Saturday, April 28, 2012

Breakfast Links: Week of April 23, 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012
Served up fresh for your weekend delight: our favorite links of the week to other blogs, web sites, video clips, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.
• Slaying Myths: Richard the Lionheart had little to do with the popularity of St George in England.
• Mary Randolph's 1825 Refrigerator.
• Drawing pin or thumbtack? Pram or stroller? British words & their American equivalents.
• Ride on! Great images of 19th-early 20th c women & bicycles.
• Dream a little dream: people sleeping in former days.
• Possible statue depicting twins of Marc Antony and Cleopatra.
• Wonderful new archival site featuring every aspect of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
• How to deal with a wayward wife, 1799.
• Many copies of Princess Charlotte wearing her blue gown exist, c 1817. Here's the original gown.
• Women of Woburn, MA make a modest proposal in 1775, addressing the problem of paying for that pesky tea boycott.
Coining it in the 18th c: "King" David Harley, executed 28 April 1770.
• Who says the Victorians never smiled? Absolutely charming c 1850 daguerreotype of a young girl.
• Female mugshots from the early 20th century.
• On April 27, 1749, this ticket would have admitted you to the Royal Fireworks.
• The bubble silhouette of the 1950s.
• The white-faced portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
• The knot garden, Castletown Cox, Ireland.
• Difficulties of travel & transportation in early 19th c Britain.
• Posters for 1890 burlesque shows.
• An ominous sign for the Boleyn family, 1536.
• Stunning & symbolic 18th c mourning ring.
Mary Harrison's house - she was almost Jane Austen's sister-in-law.
• New Hope & Osculation - Kisses from World War II.
• Truth or history-myth: Paul Revere rode through the countryside shouting: "The British are Coming!"
Bluebells at Bow Cemetery.

4 comments:

Chris Woodyard said...

Another great line up, Susan/Isabella--those bluebells are stunning!
One aspect of the bubble silhouette was only touched on in the post--the restrictive band round the knees/thighs that acted very much like a hobble skirt. Possibly that was why the style was so short-lived. I have an emerald-green version of the bubble dress with an English label, which, unusually, has a halter-type top. Paired with stiletto heels, the stride-restrictive style is a recipe for disaster.

Suzi Clarke said...

I was interested, as a Brit, in the list of words that are so different in English/American. I learned this many years ago on my fist visit. Two points - no sewing words are included, and there are many, many different ones! Also, some of the words are wrongly compared. For example a "Cos" lettuse is not the same as a "Romaine - I can buy both. And jelly babies are not jelly beans - again, both are available. I have never heard "footway" used - meaning pavement/sidewalk. And we use corn, not maize. Pity, as a lot of the rest are fun - and I knew them all!

nightsmusic said...

Wonderful links this week! The bluebells and other flowers were so pretty. It's both sad and a testament that in the midst of the uncared for ground in Spittalfields, such gorgeous life grows.

But I think the best was the smile on that child. You can see where her hands are a bit blurry, but she must have held that smile forever. Too cute.

Julia said...

Great links, I think I must have spent an hour with them! The photos of sleeping people are so evocative, the bicycle girls have something of the dawn of (what we think of as) modern times, and I'm half-smiling about that husband. There's the draw-back of husbands being responsible for their wifes! I do wonder that he did not divorce her; that seems to hint to a sense of responsibility or affection. I read one story where a woman (19th ct, I think) was arrested for forgery and simply informed the constables that she was married, and where to find her husband. Whereupon the constables marched off and arrested the husband as the one responsible or everything his wife might get up to.

 
Two Nerdy History Girls. Design by Pocket