能是当地历史爱好者、Boots前员工或反思历史背景的商界人士。其他外展将包括两件流行历史作品，一个备受瞩目的公开展览，其中包括巡回展览和伴随的公开演讲，时间安排在2024年Boots成立175周年之际。进一步的外展战略通过三项倡议针对专业档案人员：i)与Boots档案工作人员合作，帮助为他们的编目和数字化战略提供信息；ii)举行三次创新的“档案路演”，团队成员访问其他重要的企业档案(联合利华、马莎百货、约翰·刘易斯)，以反思其资源的有用性和可获得性；iii)主办档案学习日，将英国各地的公司档案人员聚集在一起。最后，团队成员将与诺丁汉郡议会合作，运营两个“知识实验室”，以考虑这项研究如何激发人们对英国商业街当前面临的问题的创造性思考。会议将不仅讨论如何在国际上了解当地的增长，而且还将讨论较小的当地发展如何严重影响国际市场。

This project will explore the largely unknown international history of British healthcare and beauty, using Boots the Chemists, Britain's most recognised chain pharmacist, as the central case study. The project spans the period from 1919, when the company posted its first sales agent overseas, to the streamlining of its divisions in 1980. It examines how Boots established itself as a prospector, retailer and manufacturer overseas, but also how it continually absorbed international influences as part of its home marketing strategies. Drawing on Boots' vast, underexplored archive (c.5,000 boxes of approximately 500,000 items), this project bridges medical, social, cultural, business, colonial and transnational history. The project team are not interested in writing a classic business biography of Boots' success and growth, rather they are interested in exploring what the Boots story reveals about the international dynamics of the British health and beauty industries. The central research question asks: How does Boots' international archive allow us to map the global networks that moulded and sustained British experiences of healthcare and beauty both at home and abroad? To answer this, thematically focused work packages will recreate the life-cycles of key products within six product domains (pain management, personal hygiene, surgical supplies, vitamins, perfumes, and skincare) across local, national and international spaces. These six focal areas have been selected because of their ample archival resources and their potential to illustrate how complex imperial and other global networks of materials, knowledge and people underpinned the development of British healthcare and beauty, both at home and overseas.This pioneering research will appear in leading academic journals across the historical humanities and in a co-authored book. It will advance early career capacity by employing a full-time postdoctoral researcher, and provide additional opportunities for an already funded M4C doctoral student. Three interdisciplinary academic workshops will explore new perspectives on the internationalisation of the UK beauty and healthcare industries and will open the project to colleagues in geography, pharmacy, medicine, literature and linguistics.The project team will showcase findings via an easily navigable website featuring information about the project, links to relevant resources and quarterly updated project stories, attractively illustrated with archival images. Some of these stories will be authored by the project team and some by 'citizen researchers'. These contributors will be identified through call outs via social media, Boots newsletters, and the local press, and might be local history enthusiasts, former Boots employees or business people reflecting on historical context. Additional outreach will include two pieces of popular history, a high-profile public exhibition, with a touring component and accompanying public talks, timed to coincide with Boots' 175th anniversary in 2024. A further outreach strategy targets professional archivists via three initiatives i) working with Boots Archive staff to help inform their cataloguing and digitisation strategies; ii) holding three innovative 'Archive Roadshows' where team members visit other significant business archives (Unilever, Marks and Spencer, John Lewis) to reflect on the usefulness and accessibility of their resources; iii) hosting an Archive Study Day to bring together company archivists throughout the UK. Finally, team members will work with Nottinghamshire County Council to run two 'Knowledge Labs' to consider how this research might stimulate creative thinking about current issues facing the UK high street. Sessions will discuss not only how local growth is internationally informed, but also how international markets are heavily influenced by smaller local developments.