Happy 155th Birthday, Henry Ford

Loretta reports:

Today, 30 July, is automaker Henry Ford’s birthday. I’ve shown you some parts of the Fort Myers, Florida estate he shared with inventor Thomas Edison, here, here, and here.

I’ve also pointed out the way that the motorcar was quickly adopted for long-distance travel, even though the cars broke down frequently, roads could be little more than wagon tracks, and gas stations and auto mechanics were unheard of. But none of these obstacles stopped Americans from getting on the road and going—either on cross-country races or south, for warmer weather. With the advent of affordable autos came the Snowbirds—the Tin Can Tourists I posted about here and here.

All the same, I didn’t really know much about Ford beyond what little we learned (and mostly forgot) in school, back in the last century, about U.S inventors and innovators.

But I happened on this feature (please scroll down to the second article) at the Library of Congress site, which puts Ford and his world into perspective. Along with songs and recollections, it also provides an early film of an automobile parade—which was probably not the horse’s favorite experience that day.

First & ten millionth Ford 1924

Sharp-eyed readers will note the “Ford Song” by one “A. Flivver, composer.” Flivver is early 20th century slang for an automobile.

Images: Photo above left 1919 Model T at Edison-Ford estate, Photo copyright © 2018 Walter M. Henritze III.  At right,  First and ten millionth Ford (1924), courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. 
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Friday Video: Automaton Dulcimer Player

Loretta reports:

Susan and I have shown you quite a few automatons and clockwork devices over the years. This one came to my attention via a newspaper advertisement by fabulous antique emporium M.S. Rau Antiques. If I ever get to New Orleans, that will be one of my first stops.

This dulcimer player may have inspired the more famous one belonging to Marie Antoinette, which Susan reported on a while back.

Video: Rare Automaton Dulcimer Player from M.S. Rau Antiques

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The Invalid Chair in A Duke in Shining Armor

Mechanical Chair

Loretta reports:

The basics of this post appeared a few years ago, as Merlin's Mechanical Chair. Clearly, the ingenious device stuck in my mind, because it ended up playing an important role in A Duke in Shining Armor.

The trick was figuring out how the thing worked. In the first place, early 19th century prose can be very hard to follow. It tends to be much less direct than our way of writing. In the second place, my brain is easily confused by physics and mechanics. Doubtless it took me a lot longer to learn how to drive this chair than it did the Duke of Ripley, in my book. I will leave it to you to read the instructions and make what sense of them you can.

Meanwhile, let us consider for a moment the commentary that follows the instructions. "Amusement"? Oh, yes, I figured that one out pretty quickly. But the suggestions for running the chair by means of a "very small and portable steam-engine" remind me of the way some people used to imagine us flying around on individual rocket-propelled devices in The Future. Having a 19th C steam engine powering my chair does not strike me as a safer prospect.

And then there's the idea of finding a way "to enable it to carry a small cannon, which should be, both for itself and its operators, completely unassailable by the enemy, as well as, by the singular rapidity of its evolutions, terribly and unusually destructive." Is your hair standing on end? Mine sure is. But let us remember that Great Britain was at war with Napoleon in 1811, and things weren't going so well. At home, people carried on with their lives, but that didn't mean they weren't aware of what was happening on the Continent, or didn't take seriously the possibility of invasion. As it turned out, Napoleon continued to be a danger until June 1815.

By the time of my story (1833), however, that's all in the distant past, and the chair is perfoming its dual functions of serving those with limited mobility as well as providing amusement.

Mechanical chair described

Mechanical chair described

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From the Archives: Finding Conjugal Bliss in Dr. Graham's Celestial Bed, 1781

Susan reporting:

We TNHG are generally very good at remembering things that happened two hundred years ago, but during the last ten - not so much. Sometimes it takes a reader to jog our memories about old posts that are worthy of a return appearance. Many thanks to Alun Withey for reminding me of this post that first appeared back in 2011!

Exploiting the love-lives of the rich and famous is hardly a new pursuit. From ancient times, charlatans have offered exotic, expensive potions to increase flagging libidos and unusual regimes designed to restore the magic to chilly marriages. One of the most infamous of these is Dr. James Graham (1745-1794), a self-proclaimed physician, self-promoter, and inventor (Wikipedia luridly categorizes him as a "sexologist") who captured the imagination of English society in the 1780s – and a good deal of their money besides.

Like all good quacks, Dr. Graham had a splendid gimmick, and his was the Temple of Hymen in Shomberg House in Pall Mall, a kind of overwrought clinic for his unusual treatments. His most profitable speciality was improving conjugal sex and fertility, and he found a clamoring audience among the upper classes whose survival depended on producing healthy heirs. Many of his customers were weakened by venereal disease and general dissipation, but that didn't stop Dr. Graham from making the same outlandish guarantees that often appear today in spam folders. His celebrity clientele included politicians John Wilkes and Charles James Fox, aristocrats such as the Duchess of Devonshire and the Duke of Richmond, and courtesans like Elizabeth Armistead and Mary Robinson.

While his treatments varied from elixirs to mud baths, the centerpiece of the Temple of Hymen was the Celestial Bed. This over-sized bed (it measured nine by twelve feet) could be tilted for an optimum angle, and was supported by glass rods that could permit the bed and its occupants to become so charged with static electricity that it gave off a greenish glow. Decorative automata, a pair of live turtle doves, and lush bouquets of fresh flowers were also features of the bed. Adding to the ambiance was a mattress stuffed with a special mixture of sweet-smelling herbs and hair from the tails of the most rampant English stallions, while a special celestial pipe organ played music calculated to inspire love-making. For the next three years, until Dr. Graham's extravagance landed him in prison for debt and bankruptcy, there were plenty of couples eager for the experience.

The price of a magical night in the Celestial Bed? An astonishingly steep fifty pounds. Did it work? Perhaps – though who wanted to admit that it didn't?

In honor of Valentine's Day, 2011, the Museum of London is recreated Dr. Graham's Celestial Bed as a special adults-only exhibition. For more information about this, as well as more detailed descriptions of Dr. Graham's claims, see here – though be forewarned that this post, like the exhibition, is probably best not read at work.

Above: The Celestial Bed, with the Rosy Goddess of Health reposing thereon, unknown artist, English School, 1782, private collection.

Friday Video: The Gold Singing Bird Egg Basket

Loretta reports:

We Two Nerdy History Girls are partial to automata and other clockwork devices. Among numerous other marvels, I’ve shown you the singing bird pistols that inspired a scene for one of my novellas, and surviving clockwork items originally exhibited in London in 1807.

Susan has brought you—to name only two of many—a rope dancer and an automaton watch.

Searching the tags “scientific marvels” and “automaton” will bring up more posts on these ingenious devices.

Today, I offer you an egg.

Video: Gold Singing Bird Egg Basket from M.S. Rau Antiques

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From the Archives: Victorian Street Sweeping Machine

Frith, The Crossing Sweeper, 1853

Loretta reports:

We take clean streets more or less for granted.  Litter and dog poo are nothing to what our early 19th century ancestors encountered.  Crossing sweeps pushed brooms, and pedestrians were supposed to pay for a clear path. By the late 1830s, with the filth worsening, inventors set about developing mechanical, albeit horse-driven, methods of cleaning streets.  Mr. Whitworth gets credit for the first mechanical sweeper, but by 1843, when his machines were put to work in London, other inventors (scroll down) were applying for patents for similar devices or “improvements.”

WHITWORTH'S PATENT SWEEPING MACHINE.

This machine, lately brought into operation in the town of Manchester, where it excited a considerable deal of public attention, has lately been introduced into the metropolis, and is now employed in cleaning Regent-street. It is the invention of Mr. Whitworth, of the firm of Messrs. Whitworth and Co., of Manchester, engineers, by whom it has been patented. The principle of the invention consists in employing the rotary motion of locomotive wheels, moved by horse or other power, to raise the loose soil from the surface of the ground and deposit it in a vehicle attached. The apparatus for this purpose is simple in its construction; it consists of a series of brooms (3 ft. wide) suspended from a light frame of wrought iron, hung behind a cart, the body of which is placed near the ground, for greater facility in loading. The draught is easy for two horses, and throughout the process of filling, scarcely a larger amount of force is required than would be necessary to draw the full cart an equal distance.

…
Two machines are advantageously worked together, one a little in advance of the other. Not only is the operation of cleansing a particular street thus effected more rapidly, but the two drivers can occasionally assist each other, and one of them (at higher wages) may exercise a supervision over both machines.
The success of the operation is no less remarkable than its novelty. Proceeding at a moderate speed through the public streets, the cart leaves behind it a well swept tract, which forms a striking contrast with the adjacent ground. Though of the full size of a common cart, it has repeatedly filled itself in the space of six minutes from the principal thoroughfares of Manchester. This fact, while it proves the efficiency of the new apparatus, proves also the necessity of a change in the present system of street cleaning.
—The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, Volume 6, 1843

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The Amazing Angle Lamp

Loretta reports:

As well as going under the Mound House of Estero Island, I entered the house itself, which has been lovingly restored to one of its earlier incarnations. Indoors included an immense bathroom (from a later period), which holds some fascinating exhibits for both children and adults.

But what caught my Nerdy History Girl attention was the lamp in the restored living room. A guide told me it’s an Angle Lamp, and showed me an old advertisement for it. Turns out this was a well-known type of kerosene lamp, which was around for quite a long time, and whose advertisements appeared in numerous periodicals.

Many of us tend to assume that, as soon as a new lighting invention came along, the old ones went away. But of course not. Just as today, we don’t always have the latest model refrigerator, people in the past, for the most part, kept their stuff until it didn’t work anymore and couldn’t be fixed. I exclude, naturally, the people who always have to have the latest thing, because they were around too, needing the most up-to-date caves, I’ll bet.

Angle Lamp 1907 ad

With lighting, it’s not necessarily a matter of making things last, though this is part of the story. People continued to use older types of lighting because the newfangled inventions were either suspect, e.g., for safety reasons, or simply for practical reasons. Thus gas began lighting the streets of London long before it lit private houses. In between, it blew up some buildings. Electric utilities came into being in the early 1880s, but it was a while before they became ubiquitous. And it was another while before many people deemed electric light safe, healthy, and/or not hideous.

You can read more ads and some fascinating claims (e.g., white light causes blindness!) via these links
The Mayflower, Volume 20, Issues 10-12 1904
 
The Medical Brief 1899

Watson’s magazine Vol 6 (1906)

Floral Life Vol 5-6 (1907)
—and many more by simply Googling "Angle Lamp"

Advertisement Image
American Monthly Review of Reviews Vol 36 (1907)

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The Original Star Trek, Maybe? Mèliés's Masterpiece of 1902

Loretta reports:

Star Trek made its television debut 50 years ago, and lots of celebrations are going on. Though the original series was very short—only three seasons—it has lived on and prospered in spinoffs and movies and in the hearts and minds of its devoted fans.

You can watch some excerpts from the early series here.

But for a deeper trip into film history, I thought you might enjoy what seems to be the first science fiction movie ever, George Mèliés's Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) of 1902. You may notice a few similar elements, along with many head-scratchers. It’s a little baffling and odd and funny and hallucinatory. Note: The music in this beautiful version is a recent, modern addition and some readers may prefer to mute the sound.

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Friday Video: The Singing Bird Pistols & Their Restoration

Loretta reports:

Readers familiar with my short story, “Lord Lovedon’s Duel,” (from the Royally Ever After duet) will remember the Singing Bird Pistols. I’ve shown the pistols in operation in a previous blog. What I didn’t realize was how much restoration work went into making them look like this.

Today's video tells the incredible story of that restoration (you may have to overlook the highly energetic introduction & music).

You can watch the same program without the noisy TV intro here on Vimeo.
In both cases, you will notice some odd spelling in the subtitles. Ever wonder how this happens? I sure do. Hello? Dictionary?

Many thanks to reader Kafryn W Lieder for sending me the link!

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Germs Discovered in 1835

Volvox globator

Loretta reports:

Well, I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole, all on account of this entry in the Athenaeum of 26 September 1835 (first column).

‘An Essay on the Nature of Diseases, by A. Green, L.L.B.‘—An essay on mirth by an undertaker, we could understand, for things may be defined by their contraries; but an essay on diseases by an L.L.B., was rather puzzling, until the secret transpired in the few first pages. The author has been to see the oxy-hydrogen microscope exhibited, and has been “ frighted from his propriety" by the spectacle. His hallucination is, that all diseases are occasioned by animalculae; and his logical formula is this: “ whatever may be, may be; nothing prevents it from being, therefore it is." It is curious to remark. that this theory ends precisely where all other medical theories have hitherto ended. " We may know, or at least believe, that a disease is caused by some minute creatures, of some kind, situated somewhere; but we may neither know the kind, nor the situation, nor what medicines can be made to come into contact with them, nor what will destroy them when it is in contact, except by experience. The means of cure can only be known by experience; and experience must therefore still be the foundation of medical science, or at least of such part o fit as is of practical utility." This, which is the last sentence of the book, looks something like a return to reason; and we hope that this first victory of the sane over the lunatic animalculae may be followed up to a complete and final conquest. In this hope, we should have passed the matter in silence, but that it affords a not uncommon specimen of "graduated" wisdom, which it may be useful to study, at the present moment of university reformation ; and as such, we recommend it to public attention.

Here's an excerpt from Mr. Green's Essay on the Nature of Diseases (1835):

It is known to every one, that by the aid of the microscope, there may be seen in water which has been exposed for some time to the open air, minute animated beings, generally very transparent, and presenting an organization more or less simple ... The popular interest recently acquired by the solar microscope, and still more by the oxy-hydrogen microscope, induces us to believe that all our readers have sufficient knowledge of the microscopic animalcula, to be interested in the discoveries which have recently been made in the part of natural history, which relates to them.  

Nearly all the reviewers went ballistic:

“The proposition that animalcules are the causes of all diseases is not new, neither is it true. Thus to imagine that animalcules are the cause of all continued and intermittent fevers, all contagious diseases, syphilis, plague, hydrophobia, small-pox, measles, hooping-cough, scarlatina, sea-scurvy ... appears to us not only untenable, but perfect nonsense.”—London Medical and Surgical Journal 1835.

Microscopic creature 1829 image

Review in The Spectator, Volume 8, 1835.   Somewhat more open-minded review in The Metropolitan Magazine, Volume 13, 1835 (Bottom of page). 

Images: (above) Volvox globator, from The Microscope and Its Revelations, 1891; (below) Microscopic illustrations of living objects, 1840—note that the image was drawn in 1829.

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The Amazing Félix Nadar

Nadar Self-Portrait in Balloon

Loretta reports:

A review of When I Was a Photographer, a book published over a century ago and only recently translated into English, had me investigating Félix Nadar, which turned out to be the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910).

The name will be as unfamiliar to many of my readers as it was to me. In his own day, though, Nadar was a celebrity. He knew everybody—and he photographed them—alphabetically from Tsar Alexander III to Emile Zola, as his Wikimedia Commons page demonstrates.

He was far more than a sought-after portrait photographer, though. Nadar became the first photographer to devise a way to use artificial lighting, in order to take pictures of the Paris catacombs. He was also a balloonist who one day discovered, after numerous failed attempts, how to take aerial photographs without ruining the plates (the problem was the balloon’s gas valve). This trial and error accomplishment transformed mapping techniques. It also led to this Daumier caricature

Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art

as well as inspiring Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon.

Along with his identities as photographer, balloonist, and inventor, Nadar was a caricaturist and writer. He was, in short, a man of many talents, living in an era and a city, Paris, of tremendous creative energy.

Nadar Caricature

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The Alabaster Sarcophagus

Sarcophagus of Seti I

Sarcophagus at British Museum

Belzoni Chamber

Loretta reports:

During a trip to London a few years ago, I had, among other authorial/Nerdy History Girls thrills, a chance to see the famous alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I,
in Sir John Soane’s Museum.

As mentioned in Lord Perfect, this sarcophagus, which Giovanni Belzoni found and sent back to England, languished in the British Museum for some time, precisely because of the item’s “pecuniary value” being so high.

 As you read the excerpt with its (to us) odd theories, please bear in mind that at the time, nobody could read hieroglyphs. The names antiquities scholars used for Egyptian kings (like Psammis) were the names ancient Greek and Latin authors had given them. Most educated gentlemen were familiar with these authors to a degree we might find hard to imagine.

Most educated gentlemen would have been able to read Greek and Latin. Many were fluent in Hebrew and other ancient languages, as well as modern languages like French and German. Their theories were based on their interpretations of classical works as well as the latest research. Their extensive linguistic expertise did pay off when they finally had a key to interpreting the strange Egyptian symbols, signs, and shorthand.

Text excerpt from The Philosophical Magazine and Journal, Volume 58, 1821

Images: Sarcophagus from 1905 General Description of Sir John Soane's Museum.
Belzoni chamber from 1835 Description of the house and museum on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of Sir John Soane.

Friday Video: The Robots That Couldn't

Loretta reports:

What does a robot competition have to do with history? Erm...
 
Back to the future? This is what it might have been like, watching early attempts to fly. Or early attempts at many achievements we now take for granted.

Anyway, it’s Friday, and the video is short and amusing.

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Friday video: The Clock That Changed the World

Loretta reports:

Years ago, after reading Dava Sobel’s Longitude, my husband and I were very excited to see the actual Harrison chronometers at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

This BBC program does a good job of explaining, in half an hour, Harrison’s achievement. It also might make some elements of Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey series a bit more comprehensible.

You can see one of the clocks we saw at Greenwich here.

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A Surprising Pair of Pistols

Painted Finch

Loretta reports:

Isabella and I have shown you a number of clockwork devices from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.  (See blogs here and here for examples & links).

This is a particular favorite of mine.  It inspired one of the stories in Royally Ever After.

Image: Plate 53 of Birds of America by John James Audubon depicting Painted Finch (1827-1838), courtesy Wikipedia [edited].

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A Brilliant Starry Messenger, 1783

Isabella reporting,

The night sky is unfamiliar territory to most modern Westerners. A sky filled with stars and planets that was once so familiar for telling time and location is today lost in the brightness of electric lights. Rare celestial events like comets, meteors, and fireballs are relegated to a passing notice on the Weather Channel (or worse, in a song by Pitbull.)

But to our ancestors, the sight of an unexpected ball of fire shooting across the heavens was a strange and unsettling thing, a divine portent of a coming war or the downfall of a king. Starry Messengers: Signs and Science from the Skies is the name of a wonderful exhibition currently on display at Harvard University's Houghton Library, and features examples of how early modern scientists, artists, and writers tried to explain and understand the stars and skies above. The exhibition runs through May 2, and is free and open to the public; click here for more information, and also watch the excellent short video here.

I was particularly fascinated by the story that accompanied these two images on the exhibition caption:

"On the evening of August 18, 1783, a fireball streaked across the British night sky, breaking up in the atmosphere and vanishing over the course of a minute. The summer heat meant there were a number of observers outside at the right moment. Remarkably, a gathering on the terrace of Windsor Palace included both the physicist Tiberious Cavallo and the artist Thomas Sandby, each of whom recorded the event in his own way; Cavallo in the pages of the premier scientific journal of the time, and Sandby in a beautifully atmospheric painting of the event, turned into a hand-colored etching by his brother Paul."

The illustration, right, that accompanied Cavallo's scholarly account in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1784 no doubt explained the stages of the fireball's self-destruction to his learned readers. However, the Sandby painting, above, (click on the image to enlarge it) captures the magic of the event, showing a group of party-goers turned celestial observers gazing up into the sky from the terrace. Unlike some of the earlier illustrations in the exhibition that show people recoiling in fear from comets, these individuals are calmly regarding the fireball with true Age of Reason solemnity.

I like that Sandby included two well-dressed women in the group, and that they are watching solemnly, too, without any signs of female hysterics or fear. What did they make of the sight, I wonder? They certainly weren't going to report their reaction to the Royal Society; women were not admitted as Fellows to that august group until 1945. Did they rush to tell their friends and family and mantua-maker the next day? Did they write letters describing what they'd witnessed? Did they rely on the men around them for explanation(that one fellow pointing his hand was probably a know-it-all), or were they sufficiently educated themselves to understand what they were seeing?

Alas, no one knows. But don't be surprised if a heroine in one of my next books happens to be walking on the terrace of Windsor Palace on a warm August night....

Many thanks to John Overholt and Andrea Cawelti for their assistance with this post, and for my tour of Houghton Library; I am still in a blissful Nerdy History Girl daze.

Above: To Sir Joseph Bankes, President of the Royal Society, London, this plate, from motives of respect and esteem, is inscrib'd. London: P. Sandby, 1783.
Right: Royal Society (Great Britain), Philosophical transactions, 1784.
Both from the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Images via Houghton Library.

Talking About Climate Change in 1827

Mail Coach in snow

Loretta reports:

Talking about climate change in the early 1800s?  This was something of a surprise to me at first.  Then I realized that this piece was written only a decade after the Year Without a Summer, during what is known as the Little Ice Age. 
In that context, the theories become quite interesting.

In the discussion of cold weather in North America and Europe, you’ll notice no mention of a volcanic eruption.  And can you imagine 19th century naval vessels trying to move glaciers?* 

Climate change

Climate change

15 January entry from William Hone, The Every-day Book Vol II (1827-28).










*The asterisk in the article refers to a Morning Chronicle piece I’m unable to access.  Undoubtedly another publication—probably several—will have stolen it, but which one(s) and where will take some tracking down and may elude me altogether.



Image:  James Pollard, The Mail Coach in a Drift of Snow (1825).

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Merlin's Mechanical Chair

Mechanical Chair

Loretta reports:

Following up on Monday’s wondrous Ærial, I present a wondrous chair, not only suitable for invalids, but useful in wartime* to ... hmm ... carry artillery?

Look for more about the mysterious Merlin fellow in a future blog.

Mechanical chair described

Mechanical chair described

* Great Britain was at war with France at this time.

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Jeremy Bentham's Head & Other Matters

Loretta reports:

Like anybody else who studied English history, I knew who Jeremy Bentham was.

But I did not know he was still hanging around the University College of London until a respected U.S. newspaper pointed this out.  The paper also reported as fact what turns out to be mainly a myth that accreted, as myths often do, around the truth.

Jeremy Bentham wanted his body preserved and kept on display.  He definitely wanted to encourage dissection. He believed, too, that his preserved body would be a useful educational tool.  He believed others’ bodies should be preserved for posterity, too, as what he called “Auto Icons.”

Though, having been dissected, his body wasn't actually preserved, his skeleton was duly stuffed with straw and dressed.  He had hoped to have his head mummified, and somebody did try to carry out his wishes, but the result wasn’t pretty.  Instead, a wax head was made and stuck on.  The real one apparently sat at his feet for a while, then was stored in a cabinet.  Now it’s in temperature-controlled storage, in the care of conservation staff.

This page shows you the full auto-icon and other images, including a photo of Bentham with his mummified head between his feet.

Here is a 360º view.

Contrary to myth, Bentham did not leave money to the University College of London on condition his body appear at University Board Meetings and noted as “present but not voting.”  He did show up for a board meeting in 2013, though.

You can read more here.

A Regency Era Steam Yacht

View at source here

Loretta reports:

Though most of my books are set in early 19th century England, now and again I send my characters abroad.  Writing Silk is for Seduction, I needed to become familiar with the steamship packets that carried travelers and mail across the English Channel.  It was easy enough to find information and images about steam vessels from the Victorian era.  But before that, things online are a little sparse.  So of course I was thrilled to find recently, in the 1819 Ackermann’s Repository, this image.  I was even more delighted with what the description conveys about the

entrepreneurs “zealous to promote the success of the application of steam as the

Read online here

propelling power to vessels.”  The detailed interior description is a pretty good substitute for the interior photo shots we’d expect today.  It's also a good example of the prose style of the time, which appears very convoluted to 21st century eyes.

Read online here

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