WOOD Karl

Associate Professor in English

Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz

Research expertise

Transnational spa culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; the work of Richard Yates ; twentieth century US-American culture

Contributions

Places

Spa sociability in Bath and Pyrmont

Bath and Pyrmont were each renowned for their waters in the long eighteenth century. Bath set up an innovative model of spa sociability that supposedly exemplified the main principles of an ‘open society,’ while Pyrmont also defined a new approach to spa life but along different lines.

Saratoga Springs (as a North American iteration of spa sociability)

Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa are representative of the diffusion of spa culture and sociability to the former British colonies of North America. While Ballston, like many other attempts, faded into obscurity, by the early nineteenth century, Saratoga had grown into a thriving centre for fashion and sociability among elites from across the young United States.
Places