Two Nerdy History Girls

Friday Video: A Fashionable Stroll Down Fifth Avenue, New York City, c 1910

2012-01-27T00:01:00.002-05:00

Susan reporting:

After Loretta's recent post on the proper way to walk along a Parisian street, I thought I'd offer video proof of how stylish New Yorkers strolled the streets of Manhattan c 1910. (The YouTube caption says 1900, but from the clothes, I'm guessing closer to the years directly prior to Word War I. Take note, Downton Abbey fans!) At this time, Fifth Avenue was still the grandest street in New York, the address of choice for Vanderbilts and Astors. There's a glimpse of city traffic – a confusing mix of trolley cars, bicycles, and horse-drawn carriages – followed by scores of beautifully dressed men and women strolling along the sidewalk in the sunshine in their Sunday best.

Not only are the women wearing spectacular hats, but the men, too, all sport a variety of top-hats and bowlers. True, this is an affluent neighborhood, but I'm still impressed by how everyone, young and old, is dressed with an elegant formality that's impossible to imagine in our modern t-shirts-jeans-and-sweats world.

This is a very short film clip, and completely silent, so please feel free to imagine whatever music you please.

Above: New York City Street Scene Easter 1900 Clip posted to YouTube by historycomestolife.

Berry Brothers and Rudd is still there

2012-01-26T00:05:00.014-05:00

Loretta reports:

I spent my first visit to London, many years ago, in a state of swoon. As one who grew up in a Massachusetts mill town bent on tearing down all its old buildings (it's a world where late Victorian is ancient= decrepit), I couldn’t believe that so many of the famous Regency locales—the ones that came up in so many books—were still there.

Several London visits later, the thrill remains. On my last visit, I made yet another pilgrimage to St. James’s Street—this time with very clear purpose, because I was on Book Two of a series about some slightly French dressmakers, and I'd given them a shop at No. 56 (because there had once been a dressmaker at that address).

And so I walked the routes my characters would travel, and decided which of the buildings on St. James’s Street looked most like my idea of the dressmaker’s shop. It would have been nice had this been the actual building at No. 56, but the address seems to have been swallowed up, along with another number or two, by a large modern building with no personality I could discern. However, being an author makes me a god of sorts—and I can shape buildings to my will, among other powers—so I turned another more charming building into No. 56 for story purposes. I also created for it an adjoining court leading to the rear, on the principle that there could have been one. On the opposite side of the street there exists exactly the sort of court I required. And the back of a very famous shop runs along this court: Berry Brothers and Rudd.

This is one of the places that makes this NHG excited and swoony.

In Beau Brummell’s time Berry Brothers was already old. In its early incarnation, in the late 17th, early 18th century, it supplied customers with coffee, tea, snuff, spices, and such. In the early 19th century, it was the place where Brummell and his friends bought wine and went to be weighed. No, they didn't have bathroom scales. Even royal dukes had themselves weighed at Berry Brothers.

The scales are still there, as you can see in these photos, as are the records of who weighed how much.

There's a great deal more fascinating stuff inside. For a detailed tour of the interior I refer you to The Londonist blog on the subject.

Another Question of Georgian Taste: "What, Is This My Son Tom?" c 1774

2012-01-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

Last week we looked at several satirical 18th c prints (here, here, and here) featuring Ann, the country girl transformed by London fashion into a creature her mother scarcely recognized.

But Ann was not alone in her transformation. Her brother Tom made the same trip to London, and he, too, has changed mightily. He's a true gentleman of fashion now, a fop, a macaroni, and the title of the print, left - What is this my Son Tom - says it all. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

The most prominent feature of his stylish self is his exaggerated wig that dwarfs his cocked hat. His wig is powdered white, his cheeks are rouged, and there's a huge bouquet of flowers pinned to his coat. He's covered with bows, embroidery, lace, and tassels, and his pale blue waistcoat and breeches are of a costly dotted fabric that may be an 18th c interpretation of an exotic leopard print. His phallic, low-slung sword is matched by a tasseled walking stick under his arm. He has a gold watch dangling at his waist and his shoes fasten with flower-shaped buckles glittering with paste (faux) stones.

By comparison, his incredulous father is the picture of a hale country fellow. His clothes are sturdy and unfashionably practical (his greatcoat looks very much like this one) and he wears his own straggly hair. He's even standing unfashionably, with his feet in boots and spurs wide-spread and a hand resting on his belly. Unable to believe what's become of his son, he prods at the towering wig with his whip.

True, this is another satire of fashionable Georgian dress, much like the Anne prints. But these, too, would have carried a secondary message that 18th c viewers would have understood. Tom's fashions would have been seen as French (Britain's near-constant enemy), and worse, effeminate. The older generation, represented by Tom's father, was convinced that modern young men were all soft and unmanly, a sure sign that the future of England was in terrible danger. Of course England didn't wither away because young men in the 1770s wore outlandish wigs and ruffles, any more than the country went to the dogs a generation later because Beau Brummel insisted on tall neck cloths and close-fitting trousers.

But Tom's father doesn't know that, and from the caption, he is WORRIED:

Our wise Forefathers would express
Ev'n Sensibility in Dress;
The modern Race delight to Shew
What Folly in Excess can do:
The honest Farmer, come to Town,
Can scarce believe his Son his own
If thus the Taste continues Here,
What will it be another Year?

Above: What is this my son Tom by S.H. Grimm, 1774, published by Robert Sayer & John Bennett, London. Copyright the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

The fine art of taking snuff

2012-01-24T00:05:00.055-05:00

Loretta reports:

Taking snuff was once the height of fashion—and like all things fashionable, it required the right accessories. Making an impression demanded an elegant snuffbox or a few hundred. Ursula Bourne’s Snuff, one of those small Shire publications jam-packed with information, tells us that “The very wealthy and fashionable not only had different boxes and flavoured snuffs for different occasions but some had a different box for each change of outfit.”

Beau Brummell amassed a collection, a few of which are pictured in Ian Kelly’s Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style.

At the Victoria & Albert Museum, I was able to stare at several fine examples of some of the more expensive and elaborate snuffboxes royalty and aristocrats collected. Above is an 18th century one from the collection of Frederick the Great of Prussia. You can see others and learn more about them here. Bequests of snuffboxes feature in his will, which you can read here.

As to how to take snuff—
Beau Brummell “maintained that snuff boxes should be opened and the snuff taken from box to nostril with the use of only one hand. This required dexterity and concentration.” Clearly, this method separated the truly fashionable from the wannabes.

Bourne quotes a ca. 1800 (unnamed, alas) source for the following instructions:

1. Take the snuffbox with your right hand.
2. Pass the snuffbox to your left hand.
3. Rap the snuff box.
4. Open the snuffbox.
5. Present the box to the company.
6. Receive it after going the round.
7. Gather up the snuff in the box by striking the side with the middle and fore fingers.
8. Take a pinch of snuff with the right hand.
9. Keep the snuff a moment or two between the fingers before carrying it to the nose.
10. Put the snuff to your nose.
11. Sniff it by precision with both nostrils, and without any grimace.
12. Close the snuffbox with a flourish.

You may want to while away the time in a waiting room by practicing the procedure with an imaginary snuffbox. Not only will this keep you occupied but it will amuse the other people waiting as well.

Mrs. Jane Ebrell, 18th c Housemaid & Spider-brusher

2012-01-23T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

The great country houses of the past required equally great staffs to support and maintain them. As always, there were good and bad masters and mistresses, and good good and bad servants – but surely the relationship between the Yorke family of Erddig, Wrexham, and their staff was unique.

Beginning in the 18th c, generations of workers loyal to the family were memorialized in verse and in portraits (first paintings, then photographs) that hung in the house. The portraits include coach boys, carpenters, butchers, footmen, and maids, and form a rare, respectful glimpse at the men and women rarely noticed by history.

Mrs. Jane Ebrell, left, was eighty-seven when her portrait was commissioned by Philip Yorke I (1743-1804) in 1793. One of the few women honored, she was a housemaid, and is shown sitting outside her cottage with the tools of her trade - a broom and a mop – as well as a pet dog. While Mrs. Ebrell is not specifically mentioned in family ledgers, other maids in the Yorke household at the same time were paid £2-3 a year, and likely Mrs. Ebrell's wagers were similar.

The over sized scroll draped across Mrs. Ebrell's apron is inscribed with a poem (one of a number of "crude-ditties") composed in her honor by Philip Yorke. What it may lack in literary merit it more than makes up for in admiration:

To dignifie our Servants' Hall
Here comes the Mother, of us all:
For seventy years, or near have passed her,
since spider-brusher to the Master;
When busied then, from room to room,
She drove the dust, with burhs, and broom
Anyd by the virtues of her mop
To all uncleanness, put a stop:
But changing her housemaiden state,
She took our coachman, for a mate;
To whom she prov'd an useful gip,
And brought us forth a second whip:
Morever, this, oft, when she spoke,
Her tongue, was midwife, to a joke,
And making many an happy hit,
Stands here recorded for a wit:
O! may she, yet some years, survive,
And breed her Grandchildren to drive!

For more about the servants at Erddig, I heartily recommend one of my favorite books about life on a British estate from the 18th c to the mid-20th c: The Servants' Hall: The Domestic History of a Country House by Merlin Waterson. Though now out of print, it's widely available used. For more about Erddig itself (a National Trust property), check out the National Trust blog, Treasure Hunt - glorious pictures of a glorious old house.

Above: Mrs Jane Ebrell (b. 1706) former Housemaid and 'Spider-brusher', aged 87 by John Walters of Denbigh (1721-1797) Collection: Erddig, Wrexham; image © National Trust Collections

Breakfast Links: Week of January 16, 2012

2012-01-21T18:00:00.001-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links. Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• "Salads to reach round the world" Extravagant 17th c food, where more was MORE: http://bit.ly/xBq6oG

• Female singer's 1,100-year-old tomb unearthed in Egypt's Valley of the Kings http://mirr.im/zYGwHG

• The Queen’s life in postcards: http://on.ft.com/zwk0tL

• Brilliant. From 1891, a brief guide to the art of "Eye Flirtation" http://bit.ly/xsL6xe

• By 1800, almost 40% of English brides came to the altar pregnant: http://gu.com/p/34p5x/tw

• The beautiful blues & greens of John Singer Sargent 1856-1925 - http://bit.ly/wyHEqr

• Comparing the Downton Abbey household with those of American counterparts like the Du Ponts at Winterthur: http://delonline.us/zfkqw9

• Mary Anderson, forgotten inventor of a very important device: http://is.gd/4SKFPo

• In 18th c London, the King licensed keys to the rich for private access to Hyde Park http://bit.ly/zJRUz2

• A beautiful, snowy Paris in 1948: http://bit.ly/wx3bML

• 100 yrs ago, Captain Scott reached the S.Pole, never to return: his heartbreaking last letter to his wife: http://bit.ly/gvYrXW

• The Duchess of Lauderdale's teapot at Ham House reveals one of its secrets: http://bit.ly/xPxbhr

• The history of a fascinating piece of American culture: the Chinese food takeout box: http://nyti.ms/yDeNGX

• Born this week: Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849 - His 13 year-old bride & the other women in his life - http://bit.ly/9rpzHu

• Livery:Preserving the Distinction of Rank http://wp.me/pGJsu-20B

• Embroidered Emile Pingat Evening Cape, circa 1891 http://bit.ly/zX2ThX

• How we remember Winnie-the-Pooh by AA Milne (born this week in 1882): with illustrations by EH Shepard: http://bit.ly/kAf8Jd

• The Way the Ladies Ride: On the unusual riding habits of medieval and Renaissance women http://bit.ly/w7DhJq

• Fabulous, yet poignant: evening gloves with musical symbols made on World War II's outbreak http://bit.ly/yfQ1wP

Update: One More Extravagant Daughter Anne, c 1775

2012-01-21T00:01:00.007-05:00

Susan reporting:

After the two posts this week featuring the 18th c satirical prints of daughter Ann horrifying her country mother with her London clothes, hairstyles, and morality (here and here, if you missed them), we heard from one of our readers, Cathy Kawalek, who had an Ann print of her own to share, left. The caption: Be not amaz'd Dear MOTHER...It is indeed your DAUGHTER ANNE.

Cathy bought the print at auction several years ago. The auction entry included this description: "One of a series of late 18th century 'droll' mezzotints which, like the Macaroni images, made fun of Georgian society. The image of a country woman meeting her daughter now in fashionable London dress was issued to exploit a popular joke. Mezzotints by Adams, Carington Bowles, John Bowles, and Sledge all appeared between 1773-75."

Once again there's the same theme - open-mouthed Mother is horrified by Anne's changed appearance - with a couple of differences. Anne's dress is even more extravagant, with sleeve flounces that fall clear to her knees and a richly embroidered gown. To look after her lap-dog, she's brought an attendant with her, an African or Indian servant, the perfect exotic accessory to a London lady of fashion. Mother is dressed in the same country-style apron, buckled shoes, and black hat that we've seen before, but with one surprising difference. She's also wearing a hooded pelisse, trimmed with ermine fur. Ermine is expensive, a fur used on noble and royal regalia as well as on fashionable clothes (like this.) So why is the country mother wearing it? Is the pelisse a costly, inappropriate gift from Anne to her mother? Or is there some now-forgotten joke connected to it that 18th c viewers would have understood immediately?

Above: "Be not amazed Dear Mother" after Samuel Grimm; printed for Carington Bowles, London, after 1774. From collection of Cathy Kawalek.
Many thanks to Cathy for sharing this with us!

A Century of Men on Film - in Three & a Half Minutes

2012-01-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

One of our most popular Friday Videos was 500 Years of Women in Art. Here we offer equal time to the gentlemen with (nearly) a century of film actors, from silent screen heart-throbs to today's Hollywood stars. From a historical viewpoint, it's interesting to see how what's considered a handsome man has changed – and what hasn't.

Uh-oh - Daughter Ann's Really in Trouble Now! c 1775

2012-01-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

When we last saw daughter Ann (in this 18th c print), she was proudly displaying her new finery and fantastically fashionable hair to her outraged mother. I wondered exactly how a country girl like Ann had come by such stylish and costly attire in London, and from her mother's expression, I suspected her mother did, too.

Soon after I posted that print and blog, I stumbled across this second print. Different artist, different publisher, but here again is our archetypal country girl Ann, still dressed to the nines (maybe even the tens) and clearly up to no good. From the shape of her breasts, it looks like she's even left off her stays, leaving her a true loose woman. This time her mother has followed her back to the city, and discovered Ann and a gentleman leaving a "house of accommodation," as Fanny Hill would have called it. Just in case there's any doubt, there's the inscription LOVE JOY over the door.

Her gallant is as fashionably/ridiculously dressed as she is, a prime macaroni with his own towering wig and tiny hat perched on the crest. Outraged Mom is again dressed in stodgy country clothes and thick soled-shoes, her hands raised in shock. She's here representing good old-fashioned morality, ready to haul her scandalous daughter back to the clean-living country where there are no men with tiny clown-hats and suggestively-jutting sword-hilts.

At least that's how it appears to us in the 21st c, with intervening Victorian morality muddling things further.

But the caption at the bottom of the print tells a different story:

Is this my Daughter Ann
The Matron thus Surpprised exclaims,
And the deluded Fair One Blames,
But had the Mother been as Charming,
She had Thought the Mutual Sport no harm.
This Moral's an undoubted Truth,
Age envies Still the Joys of Youth.

In other words, an 18th c viewer would see the scene as a hilarious mockery of withered Mom and her envy of her beautiful daughter. Ann the Fair One isn't in trouble; it's Mom who's displaying her unbecoming jealousy. Maybe we should introduce her to the Old Beau.

I have to admit I'm stymied by the male figure in the background, and whatever it is he's holding. At first I thought it might be a looking-glass for vanity, but now I'm doubting it. The man wouldn't be in the print without a purpose. Any of you more learned folk than I have a guess what that might be?

Above: Is this my daughter Ann by J.H.Grim & James Watson printmaker, published in London by S. Sledge, 1774. Copyright the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Fashions for January 1817

2012-01-18T00:05:00.020-05:00

Loretta reports:

I particularly like the caution against economizing (last paragraph).
~~~
FASHIONS FOR JANUARY, 1817
ENGLISH.
No. 2—Carriage Costume.
A velvet pelisse of a bright carmine red, superbly trimmed with ermine; the tops of the sleeves caught up à-la-Mancheron,* with rich military silk chain work, the colour of the pelisse. Russian hussar cap of ermine, ornamented with gold military chain. Limerick gloves and half-boots or shoes of kid, of a correspondent colour.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ON
FASHION AND DRESS.
The truly elegant and costly carriage costume of which we have given so beautiful a specimen in our Plate, while it confers the highest honour on the taste of the inventress, is likely to be a most prevailing out-door covering for the carriage amongst ladies of wealth and fashion, begin particularly adapted for the open barouche, as the manner in which it is made, with the warm hussar cap of light and valuable fur, shields the fair wearer from all the severity of the pinching frost or cutting north wind.

For the close carriage nothing is reckoned more elegant than a pelisse of pearl grey velvet trimmed with ermine; and with this we would advise, as elegant and appropriate, a bonnet lately imported by Mrs. Bell, entitled the Netherland bonnet: its brim is of white satin, ornamented at the edge with carmine red velvet, of which latter material the whole crown is composed, and surmounted by a full plume of white feathers.

For walking dresses black pelisses are much in requisition, and a velvet wrap of peculiar elegance forms a comfortable home costume when the weather is severe, and serves, with a tippet of ermine, as an outdoor covering when the weather is mild.

But we would not wish the wealthy to economize too much lest the labours of the loom should fail, and the industrious artizan be disappointed in the improving of his talents. We rejoice to see that silks are becoming almost universal, and when the ladies at the theatre throw off their carricks** or wrapping cloaks, that their dresses underneath are generally of that material.
—La Belle Assemblée, December 1816

*Mancheron. A cap like trimming at the top of sleeves often slashed; 1810 and after.
**Carrick. A long loose cloak fashionable in 1817 and after. —Elisabeth McClellan, Historic dress in America, 1800-1870.

The Height of Fashion (if not Virtue), c. 1771

2012-01-17T00:01:00.004-05:00

Susan reporting:

Mothers and daughters warring over clothes is nothing new, with each generation pushing the limits of fashion to the horror of the previous one. Young Anne, left, has returned home to the country after a sojourn in London. She's dressed in the literal height of fashion, with towering hair and a richly trimmed gown displaying considerable bosom, and even a trendy little lapdog. Her modestly dressed mother is justifiably shocked, and cannot believe that this expensive creature is her daughter. (We've also seen country boys morph into macaronis in London, like the one here.)

Of course, with young country women in 18th c prints, there's always a more sinister (or at least cynical) explanation for wearing the latest London finery. In John Cleland's infamous 1748 novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, the orphaned and impoverished yet still innocent Fanny desires to go to London to "seek her fortune" ("a phrase, which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it made, or advanced") only after admiring the stylish clothes of a visiting friend, Esther Davis:

"Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going cloaths did not rise about dowlass [coarse linen] shifts and snuff [thin wool] gowns, beheld Esther's scower'd sattin-gown, caps border'd with an inch of lace; taudry ribbons, and shoes belaced with silver! all of which we imagined grew in London....[I believed Esther when she explained how] several maids out of the country had made themselves and all their kin for ever, that by presarving their VARTUE, some had taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them coaches, and lived vastly grand, and happy, and some, may-hap came to be Dutchesses: Luck was all, and why not I as well as another."

Once in London, Fanny soon learns that "VARTUE" was not rewarded nearly as profitably as sin, and receives her satin gown and carriage only after becoming the mistress to a wealthy lord. Could that be what the horrified mother in this print suspects, too?

Above: Heyday! Is this my daughter Anne! by F.E.Adams, published 1779 by Robert Wilkinson, with an early version published 1771 by Carington Bowles. Copyright the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

The fine art of walking in the streets in the 19th century

2012-01-16T00:05:00.013-05:00

Louise-Léopold Boilly, Passer Payez, c. 1803

Loretta reports:

The art of negotiating city streets in bad weather, modeled on the Parisian method.
~~~
You must pay attention to your manner of walking, for fear of throwing mud around you, and spattering yourself as well as those who accompany you, or who walk behind you. Any person, particularly a lady, who walks in this improper manner, whatever her education may be in other respects, will always appear awkward and clumsy.

Every one knows that the Parisian ladies are celebrated for their skill in walking: we see them in white stockings and thin shoes, passing through long, dirty, and blocked up streets, gliding by careless persons, and by vehicles crossing each other in every direction, and yet return home after a walk of several hours, without soiling their clothes in the least.

To arrive at this astonishing result, which causes the wonder and vexation of provincial visitors on their first coming to Paris, we must be careful to put the foot on the middle of the paving stones, and never on the edges, for, in that case, one inevitably slips into the interstice between one pavement and another: we must begin by supporting the toe, before we do the heel; and even when the mud is quite deep, we must put down the heel but seldom. When the street becomes less muddy, we can compensate ourselves for this fatigue, which, however, in the end, leaves us hardly sensible.

This manner of walking is strictly necessary when you offer your arm to any one. When tripping over the pavement, (as the saying is) a lady should gracefully raise her dress a little above her ancle. With the right hand she should hold together the folds of her gown, and draw them towards the right side. To raise the dress on both sides, and with both hands, is vulgar. This ungraceful practice can be tolerated only for a moment, when the mud is very deep.
—Elisabeth Celnart, The gentleman and lady's book of politeness and propriety of deportment: dedicated to the youth of both sexes, 1833

Illustration courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Please click on caption for more info.

Breakfast Links: Week of January 8, 2012

2012-01-14T17:00:00.001-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links. Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• A Few Renaissance Lap Dogs: http://bit.ly/AnS6DR

• 1760 NYC mansion with unparalleled history lost forever. http://bit.ly/yS91Wa

• New Exhibtion on Princess Charlotte, The Forgotten Princess, to be held at Royal Pavilioni Brighton http://wp.me/pGJsu-1Yt

• The dangers of drinking from 1682, illustrated with some entertaining original woodcuts http://bit.ly/A8nacD

• Fashions of First Ladies, a real trove online: http://bit.ly/vzm7Qx

• Scandalous end to a love triangle: Edith Thompson & Frederick Bywaters hanged 9 Jan 1923 http://ow.ly/8mr5b

• One of the most beautiful books in the Folger Library: c1900 artists' book of Midsummer Night's Dream: http://bit.ly/zAa2Fv

• In Pictures: The history of London Zoo http://bit.ly/xoKJuV

• "Horsecakes", a 19th c American gingerbread treat (w/recipe): http://bit.ly/zgBPTX

• Some Tudor and Stuart portraits are pure fashion moments: http://bit.ly/A05aoB

• In Sept 1774, Abigail Adams worries about rumors of a slave uprising in Massachusetts: http://bit.ly/zOLGic

• In search of London's execution sites http://bit.ly/xi3wjy

• Neat website about the role of American women in WWI: The Heiress Corps - http://heiresscorps.wordpress.com/

• Gorgeous gilded Leather wall-hangings http://bit.ly/qk4ryc

• Early Am. prison escape artist Daniel Wilson, born in Bellingham 1749, hanged in Providence 1774: http://bit.ly/xLnkCT

• A designer bag from Leonardo da Vinci?: http://bit.ly/ApYSZt

• Anna and the Librarian: An American Civil War tale involving the St. Louis Mercantile Library : http://nyti.ms/yI8NVl

• Charming family sketches by Queen Victoria - revealed after 150 years http://bit.ly/z7EmMt

• Brest's Coffee-House, 1773 - what did 18^th c gentleman want from a fine coffee house?: http://bit.ly/z7L8hM

• The card game Speculation - as mentioned by Jane Austen & etc, & enjoying a brief vogue 200 yrs ago. http://bit.ly/wZED2a

• Linen day dress attributed to Paul Poiret, circa 1912, http://fb.me/TLnyoRXK

Victoria's granddaughter speaks

2012-01-13T00:05:00.009-05:00

Loretta reports:

Here's the second part of the series on Victorian ladies, this time featuring a lady from an altogether different class. I have to admit that these American ears couldn’t catch more than half of what Princess Alice said.

Photograph of Princess Alex of Teck (aka Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone), courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA (editing mine).

Please note: Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a black rectangle where the video ought to be. To watch the video, please click on this link to the Two Nerdy History Girls blog.

Dealing with rheumatism & gout in 1834

2012-01-12T00:05:00.013-05:00

Garlic

Loretta reports:

Last week, in response to my blog about curing gout with heavy drinking, a commenter expressed curiosity about treatments in the past for these ailments.

These two home remedies dating to 1834 (and let’s remember that many people never saw a doctor in their lives) came from one of my favorite sources, The New Female Instructor or Young Woman’s Guide to Domestic Happiness, a book I’ve cited before (here & here).

~~~

Receipt for the Rheumatism.

Take of garlic two cloves, of ammoniac one drachm: blend them, by bruising, together; make them into two or three bolusses, with fair water, and swallow them, one at night, and one in the morning. Drink, while taking this medicine, sassafras tea, made very strong, so as to have the teapot filled with chips. This is general found to banish the rheumatism, and even contractions of the joints, in a few times taking.

Remedy for the Gout.


Gum Ammoniac

Mix two ounces of finely-pounded gum guaiacum, with three quarts of the best rum, in a glass vessel; stir and shake it from time to time. When it has remained for ten days properly exposed to the sun, distil the liquor through cotton or strong blotting paper, and bottle the whole, corking it up tight. The more is made of it at a time the better, as it improves by keeping. The dose is a table-spoonful every morning fasting. The bottles should be corked as closely as possible; but should not be quite filled, lest the fermentation of the liquor should make them burst. This medicine must not be made with brandy, or any other spirit but good genuine rum.

Illustrations courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Clicking on captions will take you to the Wiki page.

What the Mantua-Maker's Apprentice Wore, c. 1775

2012-01-11T00:01:00.004-05:00

Susan reporting:

Collections of historic clothing are usually filled with the clothes of the rich and famous, which can give the misguided impression that everyone in the past wore silk and lace. Not quite; but the dress of ordinary folk is much harder to find (and, for us writers, to imagine) because not much of it survives. Clothing was expensive, and most was worn until it was worn out. Garments were patched and mended and handed down, refashioned (see here) and recut until there was often nothing left. Even rags were useful, with a gentleman's fine linen shirt eventually ending up as bandages or rags for the paper maker.

All of which is why I especially enjoy seeing what our mantua-maker friends in the Margaret Hunter Shop, Colonial Williamsburg, are wearing to work. While they might be stitching fine silk, for the most part they're dressed as their 18th c. counterparts would have dressed. A shopkeeper's assistant or apprentice in the fashion trades was expected to dress as stylishly as possible within her means, and their clothes often reflected the latest fashions sewn in more modest fabrics. Stylish was good for trade - she was, after all, a walking advertisement for the shop - but not so stylish that she rivaled the customers by dressing above her station. (As always, please click on the photos to enlarge to see details.)

Here Sarah Woodyard is dressed as a mantua-maker's apprentice c. 1775. Her gown is a reproduction of a closed-front English gown with the skirts looped up into two puffs in the back. While this style would have been most fashionable in silk, it's here made up in block-printed cotton. The printed pattern features a meandering vine and tassel motif which would also have been copied from expensive woven silks. The single color would have made the fabric more affordable, too, but the design of the gown – carefully cut to make the most of the cloth's pattern – more than compensates.

While the gown has no costly silk ribbons or trimmings, the apprentice's fine linen cap features not only a wide silk bow, but also extravagant pleating for maximum effect. Her kerchief and apron are also fine white linen, and her white thread stockings and quilted petticoat also contributes to the impression of a neat and tidy assistant. I like the subtlety in the white-on-white textures; if you look closely, you'll see that there's a woven check in her neck kerchief, and diamond-patterned quilting in her petticoat. There's another spot of color in the heart-shaped red pincushion - an essential part of the trade - that hangs ready at her waist, and more in her red ribbon garters. Everything except the stockings was cut and stitched by hand by Sarah herself, just as any good apprentice should.

But it's her shoes that are truly eye-catching. As we've seen before, the 18th c was a glorious time for women's shoes, and these are no exception, made from red silk with yellow leather-covered heels and brass buckles. Sarah is particularly proud of these shoes, since she made them herself while working in CW's shoemakers' shop – see her carving the heels from wood here.

Many thanks to Sarah Woodyard!For more pictures of her shoes in progress, see the Margaret Hunter Shop's Facebook page.
All photographs here copyright 2012 Susan Holloway Scott

The Hackney Coach & Waterman

2012-01-10T00:05:00.016-05:00

Loretta reports:

Some time ago, while researching a London-set story, I was astonished to discover how many hackney coach stands existed during the early 19th century. Which leads us to another lost occupation—the hackney coach waterman.

The following excerpt is from my much-loved, hard-to-find Pyne’s British Costume (originally published 1805 as The Costume of Great Britain), a book I cited a while back in my post about London’s Dustmen. Hackney coachmen, who drove individuals to specific destinations, mainly in London, are not to be confused with stage coachmen, who traveled the King’s highways according to preset routes and schedules.
~~~
Hackney coaches appear upon the stand for hire, at seven o’clock in the morning in summer, and at eight in winter: twelve hundred are allowed to be kept in London and its vicinity, and each is numbered. The prices of fare are regulated; and no coachman can refuse to carry passengers for any distance short of ten miles, however stormy the weather, or however the horses may be fatigued. A certain number are reserved to relieve those that have been employed during the day, which are called night coaches, and they attend at their stands till sun-rise. Public houses are kept open during the night for the accommodation of the coachmen. The figure represented upon this plate is employed as waterman to the stand, who is licensed, and wears a badge with his number engraved thereon: his business is to feed and water the horses, and to open the door for the passengers, that the driver may remain upon his box: he also has charge of the coaches during the time that the coachmen take their meals.

The office for licensing hackney coaches was erected in the year 1696, under the direction of commissioners; they have a code of regulations, which subjects the drivers to penalties for extortion, carelessness, rude behaviour, &c. by which the public is much benefitted; as the mode of redress is rendered simple and expeditious.

Perfect Pineapple: A Knitted Regency Reticule, c 1800

2012-01-08T20:01:00.003-05:00

Susan reporting:

As we've noted here before, the dramatic change in women's fashion in the late 18th and early 19th c not only meant the temporary end of wide skirts with hoops, but also the invention of a necessary new accessory: the purse. Gone were the days when a woman could tuck all her little necessities in an over sized pocket that tied around her waist and was hidden beneath voluminous petticoats. Much as purses are today, the new bags were often as stylish as they were utilitarian, and added a touch of bright color and whimsy to the ubiquitous white muslin gowns.

Many of you mavens of historic dress (and I know we have many among our readers) will recognize the picture of the gown, left. It has appeared in several of the excellent fashion books featuring the holdings of the Kyoto Costume Institute, including this and this.

The gown is French, c 1800, of silk taffeta with a drawstring waist. The shawl is silk net with an embroidered floral motif and silk fringe, and the hat is also silk net and pongee with a tassel.

But it's the pineapple dangling from the lady's wrist that has always intrigued me. Little bags like this were called reticules, from the French and earlier Latin for a small net or mesh bag. (There's another charming, if unsubstantiated, explanation that the word is a mocking derivative from ridicule, the French word for ridiculous.) Pineapples and other exotic fruit had become a fashion-forward motif thanks to the trendsetting Josephine de Beauharnais Bonaparte, born on the Caribbean island of Martinique. This pineapple-shaped reticule was knitted in yellow and green silk with silver beads for accents, and the top with the leaves pulls open with the tasseled drawstrings. It's a wonderful, witty example of three-dimensional knitting, whether the skilled workmanship of a professional knitter or a dedicated lady.

For a zoomable view of the bag on the Kyoto web site, click here.

The fashion for knitted and crocheted pineapples outlived Napoleon, with directions or "recipes" for them appearing in lady's magazines well into the mid-19th century. One version of the "Pine Apple Bag" appeared in The Lady's Assistant, for executing useful and fancy designs in knitting, netting, and crochetwork, published by Mrs. Jane Gaugain in 1840. Contemporary needleworker/blogger Isabel Gancedo has adapted this pattern for modern knitters, and posted both her version and Mrs. Gaugain's on her website here. Be forewarned: this is a challenging pattern for experienced knitters – but if you're game, the results are delightful!

Above: Photo from Revolution in Fashion 1715-1815, copyright 1990 The Kyoto Costume Institute
Many thanks to Janea Whitacre for pointing me towards Ms. Gancedo's on-line instructions.

Breakfast Links: Week of January 2, 2012

2012-01-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• It’s 2012, the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - read about Queen Victoria's Jubilee celebration: http://bit.ly/vatUMq

• The incredibly elegant costumes of Francisco de Zurbarán's 1598–1664 female saints - http://bit.ly/kEqYjR

• 19th century daugerreotype portraits of dogs: http://bit.ly/tKAURP

• Ever considered becoming an 18th tailor? Colonial Williamsburg is looking for a new apprentice: http://bit.ly/vMog06

• Lord Byron was one of the first diet icons, says historian Louise Foxcroft http://tinyurl.com/86hus2t

• If you're hooked on DowntonAbbey, you'll love these 1910s dresses http://bit.ly/rMlAqf

• George VI Coronation portrait early example of 'photo-shopping' http://tgr.ph/yn6XGA

• Fascinating - scientists ID head of French King Henri IV http://on.msnbc.com/AwenwG

• Roman brothel token discovered in Thames: http://dlvr.it/13T5zT and http://twitpic.com/83fpit

• The handwritten prayer book love notes sent by Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn before they married http://bit.ly/wFtgWO

• Favorite vintage photo of the week:Top hats & a big gun on the beach c1856: http://bit.ly/wrflM1

• Locavore aristocrats prefer calves heads to beef-stakes for Sunday dinners, 1750 http://bit.ly/x50XCN

• Isaac Newton's sins, 1662: note #2, #8, and #25 http://bit.ly/yWjkPo

• 17th Century Arctic exploration, murder, and polar bears on Bankside http://bit.ly/wO5Wae

• Maria Cosway (née Hadfield) 1759 - 1838, painter, socialite, and a real looker! http://bit.ly/Azf65e

• Spongata - An Italian Minced Pie in Georgian London, 1820: http://bit.ly/A7zN7P

• Jane Austen's History of England as an ebook: http://bit.ly/AEdeOf

• Lincoln and angels/ages: the impossibility of getting at truth in accounts of the past http://bit.ly/zYB1IW

• The baroque interiors at Tredegar House, Newport, are astonishing: http://bit.ly/wCtIFX

Modern Women of the 1890s

2012-01-06T00:05:00.002-05:00

Riverside Drive, New York, c. 1896

Loretta reports:

Two voices from the past offer some insight into the thrills and challenges of being a modern woman in the Gay Nineties.

Illustration: Riverside Drive, New York, c. 1896. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA,

Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a black rectangle where the video ought to be. To watch the video, please click on this link to the Two Nerdy History Girls blog.

A Freshman at Oxford Discovers Smoking, c. 1850

2012-01-05T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

Leaving home for college or university has always represented a big step towards independence and adulthood. But it's not only Knowledge that draws youthful students. Temptation, in every form, has also proved most attractive to young scholars freed for the first time from the guidance of home and parents. While Animal House would have us think otherwise, this is nothing new. As long as there have been universities, there have been tales of misbehaving students.

Recently Loretta introduced us to an Oxford freshman of 1825. Published a generation later in the 1850s was Mr. Verdant Green: Adventures of an Oxford Freshman. Written by Cuthbert M. Bede (a pseudonym - what a surprise! - of Edward Bradley, an English clergyman and novelist), young Verdant experiences all the highs and lows of every first-year student. One of Verdant's greatest revelations is smoking, which he encounters to prodigious excess. In fact, nearly every illustration of student life like the ones shown here includes at least one young gentleman puffing up a storm.

But then, let's read Verdant's introduction in a classmate's rooms:

"A great consumption of tobacco was going on, not only through the medium of cigars, but also of meerschaums, short dhudheens of envied colour, and the genuine yard of clay; and Verdant, while he was scarcely aware of what he was doing, found himself, to his great amazement, with a real cigar in his mouth, which he was industriously sucking, and with great difficulty keeping alight. Our hero felt that the unexpected exigencies of the case demanded from him some sacrifice; while he consoled himself by the reflection, that, on the homoeopathic principle of "likes cure likes," a cigar was the best preventive against any ill effects arising from the combination of the thirty gentleman who were generating smoke with all the ardour of lime-kilns or young volcanoes, and filling Mr. Smalls' small room with an atmosphere that was of the smoke, smokey. Smoke produces thirst; and the cup, punch, egg-flip, sherry-cobblers, and other liquids, which had been so liberally provided, were being consumed by the members of the party as though it had been their drink from childhood; while the conversation was of a kind very different to what our hero had anticipated, being for the most part vapid and unmeaning, and (must it be confessed?) occasionally too highly flavoured with improprieties for it to be faithfully recorded in these pages of most perfect propriety."

If you'd like to follow more of young Verdant's adventures, the book is available here through Google. I found it particularly amusing that the copy scanned came from the Harvard University library, where no doubt many of the same shenanigans took place.

Many thanks to our friend Patrick Baty for reminding us of Mr. Green's colorful exploits.

Fashions for January 1808

2012-01-04T00:05:00.001-05:00

Loretta reports:

Sharp-eyed readers will note the date of La Belle Assemblée provided below. Unlike the other ladies' magazines, each monthly LBA provides fashions for the following month. Thus, the fashions for January 1808 appear in the December 1807 issue. I thought these were especially interesting, with the curious method of wrapping the scarf on one and the construction of the velvet wrap in the other. The fashions for January included a ball dress in black and white, which I'll put up later in the week at my other blog as a Color-Your-Own.

~~~

NO. I.—A MORNING DRESS.

A round cambric gown, a walking length, with short full sleeve, and puckered cuff, buttoned or laced down the back, and made high round the neck, with a full frill of lace. A military stock, edged round the chin with the same. A figured Chinese scarf, the colour American green, twisted round the figure in the style of antique drapery. Melon bonnet the same colour, striped, and trimmed to correspond with the scarf. Hair in irregular curls on the forehead. Earrings of gold or topaz. Long York tan, or Limerick gloves, above the elbow. Slippers of yellow Morocco. This dress, divested of the bonnet, is considered genteel neglige for any period of the day.

NO. 2.—A MORNING WALKING, OR CARRIAGE HABILIMENT.

A simple breakfast robe of Indian muslin, or cambric; with plain high collar, and long sleeve. Plain chemisette front, buttoned down the bosom. A Calypso wrap of morone velvet, or kerseymere, trimmed entirely round with white ermine, or swansdown. Spanish hanging-sleeve, suspended from the back, and falling over the left shoulder, terminating in a round, point below the elbow. This ornament is lined throughout with skin the same as the trimming. A mountain hat of white imperial beaver, or fur, tied under the chin with a ribband the colour of the coat. Gloves and shoes of American green, or buff. Cropt hair, confined with a band, and curled over the left eye.
—La Belle Assemblée, Volume 3, 1807

Love Thwarted by Greenery, 1712

2012-01-03T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

No one enjoys taking down holiday decorations, which is often the reason pine garlands and holly are still found lingering at Valentine's Day. But for the author of the letter below, the Christmas decorations in her local church are becoming a genuine hazard to her romantic hopes, shielding her from the amorous attentions of Sir Anthony Love!!!

Well, perhaps not so genuine. It's doubtful that Miss Jenny Simper was any more real than Sir Anthony Love, and much more likely that both are the satiric creations of The Spectator, a daily publication of witty observation published in London by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele between 1711-12. But just as I've been recently posting the 18th c-inspired holiday decorations of Colonial Williamsburg (such as these here and here), it's possible that there truly was a parish clerk who enjoyed bedecking his church for the Christmas season, and hated taking down the greenery afterwards.

January the 14th, 1712.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
I am a young woman and have my fortune to make for which reason I come constantly to church to hear divine service, and make conquests: But one great hindrance in this my design, is that our clerk, who was once a gardener, has this Christmas so over-deckt the church with greens, that he has quite spoilt my prospect, insomuch that I have scarce seen the young baronet I dress at these three weeks, though we have both been very constant at our devotions, and do not sit above three pews off. The church, as it is now equipt, looks more like a green-house than a place of worship: the middle isle is a very pretty shady walk, and the pews look like so many arbours of each side of it. The pulpit itself has such clusters of ivy, holly, and rosemary about it, that a light fellow in our pew took occasion to say, that the congregation heard the word out of a bush, like Moses. Sir Anthony Love's pew in particular is so well hedged, that all my batteries have no effect. I am obliged to shoot at random among the boughs, without taking any manner of aim. Mr. SPECTATOR, unless you will give orders for removing these greens, I shall grow a very aukward creature at church, and soon have little else to do there but say my prayers.
I am in haste,
Dear SIR,
your most obedient servant,
Jenny Simper.

Above: December, Published by Richard Sayer, London, 1767.

A cure for rheumatism or gout

2012-01-02T00:01:00.010-05:00

Gillray, The Gout

Loretta reports:

Welcome back, readers! We hope you had fine holidays, and return to us refreshed, eager for another year of unbridled historical nerdiness.

We begin 2012 with a holiday that may be unknown to many of our readers, and an infallible cure for gout or rheumatism, courtesy Mr. William Hone’s Every-day Book, whose full title you'll find below.

~~~

The first Monday after new year's day is called Handsel Monday in some parts of Scotland, and is observed by merrymaking. In sir J. Sinclair's " Statistical Account," it is related of one William Hunter, a collier, that he was cured in the year 1758 of an inveterate rheumatism or gout, by drinking freely of new ale, full of barm or yeast. "The poor man had been confined to his bed for a year and a half, having almost entirely lost the use of his limbs. On the evening of Handsel Monday, as it is called, some of his neighbours came to make merry with him. Though he could not rise, yet he always took his share of the ale, as it passed round the company; and, in the end, became much intoxicated. The consequence was, that he had the use of his limbs the next morning, and was able to walk about. He lived more than twenty years after this, and never had the smallest return of his old complaint." This is a fact worth remembering, as connected with chronical complaints.

Rowlandson, Gouty Gourmands

—The Every-day book and Table book: or, Everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports,
pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events, incident to each of the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times; forming a complete history of the year, months, and seasons, and a perpetual key to the almanac including accounts of the weather, rules for health and conduct, remarkable and important anecdotes, facts, and notices, in chronology, antiquities, topography, biography, natural history, art, science, and general literature; derived from the most authentic sources, and valuable original communications, with poetical elucidations, for daily use and diversion, Volume 1, 1827 (the Google edition is 1838).

Illustrations:
James Gillray, The Gout, 1799, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Thomas Rowlandson, Comforts of Bath, Gouty Gourmands at Dinner, 1798, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

Breakfast Links: Week of December 26, 2011

2011-12-31T20:25:00.000-05:00

To help usher in the new year, we present our weekly offering of Breakfast Links – our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• Pig on lap, drink in hand—Mela Koehler's New Year's card: http://met.org/uLEOg9

• Really lovely blog post on year endings, self-doubt & John Keats: http://goo.gl/H5qEY

• For New Year 1696: the Window Tax was introduced in England and Wales. http://fb.me/11EE2rkDx

• A look at Dresden whitework ruffles from 18th c women's dress: http://bit.ly/uwNhwT

• 18th c sailor Ann Mills, lady pyrates, & why women went to sea: http://bit.ly/u6dm39

• A stay in the country: British country houses as hotels - & a bad plan http://wp.me/pA74c-ER

• First feet, black buns, and hansels: the language of Scottish New Year’s traditions http://oxford.ly/uHSLCc

• The ‘Breakfast at Tiffany's’ house, now for sale: Social tragedy, cinematic history on E. 71st Street: http://bit.ly/tRc9Yp

• Leonardo da Vinci’s symbolic “Lady with an Ermine”: http://econ.st/vtpP2G

• More on early 19^th c. magazines for women - John Bell and La Belle Assemblée http://bit.ly/rRF8sg

• Twelve Days of Christmas - Sandro Botticelli 1445-1510 - http://bit.ly/vKg3Fa

• A high-flying ski jump in 1912...in Chicago? http://bit.ly/vEYB9r

• Myths Debunked! King James didn't translate the KJB ... nor was he a saint. http://bit.ly/sBrUnD

• Charming image of an Edwardian lady w/ snow-covered coat, from a wonderful early 1900s album http://flic.kr/p/aXFu3H

• Christmas Decorations at Jane Austen's House: http://wp.me/p1tEEF-2V

• A short collection of Victorian jokes, as compiled by: http://bit.ly/qHchQF

• How a train accident in 1865 could have made ‘Great Expectations’ Dickens' last complete novel: http://bit.ly/umGTOn

• Currant fritters (boiled in butter!) from 1759 cookery book by William Verral, master of White Hart Inn, Lewes: http://bit.ly/uplWaP

• Designer Adrian resists the New Look: 1948 Adrian suit http://bit.ly/uwTRwZ

• Good compilation of Britain's finest follies: http://tgr.ph/rOYeTt

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg: My Favorite Wreaths

2011-12-31T06:24:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

I hate to play favorites with the holiday decorations of Colonial Williamsburg, and I'd never want to be one of the judges in the annual competition – but these three always made me slow and smile whenever I passed by them. (As always, please click on the photographs to enlarge them for details.)

The large wreath, above, featured nontraditional Christmas colors, but I like the those shades of orange against the grey clapboarding. Pomegranates, pine cones, sprays of bittersweet, and papery orange Chinese lanterns – simple but striking.

The wreaths, right, are shamelessly political with their miniature 18th c. flags tucked into the greenery – even if those yellow Gadsen flags make for a "Don't-Tread-On-Me" Christmas.

The last wreaths, left, also demonstrate a beautiful play of colors with the dried flowers, cotton bolls, and greenery against the dark ochre paint.

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday, and very best wishes for a splendid 2012!

All photographs copyright 2011 Susan Holloway Scott.

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg: Unexpected Wreaths

2011-12-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Susan reporting:

With dozens of houses, shops, stables, and other buildings in Colonial Williamsburg decorated festively for the holiday season, there's no shortage of unusual wreaths. Everything used must have been available to 18th c Virginians, but there's clearly no limit on imagination. Here are four houses decked out with special flair; please click on the photographs to enlarge them for details.

At first glance, the dignified house, above, seems to traditionally decorated with pine cones and boughs. But look closer: there are also bright green Granny Smith apples as well as various dried grasses and seed pods. My favorite part: the vertical garlands flanking the door are topped with fans of wild turkey feathers.

More wild ingredients appear in the wreath, above left. Punctuating the greenery are branches with red berries and pheasant feathers. The puffs of white are cotton bolls, and nestled in the center of the wreath is a crown of deer antlers.

Not found in nature (at least not together): the wreath, right, featuring purple-tinged clam shells filled with dried pink strawflowers. The leafy green buds surrounding the shells are brewer's hops.

The final house/shop, lower left, is one that clearly inspires its decorators: the lattice-work signboard that's holding red and green apples served as a makeshift gallows for hanging a royal effigy in 2010.

This year's theme is less political and more equine. A padded horse-collar serves as a frame for a basket of dried flowers and grasses, while on the window shutters, long stirrups hold more apples.

(Curious about the curious sign board? I was, too - and here's the explanation from Colonial Williamsburg.)

Photographs copyright 2011 Susan Holloway Scott

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg: White Silk & Fashionable Dolls at the Milliner's Shop

2011-12-28T20:35:00.004-05:00

Susan reporting:

Because the Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop is one of the TNHG's favorite places in Colonial Williamsburg, I HAVE to include them in our holiday tour. The shop presents several different historic trades of the 18th c under its roof: the milliner, who sold many small imported and locally made goods (think of a modern store specializing in accessories); the tailor, who custom-made men's clothing; and the mantua-maker, who custom-made women's clothing. (Check out their Facebook page here.)

The shop's outdoor holiday wreath, left, reflects their trades. In addition to three modern-style cloth dolls, there are smaller versions of the shop's wares pinned to the wreath, including tiny pockets, muffs, and hats. (Click on the photo to enlarge and see the details.) For comparison, here's the shop's wreath from 2010, decorated with 18th c style fabrics.

Inside the shop is another holiday tradition. Each year a miniature version of the shop, right, complete to the smallest detail, is set up in one of the corner display cupboards. Replicas of 18th c fashion dolls that would have once worn samples of the latest styles now inhabit the shop. This year one of them has stopped by the shop for a new gown, and is standing in her stays and petticoat while the mantua-maker drapes and pins the gown on her (wooden) body. Click here for more about the mantua-maker's dolls.

But the doll isn't the only one with a new gown for the holidays. When Emma, right, one of the mantua-maker's assistants, learned that she was scheduled to work on Christmas, she decided to make herself a new jacket and petticoat of white silk in honor of the day. I saw her gathering and stitching the ruffled trim in the shop on Christmas Eve, working under deadline like a true 18th c seamstress would have done. And like her 18th c counterpart, she finished on time, too – here she is on Christmas Day!

All photographs copyright 2011 Susan Holloway Scott.

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg: Gentlemen on Horseback, plus Apples & Oranges

2011-12-27T20:35:00.000-05:00

Susan reporting:

No snow for a white Christmas this year in Colonial Williamsburg (though there was plenty of the white stuff in 2010!) Milder temperatures are more characteristic for December in Tidewater Virginia. Because many of the outdoor decorations rely on fresh fruit for color, the apples and oranges like the ones shown here, left and right, on houses in the town often need to be "refreshed" over the course of the holiday season. The sun isn't the only culprit, either. What hungry bird could resist shining red apples like these?

Note that the apples are used in more than the door's decorations. They're also tucked into the patterned openings of the brick walls (click on the photos to enlarge for details.) This is always done on this particular house – here it is with last year's yarn-based decorations.

There are plenty of advantages to warmer weather, however. How else would I have seen these two 18th c gentlemen, above, out for a leisurely early-morning ride?

All photographs copyright 2011 Susan Holloway Scott

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg: The Raleigh Tavern

2011-12-26T16:38:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

Because I have family in Williamsburg, VA, I'm most fortunate to be able to visit Colonial Williamsburg each Christmas.

The holiday season brings out the best in the colonial city, with nearly every house and shop decorated for Christmas. While the full-out holiday decorations aren't entirely authentic – no sensible 18th c. Virginian would ever have wasted a perfectly good (and expensive) imported pineapple by sticking it on his front door – the decorating "rules" require that only materials available in 18th c. can be used, which rules out modern glitter & glitz, flashing lights, and, of course, Santa. The results are quite wonderful, and draw even more visitors than usual. Over the next week, I'll be sharing a few of my favorites from 2011.

This is the front of the Raleigh Tavern, a colonial hotbed of roiling revolutionary politics. Beneath Sir Walter's bust, the tavern's holiday wreath features not only festive pomegranates and greenery, but also clay pipes and curled pages of the Virginia Gazette in honor of the lively discussions that must have taken place among the gentlemen of the colony, here in the Raleigh's smoke-filled public rooms.

Curious to see how the tavern's door was decorated last year? Here it is in 2010.

Above: Raleigh Tavern, Colonial Williamsburg, 2011, photo copyright Susan Holloway Scott.

Holiday Break

2011-12-22T00:01:00.003-05:00

Loretta & Susan report:

Over the next few days, we'll be taking a break while we enjoy the holidays with our families and friends. If the weather's willing, Susan will again be posting photos of the holiday decorations from Colonial Williamsburg. Look for fresh new posts from us both at the start of the New Year.

Of course, we hope you'll be having too much fun with your own families and friends to notice our absence. We wish you a most joyous holiday season and a New Year filled with many delightful revelations of the historical kind as well as many other good things!

In the spirit of a holiday filled with peace and beauty, enjoy this lovely video clip of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). Beautiful!

Many thanks to our twitter friend Denise Brain for sharing this clip with us.

Fashions for December 1823 (beautiful red dress #3)

2011-12-21T00:01:00.014-05:00

Loretta reports:

Many thanks to Susan for posting a rerun while I was in the throes of revisions.

Following, as I promised earlier in the month, is another red dress for December. Note the radical style change since 1813.

~~~

No. 2.—Carriage Dress.

Witzchoura pelisse of gros de Naples of a bright scarlet geranium colour, trimmed with a very broad border of swansdown, or of ermine. The conspicuous splendour of this pelisse compensates for the plainness which marks the bust and sleeves, that are almost devoid of all ornamental trimming. A bonnet of black velvet, lined with white satin, is worn with this beautiful winter dress; the bonnet is ornamented with one very long drooping black feather, hanging over the right side; on the left, is a half wreath of various coloured flowers. A fine clear muslin ruff, gauffrée, is worn round the throat, and over the bust, is a gold chain, forming three rows, festonnés; from the lower one depends the eye-glass. A muff is worn, to correspond with the broad fur at the border of the pelisse, either ermine or swansdown; and the lady thus appropriately attired generally carries a reticule of Waterloo blue velvet, ornamented, lightly, with gold. The shoes are of kid, and are either of a bronze colour, or of London smoke.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

FASHION AND DRESS.

. . . We have given, in one of our engravings, for this month, a fac-simile of that most comfortable of all pelisses, when the weather is very rugged—the witzchoura. Its closeness round the form, its unsparing portion of fur, all render it a desirable outdoor covering and shield against the cutting winds of bleak December. Yet, sensible as is this out-door envelope, as well as every other kind of pelisse, these long cherished favourites seem tardy in their appearance, and nothing new has been invented yet, either in their make, or the manner of trimming them: one lady waits to see what kind of pelisse will be worn this winter by her fashionable friend; the friend has not yet determined on it, and the invention of her marchande de modes seems at a stand, while pelisses, at least of any novel fabric, appear to be actually laid aside.
—La Belle assemblée, 1823.

Ruby Velvet & Ostrich Plumes: London Fashions for December, 1819

2011-12-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

Loretta reports:

Another look at one of our favorite posts from the NHG archives - here's a nice little wool and velvet number for the fashionable lady of late 1819.

~~~
London Fashions for December

PLATE 36.—WALKING DRESS.
A PELISSE composed of kerseymere: the colour is a peculiar shade of grey; it is lined with white sarsnet. The body is tight to the shape, the waist is rather long, and the sleeve is set in so as to just touch the point of the shoulder: the sleeve is wide, and falls very much over the hand. The skirt is moderately full, meets before, and fastens down on the inside. The trimming is composed of ruby-coloured velvet; it is of a new pattern, and exceedingly rich and elegant; it goes round the bottom, and up each of the fronts. The epaulettes and cuffs correspond with the trimming. High standing collar, trimmed in a similar manner. Head-dress, a bonnet composed of ruby velvet, intermixed with levantine: the crown is made of folds of these two materials, so disposed as to form a point in the centre, which has a light and novel effect: the brim is large, and of a singular but becoming shape; it is finished at the edge by a rich roll of ruby levantine, to which is attached a full fall of blond lace, set on narrow towards the ears, and broad in the middle of the brim: this style of trimming adds much softness to the countenance. A high plume of ostrich feathers, to correspond, is placed upright in front, and a rich ribbon ties it under the chin. Gloves to correspond with the pelisse. Half-boots, the lower part of black leather, the upper part grey levantine.

From the Repository of arts, literature, fashions, Vol. VIII. No. XLVIII, published by R. Ackermann, 1819
~~~
Kerseymere—Fine woolen suiting, having two-thirds of the filling and one-third of the warp on the face.
Levantino—Four-leaf, double-faced, closely woven silk serge, having single or ply warp. Comes mostly in solid colors but also in stripes.
Sarsenet— Plain, woven stout piece dyed English cotton cloth finished with high gloss, often calendered to give the appearance of a twill; used for lining, etc.

Definitions from the Dictionary of Textiles by Louis Harmuth, 1915

From the NHG Bookshelf: 'Hark! A Vagrant"

2011-12-18T20:01:00.000-05:00

Susan reporting:

As you've probably gathered by now, Loretta and I are bona fide nerdy history girls, fortunate enough to be able to incorporate the swell history facts we discover in the fiction we write. I'd like to introduce you to another of our NHG sisterhood: cartoonist extraordinaire Kate Beaton.

If you've somehow managed to miss Kate's phenomenally popular on-line cartoon strip, Hark! A Vagrant, then this compilation, above left, by the same name of is going to be a revelation. With a jittery line and an irreverent wit, Kate goes to the heart of history and literature (as well as the occasional foray into the popular-culture territory of Nancy Drew, Beyonce, and Wonder Woman) with hilarious results. If you still have room on your wish-list for Santa, then this book should be on it.

Kate's cartoons skewer not only big names like Napoleon and Shakespeare, but lesser-known historical folk like Maximilian I of Mexico and murderous grave-robbers Burke and Hare. Armed with a degree in history (she also studied anthropology, but as she herself notes, anthropology doesn't seem to turn up in her art), she gets the details right, and her cartoons are both funny and smart.

We're not alone in loving Kate Beaton, either. Hark! A Vagrant was recently named one of Time Magazine's top ten fiction books for 2011. When was the last time a cartoon book was honored like that?

The cartoons reproduced here are copyright Kate Beaton. No need for a FTC disclosure statement here; I'm such A Fan that I bought this book myself.

Breakfast Links: Week of December 12, 2011

2011-12-17T17:01:00.000-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• Could Arthur Conan Doyle draw a pig, blindfolded? http://tinyurl.com/5wd7p3r

• Take a look through Isaac Newton's college notebook, now on-line: http://bit.ly/uiGi0v

• "Perils of perambulating young people": Teenagers take over a museum in 1922 (sounds like a modern mall) http://bit.ly/vT0751

• Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Stories - "Bertie's Box" in real life: http://wp.me/p125Rp-Er

• The Pitcairn-Putnam Pistols: magnificent 18th c Scottish pistols used in Rev. War - but by whom? http://bit.ly/uPMS55

• Festive 1890s bodice w. holly & puffy puffy sleeves: http://bit.ly/vY0ETd

• Pictoral Walking Tour of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago http://bit.ly/uWChzD

• Country House Amenities: Lighting with Candles:http://bit.ly/vvswow

• Oh, the embroidery on this! A c. 1810-14 court suit owned by Austrian composer Johann Hummel.http://bit.ly/uovuwf

• Prints for a Different Parlor: late 19th c circular letter advertising "conjugal goods" of all kinds: http://bit.ly/s3RspD

• The astonishing collections of the National Trust are now searchable online: http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/

• Fake tan, hair dye, wrinkle filler, sun block,‘Gray-hairs dyed Black’: 17th Century beauty tips http://bit.ly/v9mF6e

• At midnight, New Year's, millions of people will belt out "Auld Lang Syne" - but what does it mean?http://f24.my/tLgOXd

• 1806 - Mogg Pocket Map of London (full page view & 'zoomable') http://bit.ly/srrthP

• How Victorian strongman Eugen Sandow attached his fig leafhttp://bit.ly/vqjGoP

• Exciting Anne Boleyn portrait info – at last Anne has a “real” face! http://bit.ly/tspOgr

• Exactly how cold was that in 18th c? 'Froze the water in the chamber pot': http://bit.ly/vtA5Wb

• A history of whisky: the immortal dram & its historic links with our seasonal festivities http://bit.ly/uVVpcg

• Rest ye merry, scared shepherds. The archaic language of Christmas: http://oxford.ly/tEG8KI
• Lady Rachel Fane's 17th c syllabub & the proper glass for sipping it:http://bit.ly/rDHt6t

• Now on Sotheby's site: classic 'American Needlework Treasures' available as flip-book: http://bit.ly/vnQp7k

• New blog from Jane Austen's House Museum – launched on Jane’s birthday this week: "Welcome"http://wp.me/p1tEEF-1g

Looking into the future from the 1920s

2011-12-16T00:50:00.008-05:00

Loretta reports:

I often wonder what my early 19th century characters would make of my world. They might have imagined people flying, but what sort of device would they picture? What would they imagine we'd be wearing? Could they envision the demise of the horse as transportation?

Though this film was made in the 1920s and 1930s, it does give us an idea of the limitations of our minds as well as the leaps we can make. And the clothes are pretty interesting. Note the cantilevered shoes, especially.

Please note: If you receive our blog via RSS Feed (email), you might see only a black rectangle where the video should be. To watch the show, please click on the link to our blog.

Another Recycled 18th c. Silk Gown – with a Political Agenda

2011-12-15T00:01:00.005-05:00

Susan reporting:

Recently I wrote here about an 18th c. gown that had been creatively remade and recycled a hundred years later into a 19th c. ballgown. Soon after I came across this 18th c. gown, left, that had likewise been "repurposed," but for different reasons.

Historians have determined from the brocaded floral pattern of the silk that this fabric was first made into a gown around 1727. Most likely the silk was imported from London to the then-colony of Virginia, and made up into a gown (that might have looked like this) by a mantua-maker there for a wealthy lady. Styles changed, but the silk was too valuable to be discarded, and the gown was saved.

Fifty years later, the colony of Virginia was in the middle of the American Revolution. Just as patriotic American ladies were banishing English tea from their tables, they were also no longer wearing the newest silks imported from London. Making over and making do was a way of making a political statement as well as a necessity, and there were even some (male) calls for everyone to wear homespun linen and wool. But even the most fervently rebellious ladies still wished to dress fashionably, and old gowns were now brought to the mantua-makers to be recut into the new styles being worn in London and Paris. Sometime between 1770-1782, the 1727 gown was remade into its present state, with a narrowed back, fitted sleeves, and draped, polonaise style skirts. (The dark red petticoat is a modern reproduction.)

By now the gown was owned by Martha Kerby (b. 1747), who became the second wife of Captain Miles King (1747-1814) in April, 1782 in Elizabeth City, VA. Martha may even have worn it for her wedding. Perhaps for sentimental reasons (or simply because Martha was bearing five children between 1785-1796), the gown was once again set aside and preserved. As the 18th c. came to a close, fashionable waistlines rose and the heavy woven damasks and brocades were replaced by lighter fabrics, making this gown woefully out of fashion.

But according to King family tradition, the gown had one more act ahead of it. In 1824, Revolutionary War general the Marquis de La Fayette (1757-1834) returned to America to help celebrate the country's fiftieth anniversary. In a year-long tour, La Fayette visited all 24 states and traveled more than 6,000 miles - no mean feat considering both the roads and the marquis's age. He was feted everywhere he appeared, including several events in Virginia. As the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier, Martha Kerby King was invited to one of the balls in his honor, where patriotic ladies wore gowns from the 1770s (the fifty-year-old vintage dresses of their day) to honor both the marquis and the country's anniversary. Supposedly Martha once again wore her blue silk flowered gown – and danced with the Marquis de la Fayette.

Above: Dress, c 1770-1785, Smithsonian, National Museum of American History; given by Mrs. Claude M. Bain and Mrs. Hugh M. North, Jr.

The Oxford Freshman 1825

2011-12-14T00:50:00.008-05:00

Loretta reports:

~~~

TAKING POSSESSION OF YOUR ROOMS.

     Ascending a dark stone staircase till the oaken beams of the roof proclaimed we had reached the domiciliary abode of genius, I found myself in the centre of my future habitation, an attic on the third floor: I much doubt if poor Belzoni, when he discovered the Egyptian sepulchre, could have exhibited more astonishment. The old bed-maker, and the scout of my predecessor, had prepared the apartment for my reception by gutting it of every thing useful to the value of a cloak pin: the former was engaged in sweeping up the dust, which, from the clouds that surrounded us, would not appear to have been disturbed for six months before at least. I had nearly broken my shins, on my first entrance, over the fire-shovel and bucket, and I was now in more danger of being choked with filth.
   "Who inhabited this delightful place before, Mark?"
     "A mad wag, but a generous gentleman, Sir, take notice, one Charles Rattle, Esq., who was expelled college for smuggling, take notice: the proctor, with the town marshal and his bull dogs, detected him and two others one night drawing up some fresh provision in the college plate-basket. Mr. Rattle, in his fright, dropped the fair nun of St. Clement's plump upon the proctor, who could not understand the joke; but, having recovered his legs, entered the college, and found one of the fair sisters concealed in Mr. Rattle's room, take notice. In consequence he was next day pulled up before the big wigs, when, refusing to make a suitable apology, he received sentence of expulsion, take notice."

"He must have been a genius," quoth I, "and a very eccentric one too, from the relics he has left behind of his favourite propensities."
In one corner of the room lay deposited a heap of lumber, thrown together, as a printer would say, in pie, composed of broken tables, broken bottles, trunks, noseless bellows, books of all descriptions, a pair of muffles, and the cap of sacred academus with a hole through the crown (emblematical, I should think, of the pericranium it had once covered), and stuck upon the leg of a broken chair. The rats, those very agreeable visitors of ancient habitations, were seen scampering away upon our entrance, and the ceiling was elegantly decorated with the smoke of a candle in a great variety of ornamented designs, consisting of caricatures of dignitaries and the Christian names of favourite damsels.
—The English Spy [Part 1.], 1825.
Illustrations from the book, courtesy Project Gutenberg

Visiting the Ruins of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles, 1803

2011-12-13T00:01:00.017-05:00

Susan reporting:

The English have always been intrepid travelers, and for hundreds of years, they have eagerly crossed the Channel in search of the enlightenment, entertainment, and edification to be found on the Continent. The 18th c is the heyday of the famous "Grand Tours", that final finishing touch to a young gentleman's education, and not even the hazards of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars could keep the determined tourist in Britain.

One of the more famous travelers of this era was a lawyer-poet-travel-writer named Sir John Carr (1772-1832.) Undeterred by inconvenient current events, he traveled widely throughout Europe in the early 19th c. and wrote a series of travel books that documented his journeys. The books were popular, and sufficiently influential to earn him a knighthood from the Duke of Bedford in Dublin in 1806. Styles in writing change, however, and while his detailed descriptions remain interesting, it's also painfully clear that he believed that no noun or verb should go unmodified, ever, ever.

Still, where else would we find this description of the tattered remains Marie-Antoinette's Petit Trianon at Versailles, which Carr visited less than a decade after her death? This excerpt and the illustration, above, are both from The Stranger in France, published in 1803 – and, if you'd like to read more, it's available on-line free as a Project Gutenberg Ebook here.

"I approached, with increased delight, the enchanting little palace and grounds of the late queen, distant from Versailles about two miles, called the Petit Trianon, to which she very justly gave the appellation of her "little Palace of Taste." Here, fatigued with the splendours of royalty, she threw aside all its appearances, and gave herself up to the elegant pleasures of rural life. It is a princely establishment in miniature. It consists of a small palace, a chapel, an opera house, out offices and stables, a little park, and pleasure grounds; the later of which are still charming, although the fascinating eye, and tasteful hand of their lovely but too volatile mistress, no longer pervade, cherish, and direct their growth and beauty. By that reverse of fortune, which the revolution has familiarized, the Petit Trianon is let out by the government to a restauranteur. All the rooms but one in this house were preoccupied, on the day of our visit in consequence of which we were obliged to dine in the former little bed room of the queen, where, like the Idalian goddess [Venus], she used to sleep in a suspended basket of roses. The apertures in the ceiling and wainscot, to which the elegant furniture of this little room of repose had once adhere, are still visible.
"After dinner, we hastened through our coffee, and proceeded to the gardens. After winding through gravelled walks, embowered by the most exquisite and costly shrubs, we entered the elegant temple of Cupid, from which the little favourite of mankind had been unwillingly, and rudely expelled, as appeared by the fragments of his pedestal.
"Thy wrongs little god! shall be revenged by thy fair friend Pity. Those who treated thee thus, shall suffer in their turn, and she shall not console them!...."

Above: Ruins of the Queen's Farm-house in the Petit Trianon, Engraving in aqua tint of sketch, published in The Stranger in France, 1803

Men Behaving Badly: Captain Dollupson

2011-12-12T00:50:00.018-05:00

Courtesy Yale Center for British Art

Loretta reports:

~~~

CAPTAIN DOLLUPSON OF THE ARMY.

Captain! thou abominable d—d cheater, if captains were of my mind they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. Shakspeare.

A LARGE dirty personage, with scratched cheeks and bloody cravat, calling himself 'Captain Dollupson of the Army,' was charged with having assaulted one of the dismounted horse patrol.

The 'captain,' it seems, by way of a little 'life,'* was amusing himself with a knot of costermongers in a back yard behind Little Russell Street, Drury Lane; and doing his utmost to 'knock up a mill' between two of them. The costermongers, however, would not 'come to the scratch' to please the captain, who thereupon felt his choler rise; and the costermongers venturing to laugh at his captainship, he boldly seized one of them by the cravat, and twisted it so that the poor costermonger was all but strangled. The others rushed to the rescue of their companion, and the captain's face was sadly scratched in the scuffle. At this moment the patrol passed by the end of the yard, and having been told what was the matter, he observed that the captain ought to be ashamed of himself, whereupon the magnanimous captain darted upon him and knocked him down by a tremendous blow' on the eye.

His worship made some remarks upon the unofficerlike amusement of the noble captain, and then called upon him for his defence.

• Your worship,' replied he, 'this scoundthrell, who had no business whatever to intrude himself among us, called out to me " Come here, blubberhead, and I'll whop you!" That was language, your worship, which no gentleman could put up with, and therefore I knocked him down.'

'And, therefore, you will put in bail for your appearance to answer it at the Quarter Sessions,' rejoined the magistrate; and the captain was instantly removed by the turnkey, but not before some of the costermongers had offered to prove that he was not called 'Blubberhead' by any body; and that every body called him 'Thickhead.'

His worship observed that the distinction was immaterial, and other cases were called on.

*This was when blood-shedding, blackguardism, and debauchery, was called 'life.'
—More Mornings at Bow Street: A new collection of humorous and entertaining reports, 1827

Illustration: Rowlandson, A black Leg Detected Secreting Cards, courtesy Yale Center for British Art.

Breakfast Links: Week of December 5, 2011

2011-12-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• A 19^th c Manhattan landmark destroyed "by stealth": http://bit.ly/vIXqBr

• What a costume says: Mildred Pierce's 1930s waitress uniform: http://bit.ly/vfjKbN

• Civil War cool: Three young officers of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, hanging out by a tree: http://bit.ly/rqvuK1

• Check out the festive pug! 19th c chromolithographed Christmas cards from Am. Antiquarian Society : http://bit.ly/uAhqNL

• 'Beyond the Grave: Concepts of Death in Early Modern England' - http://wp.me/p14Gvd-u9

• Grafffiti at the Tower of London: http://bit.ly/tw6W1g

• Sometime in late 41 BC, Marc Antony and Cleopatra had Cleopatra's sister and rival Arsinoe executed http://ow.ly/7FAys

• On-line book: 'Street Life in London', 1877: Rare descriptions & photographs of ordinary working people:http://tinyurl.com/cyffsy8

• The myth of Krampus, the bad guy of #Christmas out to punish bad children: http://bit.ly/vsZe5w

• If you haven't already discovered the tumblr of smoldering gentlemen in cravats from, you should. Really. :http://bit.ly/jQIVHk

• Modern realities of maintaining British estates: http://on.wsj.com/sFUmoT

• Looking at the work by Betty Ratcliffe, eighteenth-century artist and lady's maid: http://bit.ly/vcWDU4

• Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer: http://bit.ly/u4EMTD

• The Vindication of Christmas, 1652, shows how Father Christmas was perceived in Cromwell’s England: http://bit.ly/uEEsH4

• 'Parting the veil of Faery', 1890s -http://bit.ly/ty9T5z

• Extraordinary pair of ivory, steel, & brass wheellock pistols, c 1655-65 from Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://bit.ly/sFwvy4

• Illegal marriage, an escape attempt in men's clothing, & finally death by starvation: the life of Arabella Stuarthttp://bit.ly/uKRCTJ

• A history of the 'gin palaces' in Regency England: http://bit.ly/vzt7AQ

• Exploding cuffs: how 1740s women's fashions widened: http://bit.ly/roOtMt

• 18th c horse racing: http://bit.ly/vLy3Ys

• Anyone for a full baron? Roasting the Christmas Beef:http://bit.ly/tfZDhx

• Birds of Paradise http://bit.ly/shmGxP(*gorgeous* hand-coloured engravings)

• Looks like a high old time: Vintage (and embarrassing!) photos from1948 Christmas office party in NYC: http://bit.ly/uQzKSA

Above: At Breakfast, by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Friday Video: O Christmas Tree, Horrible Histories-Style

2011-12-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

With only a few weeks until Christmas, here's a carol for our Friday Video, especially one sung by the Horrible Histories folk. Most people do know that the Christmas evergreen is a German tradition brought over to England by a royal spouse. It's usually Prince Albert who gets the credit, but in fact the first Christmas trees entered the palace celebrations nearly a century earlier, through George III's queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Still, Victoria and Albert did popularize the custom, and Christmas trees have been part of English and American holidays ever since. This year Windsor Castle has been decorated for the season as if Queen Victoria were still in residence. This article includes plenty of photographs of this Victorian Christmas – including Albert's preference for hanging the trees from the ceiling!

The English Stage Coachman

2011-12-08T00:50:00.017-05:00

Loretta reports:

~~~

Cruikshank illustration from the magazine

. . .wherever an English stage coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery.

He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his (heels. He wears a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer time a large bouquet of flowers in his button-hole; the present, most probably, of some enamoured country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped, and his smallclothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach about half way up his legs.

All this costume is maintained with much precision ; he has a pride of having his clothes of excellent materials; and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person, which is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass. The moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to the care of the hostler; his duty being merely to drive them from one stage to another. When, off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his great coat, and he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of hostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those nameless hangers-on, that infest inns and taverns, and run errands, and do all kind of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. These all look up to him as to an oracle; treasure up his cant phrases; echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavour to imitate his air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back, thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo Coachey.
—George & Robert Cruikshank, The Gentleman's Pocket Magazine, 1827.

From the NHG Bookshelf: 'An Introduction to the Tokens of the Foundling Museum'

2011-12-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

Susan reporting:

We've written before on the Foundling Hospital, London, a remarkable charitable institution founded in 1741for the "Education and Maintenance of Exposed and Deserted Young Children." The Hospital continued to do exactly that well into the 20th c., taking in and providing for unwanted children, and teaching them a trade to support themselves.

Desperate mothers in the 18th c. turned to the hospital as a last resort, the one sure way to offer their children a better life than they could provide. When the child was offered for admission, a small token was left as well to be used for future identification, the hope being that the mother's circumstances would improve so that she could return and reclaim her child. Alas, few did. Today the tokens are among the most moving pieces in the Hospital Museum's collections.

Last year, the exhibition Threads of Feeling highlighted the textile tokens - ribbons, sleeves, and snippets of cloth - taken from the foundlings' clothing. (Click here for a heartbreaking slideshow of this exhibition.) Now the Museum has published a new book, An Introduction to the Tokens at the Foundling Museum, above left, that features many of the other tokens as well as several of the textile ones. These include coins, paper hearts, baby-sized rings, gambling markers, thimbles, keys, even admission tickets to Vauxhall Gardens; several are shown here, and on the book's cover. It's a fascinating collection of what lower-class Londoners held dear in the 18th c, and what they believed would link them forever to the children they had to give up. There's also a brief history of how the tokens were used in the 18th c., and how they were rediscovered and exhibited in the late 19th c.

But the true heart of this small book are the stories behind the tokens. Some have happy endings, of foundlings restored to their mothers, or growing to independent, responsible adulthood. Others are simply heartbreaking, and hint at the desperation and poverty that too many London women faced each day.

Margaret Larney's story is told in a simple letter that served as a token. Margaret and her husband came from Dublin to London to improve their fortunes. But after a series of menial jobs, Margaret became involved with a group who shaved gold sovereigns. She was arrested and tried for "degrading the coin of the realm," a crime that was considered high treason and punishable by execution. Although Margaret protested her innocence, she was convicted. While she was in prison, her husband disappeared, and her older son was taken and admitted to the Foundling Hospital. Because Margaret was pregnant, her execution was postponed until she gave birth, and then that son, too, was sent to the Hospital. In the letter, lower right, (which she must have dictated) that accompanied the newborn, she begged that the two brothers would be permitted to know one another:

Dear Sir
I am the unfortunate Woman that lies under Sentence of Death at Newgatt. I had a Child put in here before when I was sent here his name is James Larney and this [second son] his name is John Larney and he was born the King's Coronation Day 1758. And Dear Sir I beg for the tender mercy of God to let them Know one and other for Dear Sir I hear that you are a very good gentleman and God's blessing and more be on you for ever

Sir I am your humbel
Servant Margaret Larney

It's doubtful her final wish was fulfilled. The baby born in Newgate Prison died soon after admission, and soon, too, after Margaret herself was executed at Tyburn by strangulation and burning. But the older boy - renamed George Millett - survived, and became a successful wigmaker in Shropshire: the kind of happy ending that the founders of the Hospital hoped for all their charges.

An Introduction to the Tokens at the Foundling Museum is available here through the Museum's shop in London. Our American readers can also order the book stateside through our friends at Burnley & Trowbridge here.

All images are from the book, and are used with permission of the Foundling Museum. In accordance with the FTC (a rule that probably doesn't apply to Loretta and me since we're writers, not reviewers, but never mind) I received this book as a gift from the Museum.

Fashions for December 1813 (beautiful red dress part deux)

2011-12-06T00:50:00.009-05:00

Loretta reports:

We’re featuring red dresses this month, as did the ladies magazines of the 19th century.

~~~

PLATE 40.—PROMENADE OR CARRIAGE COSTUME.
This dress, when divested of the spencer, or jacket, exhibits the
EVENING OR OPERA COSTUME,
PLATE, 41.

In order to render these commodious habiliments the more clearly understood by our readers, we shall commence with a description of the Evening or Opera Costume: which consists of a round robe of morone or crimson-coloured Merino, kerseymere, or queen's cloth, ornamented round the bottom and up the front with a fancy gold embroidered border. The bodice is composed of satin, or velvet, of the same colour, trimmed round the bosom and sleeves with gold braid and narrow swansdown; the front of the bodice richly ornamented with gold and pearl buttons. A gold band and pearl or diamond clasp confine the bottom of the waist, with a gold frog pending on each side, inclining towards the back of the figure. The robe is laced behind with gold cord. Hair disposed in dishevelled curls, falling on the left side, and decorated with clusters of variegated autumnal flowers. Necklace, composed of a treble row of pearl, white cornelian, or the satin bead, confined in front with a diamond clasp. Ear-rings and bracelets to correspond. Slippers, of crimson velvet, ornamented with gold fringe and rosettes, though we recommend those of white satin in preference. White kid gloves, below the elbow. Fan, of richly frosted silver crape.

The great convenience and novel attraction of this dress, consist in its admitting of a spencer of the same material as the robe (as seen in our promenade figure), which is richly ornamented, à la militaire, with gold braid and netted buttons, forming a sort of epaulette on the shoulders. The spencer is embroidered up the seams of the back, on the shoulders, and cuffs, to correspond with the bottom of the robe. This spencer, when worn over the evening dress, affords at once both comfort and utility; and, with the addition of a straw or velvet hat, ornamented with feathers, and half-boots or Roman shoes, constitutes a most attractive and appropriate Carriage or Promenade Costume. The convenience as well as becoming properties of this seasonable habiliment, will be duly appreciated by such ladies as are in the habit of attending the theatres or private evening parties, affording a compact and comfortable protection from a damp and cold atmosphere, and which may be easily relinquished on entering the drawing room. It were needless to observe, that this dress admits of being constructed in any colour, and of many suitable trimmings. It is the sole invention of Mr. Barry, tailor and habit-maker, 55, New Bond-street, where it is exhibited, and where orders are received.
—Ackermann's Repository, 1813 (December issue)

Tinted Glass Spectacles, c. 1830

2011-12-04T20:30:00.000-05:00

Susan reporting:

While the collection of the Winterthur Museum primarily features American decorative arts, their curators clearly possess our Nerdy History weakness for once-ordinary things from the past that are just too interesting not to share. (Examples from Winterthur that I've mentioned here include bourdaloues and sleeve puffs.) Each time I visit, I discover some new/old curious thing in the museum's ever-changing display cases, including the spectacles, left.

Made in New York in c 1830, these spectacles are beautifully crafted of silver and clear and colored glass. They're also wonderfully ingenious, an early predecessor of 20th c clip-on sunglasses. At this time, spectacle frames were made to order by jewelers and watchmakers. The green-tinted lenses are hinged to swing over the clear glass, and are thought to have offered additional protection against bright sunlight. The bows can fold over the lenses, and have sliding pieces for a customizable fit. Because the bows are not curved to fit over the ears like modern glasses, a ribbon could be threaded through the eyelets to secure the spectacles - again much like modern leashes.

Soon after I saw these spectacles, I spotted this striking young gentleman, right, c 1807 in the De Witt Wallace Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, and he's wearing similar spectacles with green-colored lenses in silver frames. I don't know if he wore the spectacles against the sun, or because he suffered from some sort of weakness or injury to his eyes, or if he might even be blind - it's unusual that his face is turned to one side instead of looking directly towards the viewer in a more traditional portrait pose. Or is he simply too cool for Federal-era America? Alas, his name and his story are now lost, so all that is conjecture.

But then I came across this Spanish gentleman, lower left, from a slightly later date. He, too, is wearing spectacles with hinged tinted or smoked lenses similar to the Winterthur pair, but in this case the colored lenses are used as side visors. Again, because this gentleman's identity is also now forgotten, I can't offer his reason for wearing the spectacles, especially while sitting for his portrait – though they do give him a definite steampunk air.

This kind of spectacles could have been worn by anyone sensitive to bright light or sunshine, but at this time they were also becoming popular with travelers. Passengers on the early open-car railroads were subjected to smoke, wind, flying cinders, and sparks, and spectacles such as these were so often suggested to protect the eyes that they became known as 'railway spectacles'. Later railway spectacles would replace the tinted side lenses with mesh gauze screens that eventually would evolve into modern protective goggles. Here's an advertisement from the 1840s for "Gauze Railway Spectacles and Blue Glass Eye Protectors."

For much more about the history of eyeglasses and spectacles, check out the College of Optometrists on-line MusEYEum here.

Upper left: Spectacles, made by Charles Brewer & Company, New York, 1829-33, Winterthur Museum, Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont
Right: Portrait of a Gentleman, by John Wesley Jarvis, 1807, Private collection
Lower left: Portrait of a Spanish Gentleman, by Jose Buzo Caceres, 1832, British Optical Association Museum, London

Breakfast Links: Week of November 28, 2011

2011-12-03T17:24:00.000-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• Which version of this gown do you prefer? Emily Roebling's portrait: http://bit.ly/tvBKJp or the actual gown: http://bit.ly/vGCg76

• History of Tea in England & Her American Colonies - http://bit.ly/tkYigS

• "Blind House", Shrewton, Wilshire - an all-stone 18th c village lock-up (gaol): http://bit.ly/sneMN0

• Amazing new scans of Audubon's Birds of America: http://bit.ly/chZXdM

• Benjamin Franklin shocks himself while trying to kill a turkey: http://bit.ly/rBkQHt

• Vauxhall Gardens, two hundred and fifty years ago. http://bit.ly/sTzbeP

• Is it wrong to end a sentence with a preposition? http://oxford.ly/vtW0Te

• Dieting - not in the 1950s! Love these vintage 'Weight Gain' ads http://bit.ly/vyYKLm

• Stubborn food myth: Native Americans taught 17th c Pilgrims how to pop corn: http://bit.ly/w1FDMq

• Fashion curator Beatrice unpicks Cole Porter song & discovers a world of side-cars and brassières:http://bit.ly/vq8cbu

• "The Measure of Man": Concise, useful history of the Doric Order:http://bit.ly/tro4F9

• Medieval Women, Death, & the Sacraments:http://bit.ly/tASvYs

• 1895: Don’ts for women bicycle riders |http://m-bike.org http://fb.me/UJdUKeGP

• Saving Captain Asgill: the fate of a young British soldier who crossed swords with George Washington – & needed Marie Antoinette to intercede: http://bit.ly/uHaWF8

• Dinner delayed, or friends betrayed? Records get suspiciously sketchy for london dining club, 1694: http://bit.ly/szKmlE

• Just launched: Millions of historical newspapers now available to search online at http://bit.ly/iSH0Fm

• A pair of pistols finally return to Dunster Castle – pistols date from the period of the Glorious Revolution: http://bit.ly/tXxG5X

• John Rawlings 1940s color fashion photos *sigh!*http://bit.ly/rNPmvC

• On 1 December 1655, 22 yr old Samuel Pepys marries 15 yr old Elizabeth de St Michel: @HistoryToday http://dlvr.it/yXZLy

• Trousered before his time? A Brummell myth debunked! http://post.ly/15Y3d

• Who brought the Christmas tree into Britain? (hint: not Prince Albert) http://bit.ly/v4bkp0

• Life Magazine explains how wives should undress in front of their husbands, 1937: http://bit.ly/v937So

• Manuscript/transcription of “A Christmas Carol” & audio book now online: http://bit.ly/vQfwIZ

Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Henry VIII' s astronomical clock Part Deux

2011-12-02T00:50:00.009-05:00

Loretta reports:

To follow up on my blog about Hampton Court Palace's Astronomical Clock, here's a video from Historic Royal Palaces, with some additional tidbits and a look inside.

Recycling a Silk Gown, from 1740 to 1840

2011-12-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

Susan reporting:

Recycling is a hot trend in fashion right now, and we're all urged to make-over and make-do for the sake of the planet and our wallets. It's hardly a new idea, of course. Stylish (and thrifty) folk of the past were as conscious of changing trends as we are today, and they often took older clothes to their mantua-makers and tailors to follow the latest looks from London and Paris.

But sometimes the remodeling created an entirely new garment. In a time when the largest cost of clothing production was in the material, not the labor, older clothing was often picked apart so that the fabric could be reused. One of the reasons that banyans like this one are so rare today is that they contained considerable tempting yardage for re-cutting, and with their wide, pleated petticoats and bodices, 18th c. gowns often met the same fate.

The Victorian ballgown, above left, was made around 1840. While the sloping shoulders, v-shaped bodice, and bell-shaped skirt are all in the latest fashion, the over-sized floral pattern of the silk damask and its brilliant red were popular a hundred years before (as in these silk designs by Anna Maria Garthwaite.)

Most likely the Victorian gown began its life as a Georgian gown like this one, lower right. No one now knows if the older gown's silk was reused a hundred years later because the wearer was economizing, or if the damask was a sentimental choice from a treasured family gown, or simply a color she liked. Whatever the reason, the results are beautiful.

Above: Dress (Ball Gown), British, c. 1842. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009.
Below: Gown, British, c. 1740s, Costume Collection, Leeds Museum.

Traveling in America in 1829

2011-11-30T00:50:00.001-05:00

Loretta reports:

~~~

TRAVELLING IN AMERICA.

The above represents an American stage coach, and a view of the Waterloo inn, the first inn from Baltimore to Washington. Of the "comforts" of an American inn, Mr. De Roos gives the following picture in his travels.

We lodged at the City Hotel, which is the principal inn at New York. The house is immense, and was full of company: but what a wretched place! the floors were without carpets—the beds without curtains; there was neither glass, mug, nor cup, and a miserable little rag was dignified with the name of towel. The entrance to the house is constantly obstructed by crowds of people passing to and from the barroom, where a person presides at a buffet, formed upon the plan of a cage. This individual is engaged, " from morn to dewy eve," in preparing and issuing forth punch and spirits to strange-looking men, who come to the house to read the newspapers and talk politics. In this place, may be seen in turn, most of the respectable inhabitants of the town. There is a public breakfast at half past seven o'clock, and a dinner at two o'clock; but to get any thing in one's own room is impossible.

Of the state of society in New York, Mr. De Roos gives a tolerably perfect idea in the following:—
. . . We dined with an English merchant at his country-house, about four miles from the town. The environs are thickly interspersed with villas, the generality of which are constructed upon a very paltry scale. Both houses and gardens are arranged without taste or neatness; indeed, horticulture seems to be a science utterly unknown in America.

—George & Robert Cruikshank, The gentleman's pocket magazine, Volume 3, 1829

One Beautiful Blue Banyan, c.1740 (even Lord Honeybadger approves!)

2011-11-29T00:01:00.003-05:00

Susan reporting:

No 18th c. gentleman worth his fashionable salt would be without a silk banyan or wrapping gown for at-home wear. Nor, it seems, do we ever weary of writing about them. (Here and here are our most recent posts, including insight from Mark Hutter, the ever-knowledgeable tailor of Colonial Williamsburg.)

The stunning example, left, recently turned up on the site of an English auction house. While the description calls it a banyan, from its loose fit and t-shape, it's more properly a wrapping gown – but whatever it's called, it's a truly beautiful garment. The blue silk damask (lined in blue silk taffeta) is Chinese, with a large-scale pattern of censors on stands, acanthus scrolls, and exotic fruits, all reflecting the 18th c English delight in chinoiserie.The unknown tailor took special care with the costly fabric, matching the over-sized pattern with stylish sensitivity.

Certainly this was owned by a wealthy gentleman of fashion and taste, and perhaps even worn in a grand house decorated in the Chinese-inspired taste, like this. As an exquisite piece of antique clothing, the banyan is estimated to bring between £8,000-£10,000 at auction today, and we wouldn't be surprised if the final price is even higher. Click here for more views. (Thanks to Julie Wakefield of Austenonly for sharing this.)

In one of those strange internet coincidences, I stumbled across the picture, right, on the same afternoon as I first saw the blue banyan. Yes, it's the rakish Lord Honeybadger himself, elegantly at ease in his own silk damask banyan - a banyan that bears a striking (and perhaps suspicious) similarity to the one above, even down to the deep turn-back cuffs and taffeta lining. Clearly, when it comes to fashion, His Lordship isn't afraid to take what he wants....

Above: Fine gentleman's banyan, c 1730-40, Kerry Taylor Auctions.
Right: Lord Honeybadger (with apologies to Nicholas Boylston by John Singleton Copley) by JMK.

Update: The banyan did in fact sell for more than the original estimate of £8,000-10,000 – MUCH more. The final hammer price was £24,000 (approximately $37,300), making it one of the stars of the auction. No word on who bought it, but I can only hope it was a museum like the V&A, and that it doesn't disappear into a private collection.

Hampton Court Palace—the Astronomical Clock & other things

2011-11-28T00:50:00.021-05:00

Loretta reports:

I chose this excerpt from a Hampton Court Palace guidebook not simply because it gives us an idea of what Hampton Court Palace was like early in Queen Victoria’s reign, but because the writer has attitude. You’ll note his mentioning a historical error. We often blame the Victorians for creating their own historical myths to suit their tastes, but this gentleman did try to set the record straight about the clock—as well as add a few digs about Henry VIII and William Kent.

~~~

SECOND COURT* OF WOLSEY'S PALACE . . . the northern side is entirely occupied by the length of the hall—the west by a gateway, corresponding to that of the first court, having on its turrets the busts of Vitellius and Tiberius. Above this gateway is the face of an astronomical clock. It is stated to have been put up in 1540, and has often been said to have been the first public clock erected in England; but this is inaccurate, for the expenses of the Dutchman who superintended the works of the Clock Tower opposite Westminster Hall, in the time of Henry IV., are still preserved in the Exchequer. There was a " keper of the clocke at Hampton Courte—one Vincent, the clokmaker;" and in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIll., 20s. are charged as "paid to the clokmaker at Westminster, for mending the clocke at Hampton Court." Between the busts of the Roman emperors are two cherubs, of terra-cotta, made to support the arms of Henry VIII.,

Illustration from the guidebook

which ostensibly have supplanted something-better: indeed, throughout the whole of these portions of the palace, you cannot fail to be struck with the evident pains which the royal Harry, having once got possession, must have taken to set his mark wherever he could find a place for it. He that runs may read the "Dieu et mon Droit" everywhere. The eastern side of this quadrangle is marked with the date of 1732, that of its restoration, which was executed under the directions of Kent, the architect—one who had no respect for any but classical architecture. Here, thinking to improve on the original style, he has introduced some notions of his own, much less pertinent than they should be. Instead of the broad-shouldered, essentially Tudor arch, an "ogee" of an earlier period has been fantastically adapted; its want of harmony must strike every eye.
—Felix Summerly [pseud. for Sir Henry Cole] A hand-book for the architecture, tapistries, paintings, gardens and grounds of Hampton Court, 1849.

*Today called the Clock Court

Breakfast Links: Week of November 21, 2011

2011-11-26T15:02:00.001-05:00

We’re back from our holidays, feeling refreshed and ready to serve up our weekly offering of favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected for you from the Twitterverse. Dig in!

• Victorian Christmas on display at Windsor Castle: http://bit.ly/tPhYAm

• An 1856 NYC housing experiment that failed as a mansion, but suceeded as early women's college: http://bit.ly/rqsJUH

• The odd & tragic death of Margaret Fuller, literary lioness: http://bit.ly/uDdCN3

• Magnificent Victorian Jeweled Girandole Earrings c1850: http://bit.ly/rVTMpH

• Leonardo Da Vinci's To-Do List http://n.pr/vB4eka

• Colonel Brandon's Curries, Part Two http://wp.me/pGJsu-1U0 /

• Zooming in on a wonderful yellow striped sacque gown c 1770s: http://bit.ly/upUvQY

• Fascinating resource for fashion and textile objects: Scottish Textiles Heritage Online: http://bit.ly/tV3djB

• Take this quiz and find out which Greek hero, monster of god matches your personality. http://ow.ly/7BOLy

• Knit Eleanor Roosevelt's mittens - pattern plus vintage photo of First Lady knitting at the beach: http://bit.ly/74sUHt

• Luminous orange panne velvet 1930s evening coat from FIDM blog archive. http://fb.me/1sT4LM8uU

• Louisa May Alcott & the American Civil War: http://bit.ly/6Bx7My

• "Childhood in the Roman Empire" http://bit.ly/twCBlf

• How can wet slippers be fatal? Why heroines die in classic fiction http://bit.ly/vvum1v

• 'Lancets and Leeches and Cupping! Oh, My! Bloodletting Practices' - http://wp.me/p14Gvd-ts

• Black Friday and the missing retail amenity http://ow.ly/1fNMx5

• The original dunce was actually brilliant (we especially love his rationale for the pointed hat). http://ow.ly/7nZBj

• Beautiful images: Statuary slideshow to stir the soul - http://bit.ly/aVYzK
• Visting the British Museum in 1760: http://bit.ly/usvOlu

• At National Trust's Avebury Manor: a different approach to historical interpretation: http://bit.ly/t4mXAu

• Colour footage of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, 1939 - http://bit.ly/tWEr5U

• A spurious telling of #Thanksgiving legends c 1900:http://bit.ly/swFow0

• We have never seen this Mirror Photography trick before, and great to see an explanation: http://flic.kr/s/aHsiXqsTbU

Thanksgiving Break

2011-11-21T00:50:00.005-05:00

Loretta & Susan report:

On Thursday the 24th we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving in the U.S. by eating a lot.

It took a while for the country to settle on a Thursday in November, but that's another story—which you'll probably find it in a blog here sometime.

We have a great deal to be grateful for, like being able to write books and get them published. And then we have this blog, where we find bits of history and put them out there for your edification and amazement. A great many more are edified and amazed than we'd ever hoped for.

So yes, we'll be giving thanks for our readers, definitely.

This week, though, we're taking time off from blogging, so that we can prepare for the big Thanksgiving dinner and spend time with our families. But we'll be back next week, with more great nerdy history stuff.

Illustration: The Chap Book--Thanksgiving no., courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Breakfast Links: Week of November 14, 2011

2011-11-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

Served up fresh: our weekly offering of Breakfast Links! Our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, collected from around the Twitterverse.

• Dolly Wilde, Oscar's fascinating neice, a salon celebrity in early 20th c Paris: http://bit.ly/sZEX4T

• Historic Dress (or hat) of the Day: Silver bonnet, 1830-1860: http://bit.ly/uX1RGT

• George Romney (1734 – 1802) - an artist obsessed with Emma Hamilton http://bit.ly/s8sc3H

• Leeds Castle to be rented out as £1m 'Olympic playground' http://tgr.ph/uFmIvL; or, if you require a more royal lodging, fancy renting out St James's Palace? http://bit.ly/tBUEMx

• Creepy but fascinating:The Danse Macabre Collection http://bit.ly/txxrBB

• Surgeon George James Guthrie, Wellington’s combat surgeon: http://bit.ly/sLq442

• Guns and Horses: King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery http://wp.me/p13rlt-1bA

• Video tour of 18th-19th c clothes in Rev. Fashions exhibition at Fairfax House, York: http://bit.ly/sipAxL

• How did gentlemen shave in the 19th c? http://bit.ly/vdFTSF

• The French art of drinking without getting drunk c 1870:http://bit.ly/t3jVbX

• 'Elements of Drawing',John Ruskin's teaching collection on-line:http://bit.ly/sct2rf

• The pagoda is an extraordinarily enduring symbol of the whimsicality of chinoiserie: http://bit.ly/uNbhQW

• Executed this week in 1774, Jack Sheppard, celebrity escape artist:http://bit.ly/vVN2OO; The wonderfully illustrated version of Jack Sheppard's escapades: http://bit.ly/vyvNsF

• A handful of memento mori skull/skeleton rings: http://bit.ly/tBFhte

• Following his death at the battle of Jutland in 1916, 16-yr old John Travers Cornwell became a national hero: http://bit.ly/dh476U

• "The Game of Kings: Medieval Ivory Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis" at The Cloisters.:http://met.org/tggu0q

• The forgotten Pre-Raphaelite: Alas Poor Walter...Deverell: http://bit.ly/sV8UBv

• Interesting article: What were advertisements like before the 1840s? How did they target women? http://bit.ly/tRb1tR

• A few thoughts on how pirates really drank their rum: bumboo & flip but not much grog http://bit.ly/vd3uSL

• Mary Lincoln goes shopping on Broadway - extravagant 1857 NYC emporium: http://bit.ly/vk6UnX

• Twihards, Potterheads, Whovians, and Tolkienites - how do you decide on a fandom name?http://oxford.ly/tR3rpe

• The romantic curvature of these 18^th c shoes encourages the voyeuristic eye http://met.org/rJ9SEK

"One Very Fine Lady", 1908 (Friday Video)

2011-11-18T00:01:00.004-05:00

Susan reporting:

"Head-turning" is generally a complement, but in this very short French film, the lady in the title literally causes heads to turn with amusing - if disastrous - results. The work of director Louis Feauillade (1873-1925), this film and others like it are considered predecessors to the Keystone Kops-style of slapstick that would soon be produced in Hollywood. It's also something of a fashion piece: the lady's extravagant hat and equally extravagant corseting are the height of Edwardian style. No wonder she leaves such mayhem in her wake!
Many thanks to Heather A. Vaughan and her excellent blog Fashion Historia for sharing this video.

New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English

2011-11-17T06:09:00.000-05:00

Loretta reports:

The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English was originally published in 1883, and delightfully reviewed by Mark Twain. I discovered it only very recently, thanks to John McWhorter’s Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English.
~~~
FAMILIAR PHRASES
Go to send for.
Have you say that?
Have you understand that he says?
At what purpose have say so?
Put your confidence at my.
At what o'clock dine him?
Apply you at the study during that you are young.
Dress your hairs.
Sing an area.
These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.
How do you can it to deny?
Wax my shoes.
That is that I have think.
That are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain.
This meat ist not too over do.
This ink is white.
This room is filled of bugs.
This girl have a beauty edge.
It is a noise which to cleave the head.
This wood is fill of thief's.
Tell me, it can one to know?
Give me some good milk newly get out.
To morrow hi shall be entirely (her master) or unoccupied.
She do not that to talk and to cackle.
Dry this wine.
He laughs at my nose, he jest by me.
He has spit in my coat.
He has me take out my hairs.
He does me some kicks.
He has scratch the face with hers nails.
He burns one's self the brains.
He is valuable his weight's gold.
He has the word for to laugh.
He do the devil at four.
He make to weep the room.
He was fighted in duel.
They fight one's selfs together.
He do want to fall.
It must never to laugh of the unhappies.
He was wanting to be killed.
I am confused all yours civilities.
I am catched cold.
I not make what to coughand spit.
Never I have feeld a such heat.
Till say-us?
Till hither.
I have put my stockings outward.
I have croped the candle.
I have mind to vomit.
I will not to sleep on street.
I am catched cold in the brain.
I am pinking me with a pin.
I dead myself in envy to see her.
I take a broth all morning.
I shall not tell you than two woods.
Have you understanded?
~~~
If you have understanded thus far, you might want more. Happily, a reprint, titled English As She Is Spoke is online at Google Books as well as Project Gutenberg.

Men Behaving Badly: Bucks & Bloods, 'flown with insolence and wine'

2011-11-16T00:01:00.010-05:00

Susan reporting:

As Loretta and I have often observed (here and here are only a couple of examples), the life of an English gentleman in the past could be pretty sweet. To be young, rich, and titled was licence to run wild each night through London with few, if any, consequences, and contemporary sources are filled with justified outrage at what these bucks and bloods got away with.

Clearly the excesses of the night have taken their toll on the young rakehell, left. His stockings are ungartered, his wig's on backwards, and he requires the assistance of his friend and a chairman to cover the short distance between his sedan chair and his door. The servant who has waited up for his return takes his hat and sword from his friend, and her lack of surprise proves this is not an exceptional occurrence. This print's title says it all: Two Bloods of Humour, returning from the Bagnio, after having kept it up.

It's obvious how the anonymous writer of the satirical except, below, feels about this kind of behavior:

"The noblest exploit of a man of the town, the highest proof and utmost effort of his genius and pleasantry is The Frolick. This piece of humour consistes in playing the most wild and extravagant pranks that wantonness and debauchery can suggest; and it is the distinguishing characteristick of the Buck and Blood. These facetious gentlemen, and whenever Champagne has put them in spirits, sally out 'flown with insolence and wine' in quest of adventures. At such a time, the more harm they do the more they show their wit; and their frolicks like the mirth of a monkey, are made up of mischief...The present race of Bucks commonly begin their frolick in a tavern and end it in the round-house, and during the course of it, practice several might pretty pleasantries. There is a great deal of humour in what is called beating the rounds, that is, in plain English, taking a tour of the principal bawdy-houses; breaking of lamps and skirmishes with watchmen are very good jests; and the insulting of dull sober fools that are quietly trudging about their business, or a rape on a modest woman are particularly facetious. Whatever is in violation of all decency and order is an exquisite piece of wit; and in short a frolick and playing the devil bear the same explanation in a modern glossary."
-- "Frolicks of BUCKS and BLOODS", from The Connoisseur, Feb. 6, The London Magazine, 1755

Above: Two Bloods of Humour, returning from the Bagnio, after having Kept it up, published by Carington Bowles, London, 1772, copyright The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fashions for November 1817

2011-11-15T00:50:00.012-05:00

Loretta reports:

~~~

THE MIRROR OF FASHION

FOR NOVEMBER, 1817.

THE MORNING DRESS.

A Jaconaut muslin round dress, made to button behind; the body is high with a small collar, which is open in front, so as to display the throat a little. The back is full; the lower part of the front is ornamented with byas tucks, and the upper part plain. The skirt is of a moderate fullness, and rather longer than they have been lately worn; it is finished round the bottom with six or eight very small tucks, put as close as possible together, and surmounted by a full deep flounce of the same material as the dress; this flounce has a deep heading, through which is drawn a bright rose coloured riband.

Over this dress is worn a spenser, composed of rose coloured velvet, elegantly ornamented with white satin, intermixed with narrow rose coloured silk trimming. The spenser is made tight to the shape, and finished at the throat with white satin formed into puffings by this trimming. Plain long sleeves, of a moderate width. Half sleeve and cuff to correspond with the trimming of the throat. Leghorn bonnet of a French shape, and trimmed in the Parisian style with large rows of riband to correspond with the spenser. It ties with a very full bow under the chin. A rich lace frill stands up round the throat. Swansdown muff, straw coloured kid sandals and gloves.

THE EVENING DRESS.

A Fawn coloured crape frock over a white satin slip; the body, which is cut very low all round the bust, is loose; it is extremely short, and confined to the waist by a narrow cestus of white satin, fastened in front by a brilliant clasp. The body is ornamented round the bust by a single fall of Mecklin lace, disposed in large plaits. Very short full sleeve, finished at the bottom by a rouleau of white satin, and narrow lace plaited to correspond. The trimming of the skirt is a double row of white satin, Spanish puffs made very full, and set in byas.

The hind hair is brought up high, and disposed in front of the forehead in a large tuft. The front hair is slightly parted, and curled very full upon the forehead. A garland of Provence roses is placed rather far back to the left side. Ear-rings and necklace of pearl. Spangled crape fan. White kid gloves, and white satin slippers.
—The Lady's Monthly Museum, Volume 6, 1817

"The Toilet of Flora": Making Make-up the 18th c. Way

2011-11-13T21:15:00.001-05:00

Susan reporting:

Most women today have a particular beauty product that they can't live without: a certain shade of lipstick, a perfect moisturizer, or mascara that's better than false lashes. Women in the 18th c. were no different. In those days before Revlon and Sephora, however, beauty products were more do-it-yourself. While cookbooks often had a special section for concocting various perfumes and potions, by the middle of the 18th c. there were also books devoted entirely to beauty products.

One of the most popular was The Toilet of Flora. This little book first appeared around 1772, and was reprinted in numerous editions and with various authors well into the 19th c. Included in the collection are recipes for pomatums, powders, perfumes, sweet-scented waters, essences, and "opiates for preserving and whitening the Teeth."

The author (or at least the earliest name on the title page) was a well-known French doctor named Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz (1731-1807); the English publisher well understood that an MD and a French name would add both authority and allure to the marketing effort. Certainly the introduction makes the pursuit of beauty into almost a moral obligation for female readers: "The chief Intention of this [book] is to point out, and explain to the Fair-Sex, the Methods by which they may preserve and add to their Charms....The same Share of Grace and Attractions is not possessed by all, but while the Improvement of their Persons is the indispensable Duty of those who have been little favoured by Nature, it should not be neglected even by the few who have received the largest Proportion of her Gifts."

For anyone who wishes to make an "Improvement of their Persons" with smoother skin, here's a Paste for the Hands that sounds more like dessert than hand cream:

179. BEAT some peeled Apples, having first taken out the Cores, in a marble mortar, with Rose-water, and White Wine, of each equal parts; add thereto some Crumb of Bread, blanched Almonds, and a little White Soap, simmer the whole over a slow fire till it acquires a proper consistence.

This is the same Paste for the Hands that several ladies were recently concocting in a kitchen in Colonial Williamsburg, above; it's simmering there in the small iron pot before the fire. I don't know if open-hearth preparation is essential for success – but if you'd like to whip up some for yourself, a facsimile version of The Toilet of Flora is available as a thoroughly modern free Google book here.

Breakfast Links: Week of November 7, 2011

2011-11-12T17:00:00.001-05:00

Served up fresh for you, our weekly offering of Breakfast Links: our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, all collected for you from around the Twitterverse.

• Sotheby's London to offer an unpublished autograph manuscript by Charlotte Brontë: http://bit.ly/scCQ6G

• Landscapes still scarred by WWI battles.http://bit.ly/tSfrkp

• “The sting of a hornet”; Edwardian hat-pin self defencehttp://j.mp/sDLlPx

• The London Gazette was first published in 1665 & survives to this day: http://bit.ly/v7hHy7

• Mae West on skinny women, c.1934http://bit.ly/tOiDFj

• Did you know there was a NY Crystal Palace c 1853 in answer to the one in Hyde Park? http://bit.ly/utjEUg

• The working life of Museum of London - Dressing Daughter For Dinner, c 1934 http://bit.ly/volW2A

• Martello tower, Pevensey Bay, Sussex, built c 1804-1812 to defend against French invasion: http://bit.ly/rOFdax

• Wellies, cardies, macks, tarmac, bowlers ... the real-life people behind some everyday objects http://bit.ly/uKQb2B

• An elegant embroidered pelisse, c 1820: http://bit.ly/uAWXLJ

• The Lord Mayor's Show, 9th November 1779http://bit.ly/sdCJxQ• Rare photo of Brighton Pavilion used as a hospital in WW1:http://flic.kr/p/aCaz6j

• The case of the Regency card racks in the collections of the National Trust - as unraveled by comment-posters: http://bit.ly/vo0hHo

• Fabulous online exhibit about Napoleon's scientific expedition to Egypt: http://bit.ly/uHSR7x

• Heraldic colors: See how Cinderella crept into this post (with a prompt from a reader) http://bit.ly/t6kKM7

• "To make a rich Seed Cake called the Nun's Cake" - 18th c recipe plus video from the cooks at Colonial Williamsburg: http://bit.ly/vdE4tm

• Rioting women in the Highlands during the C19th- http://tinyurl.com/d2bh4qn

• The Lincoln Mantua gown, 1730s, its conservation and Spitalfields silk - http://bit.ly/t4gqlB

• Excellent short video: Exploring Hogarth's restored house with Lars Tharp http://bbc.in/v2v9Ub

• The "greatest curiosity of the day" in 1817: Toby the Sapient Pig: bit.ly/udrvP8

Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Voices from WWI

2011-11-11T00:50:00.006-05:00

Loretta reports:

At 11AM on 11/11/11, on the day originally called Armistice Day, many parts of the world will observe two minutes of silence in honor of the men and women of the armed services, past and present.

This short video brings us excerpts from letters written by men who fought in that Great War to end all wars, the war that gave us Armistice Day.

Needlework for a Fashionable Lady: Whitework Reticules, c. 1812

2011-11-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

Susan reporting:

As promised, I'm sharing two more examples of the gorgeous needlework currently on display in the exhibition With Cunning Needle at Winterthur Museum (remember this young sailor's uniform?) These two drawstring bags, or reticules in Regency-era parlance, are exquisite examples of a style of embroidery known as whitework. It's easy to understand why: white cotton thread was used to embroider on fine white linen or cotton muslin cloth. The purity of this work showed off perfect stitches and elegant designs, and was considered an ideal pastime for ladies. (Click on the pictures to enlarge for details.)

While whitework has a long history – historians trace its origins back to ancient Egypt – it was most popular in England and America in the late 18th c and early 19th c., coinciding with the fashion for white muslin and linen gowns. Whitework is something of a catch-all term, referring to the materials and the effect rather than to a specific technique, and a whitework piece could include traditional embroidery stitches as well as lace-making skills such as cutwork. Whitework could enhance personal accessories, like these reticules, as well as for scarves, cuffs and collars, and handkerchiefs, or household linens like tablecloths and bed linens. It could also be used to embellish an otherwise plain gown, such as this one (click on the last photo to see a detail of the embroidered fabric.)

These two reticules were made by Mary Greenough and Sarah Greenough in 1812. While Mary and Sarah were American, they were obviously well aware of fashions coming from England, and these reticules would have been as at home in London or Bath as they doubtless were in Philadelphia and Boston.

But just as the simple white gowns of the Regency gave way to the richer fabrics and more elaborate styles of the Victorian era, so, too, did whitework slip from fashion. Ladies turned to the vibrant colors of the Berlin wools being imported from Germany, and preferred the more regimented stitching of canvas work, or needlepoint. Fine whitework was relegated to handkerchiefs and infants' and children's clothing, and by the middle of the 20th c., it was largely replaced even on those humble garments by commercial machine embroidery.

Yet whitework isn't an entirely lost art, as the millions who watched the Royal Wedding last spring can attest. Kate Middleton's wedding dress and veil were a virtuoso display of whitework at its very best, executed by the master needleworkers of the Royal School of Needlework.

Good news for those of you who can't visit Winterthur and this extraordinary exhibition! The museum has put the lavishly illustrated catalogue on-line as a PDF. Click here to download.

Above: Drawstring bags (reticules), worked by Mary Greenough and Sarah Greenough, United States, 1812, Winterthur Museum, Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont.

The privileges of being a peer

2011-11-09T00:50:00.006-05:00

Loretta reports:

I think the following, taken with my recent blog on illegitimacy, offers some insight into the mindset of the upper classes. So many rules didn’t apply to them—which helps explain the behavior we’ve blogged about here, here, here, and here, and elsewhere.

~~~

THE PRIVILEGES OF THE PEERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
The nobility of England enjoy many great privileges, the principal of which are as follows:
1. That they are free from all arrests for debts, as being the king's hereditary counsellors. Therefore a peer cannot be outlawed in any civil action, and no attachment lies against his person. This privilege extended also to their domestic servants, as well as to those of members of the lower house, till the year 1770 . . . For the same reason they are free from attending courts leet, or sheriffs turns; or, in cases of riot, from attending the posse comitatus.

2. In criminal causes they are only tried by their peers, who give their verdict, not upon oath, as other juries, but only upon their honour; and then a court is erected on purpose in the middle of Westminster Hall, at the king’s charge, which is pulled down when their trials are over.

3. To secure the honour of, and prevent the spreading of any scandal upon peers, or any great officer of the realm, by reports, there is an express law, called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report against a peer of the realm (though true) is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid.

4. Upon any great trial in a court of justice, a peer may come into the court, and sit there uncovered.

No peer can be covered in the royal presence without permission for that purpose, except the lord baron of Kinsale, of his majesty's kingdom of Ireland. See De Courcy, Baron Kinsale, in the Peerage of Ireland... In case of the poll-tax, the peers bear the greater share of the burden, they being taxed every one according to his degree.

— Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1820

Illustration: House of Lords, from the Microcosm of London, 1808-1810

"A Map of the Open Country of a Woman's Heart", c. 1833

2011-11-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

Susan reporting:

Recently I posted a pictorial map of Loveland that showed a charmingly optimistic and romantic view of love in America during World War II.

This map from the 1830s, left, shows another heart-shaped fictitious land: A Map of the Open Country of Woman's Heart, Exhibiting its internal communications, and the facilities and dangers to Travellers therein. While it's a drollery, intended to be humorous, one wonders how many women were laughing. Like so many 19th c. publications, this one claims to be the work of A Lady – but from the cynical tone of many of this map's landmarks, it's much more likely the work of A Man. (Click on the map to enlarge it and see the details.)

True, at the very center of this map lies the City and District of Love, with the modestly sized regions of Hope, Enthusiasm, Good Sense, and Prudence not far away. But the names of other towns and areas are much larger and less flattering, and include Coquetry, Love of Admiration, Selfishness,Vanity, and Jilting Corner. There are rivers called Drain the Purse, Willful Waste, and (horrors) Novel-Reading.

Clearly we're supposed to believe that the owner of this particular heart was shallow, greedy, and untrustworthy. Perhaps the most unsavory regions of the map are those marked Love of Display and Love of Dress, featuring the Pyramids of Fashion and the Satin Plains. Beneath the Promontory of Golden Fetters lies the Sea of Wealth, with Old Man's Darling Bay flowing into the suggestively shaped Jewelry Inlet. Oof!

Above: A Map of the Open Country of Woman's Heart, by A Lady, published by D.W. Kellog & Co., Hartford, CT, c. 1833-1842. From the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, gift of Charles H. Taylor

Those shameless English aristocrats

2011-11-07T00:50:00.006-05:00

Loretta reports:

An American waxes indignant about the English aristocracy’s shameless ways.

~~~

One of his subjects said that Charles II. was the father of many of his people in a literal sense. He recruited the ranks of the nobility largely with his children and their mothers, and at least five English dukes to-day can trace their lineage to the monarch who left no legitimate descendant . . .

These offshoots of royalty claim all the distinction that their birth confers. The daughter of a ducal house prides herself on her likeness to her great ancestor, Nell Gwynne, whose portrait hang in her drawing-room, so that all who come can compare. You can pay her no higher compliment than to notice the resemblance which proves her royal origin . . .

Illegitimacy, however, in England is not confined to the descendants of royalty. The nobility emulates the example set by a long line of sovereigns. In the exalted circles of the aristocracy the bastards of peers go about bearing the family names, and daughters whose mothers are unrecognized marry into families as “good” as those on the paternal side. There are even instances of sons born before the marriage of their parents, whose younger brothers inherit titles to which the elders would have succeeded, but for the neglect of their mothers to go to church in time: the legitimate and illegitimate children can claim precisely the same progenitors. Some of these premature sons are to-day ministers at foreign courts, others have been masters of ceremonies in royal houses, while dukes and earls have been able to find places for the spawn of shame in the army, the Foreign Office, and even in that Church whose rites they had themselves neglected to observe.

God knows the unfortunates are not to blame; but to make their birth a distinction and an advantage is a greater enormity than the offence to which they owe their origin.

—Adam Badeau, Aristocracy in England, 1856

~~~

I'll let my readers decide whether American Victorians were more “Victorian” than their English counterparts . . .

Illustration: Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, son of King Charles II & Nell Gwynne

Breakfast Links: Week of October 31, 2011

2011-11-05T17:00:00.003-04:00

Served up fresh for you, our weekly offering of Breakfast Links: our favorite links to other blogs, web sites, pictures, and articles, all collected for you from around the Twitterverse.

• Halloween celebrations in Gilded Age America: http://bit.ly/dsDEV1

• Bonny Bobby Shafto http://post.ly/3lvWW

• Meet the 18th century book-keeper with a secret obsession: http://bit.ly/rOox9q

• Looking at how Sir Robert Shirley bridged cultures (and dressed accordingly) in the early 17th c:http://bit.ly/rzAvdg

• NYC's famous (& infamous) 1883 Chelsea Hotel, known for residents as well as architecture: http://bit.ly/uebAmj

• Here be dragons: British Library manuscripts app details how to be king http://bit.ly/vdPOLr

• Early 1920s swimsuits: Swimwear and the Sporting Life http://bit.ly/vnUFCT

• Westminster doors galore: The green one….no, the red one…you choose. I'm really not sure - http://bit.ly/cpsGaT

• Poster advertising the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, 1834: http://bit.ly/rE6CQD

• Ladies Accomplishments: A Late 18th-Century Paper Filigree Work Cabinet http://wp.me/pGJsu-1RC

• Early Music Online: 300 of earliest surviving printed, digitized from the British Library’s copies: http://bit.ly/nVnD9G

• Holding history in my hands: how an 1855 ambrotype can inform fashion history:http://bit.ly/rzR0lu

• William of Orange was born on 4 November 1650 in an atmosphere of funeral gloom. Why? http://bit.ly/tTeglp

• 'Caroline Crachami, the 19th c "Sicilian Fairy"' - http://wp.me/p14Gvd-sn

• Capturing your garden and your family: English Landscape & Portraitist Arthur Devis 1712-1787: http://bit.ly/uYXHdR

• Mummification, ritual vessels, floral adornment: discover fascinating details of Tutankhamun's funeral:http://met.org/uHNWCq

• This breaks my heart: Goodbye at Pennsylvania Station, 1944 - http://bit.ly/sPK2yD

• Though they originated in China, it was in Europe that fireworks flourished: http://bit.ly/skqbuI

• Racine overwhelmed by full inbox. OMG! Twitter in 17th century? http://bit.ly/tHx4Zf

• Marvelous profile of 18th c house in Whitechapel - AND it's for sale! ::sigh:: http://bit.ly/nRChw4

Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

500 Years of Women's Portraits in Western Art - in Three Minutes

2011-11-03T19:25:00.000-04:00

Susan reporting:

This video isn't new (it's nearly five years old, an eternity on the internet), but it's still quite marvelous, and well worth another visit. Beautiful paintings, amazing computer editing, Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major performed by Yo-Yo Ma: the perfect way to ease into the weekend. Ahhh....

That Infernal Nor'easter: Good News, Bad News

2011-11-03T13:00:00.003-04:00

The bad news is that Loretta still does not have internet service due to last week's too-early snow storm. The good news is that she does have power, and is furiously racing towards her deadline without distraction. With luck, she'll return to blogging early next week. Stay tuned....