Saturday, December 7, 2013

Breakfast Links: Week of December 2, 2013

Saturday, December 7, 2013
After a week off for the holiday, we're back today with a bumper crop of Breakfast Links – our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images, all gathered for you from around the Twitterverse.
• Mary Robinson - known as Perditia - a Georgian fashion icon and leading London celebrity of the 1780s.
• Retail therapy: what mannequins say about us.
• The remarkable life & times of Jeffery Hudson, Charles I's dwarf.
• Image: early handbills show the rage for talented animal sideshows include the "Most Astonishing" Learned Goose.
Hypochondria in Jane Austen's England.
• Nine 19th c. books that will change your Victorian sex life.
• The burning of the "satanic" Albion Mills at Blackfriars, 1791.
• A glimmer of gold: a gorgeous 19th c. bonnet.
• Sensational assassination in the Adriondacks: 1903 murder of millionaire lawyer Orrando Perry Dexter.
• "Christmas pye, the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon."
• For the first time, ancient Bibles and Biblical texts from the Bodleian and Vatican Libraries go on-line.
• Minding the farm: wives looking after family properties for their Tory husbands during the American Revolution.
• A century of vintage photographs of people building snowmen, 1850-1960.
• Image: Monday washing, New York City, 1900
• "To Make a Quarter Cask of Currant Wine": 18th c. recipe begins with eighty-six pounds of "the best Jamaica sugar."
• A video offering a closer look at a magnificent Charles James evening gown.
• Image: delightful photo of Edwardian domestic servants up to some "mischief."
• Happy Hanukkah! images of the Festival of Lights from medieval manuscripts in the British Library.
• Claxton's Patent Ear Cap, 1890s, to prevent baby from getting "ugly" ears.
• Browse through Charles Dickens' manuscript for A Christmas Carol.
• A dress to dye for: 1860s green dress colored with arsenic in the aniline dye.
• The Edwardian debutante.
• The tongues of rogues: how secret languages develop in closed societies like English con men, Parisian prostitutes, and German bandits.
• The history of green boughs and trees for Christmas.
• Teeny tiny medieval books.
• The British view of early American President John Adams.
• Turquoise with a story: the diadem of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife.
• French frolicking dog wallpaper, 1798.
• Quinine from cinchona bark as cheap and effective treatment for malaria in 19th c. India.
• "Dust, ho? Bring out your dust": early cries of London.
• Piss prophets and the Wheel of Urine: what urine revealed in the medieval world.
• Beware the girl with the wiggling walk and the boy eating pencils: vigilant Dr. Jackson lists the signs of a chronic masturbator, 1861.
• Of dirty books and bread.
• Heart-rending family stories in records of Royal Hospital School for children of lost seamen.
• In 1902, the Episcopal Women's Auxiliary in NYC sends lunch wagons out to keep workers and coachmen out of saloons.
• Quotes falsely (and repeatedly) attributed to George Washington.
Nancy Dupree, a thoroughly intrepid woman in 20th c. Afghanistan.
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7 comments:

Donna said...

Thank you, ladies--always an honor to be included--although I'm not sure these ladies were Tories! I wish I knew more about their political opinions.

curator said...

Thank you for including my dog wallpaper find! I'm always thrilled to be included in the Breakfast Links.

Alina K. Field said...

Oh my, this is an amazing collection!

Rachel Jhinku said...

Hi Ladies, thank you for another great selection of links. You might be interested in some lectures uploaded to You tube by Gresham College, including a wonderful lecture from Dr Amanda Vickery on 18thC gentlemen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMxEdjB4S80
and another by Prof Ian Heywood on the Gordon Riots of 1780
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gd4Mbh8tm8

Martha said...

The medieval manuscripts are beautiful, but I wanted to point out the the first two are representations of the menorah that were used in the ancient temple in Jerusalem and thus they show 7 branches (and they follow the biblical descriptions).

Only the last is one for Hanukkah, because it has 8 receptacles for oil.

nightsmusic said...

That green dress is gorgeous and it's no wonder it's in such beautiful shape. Worn once, twice or not at all, arsenic is a great preservative. Here's hoping the owner didn't die from it.

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