Breakfast Links: Week of April 29, 2013

Here's your fresh serving of Breakfast Links – our weekly round-up of favorite links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and videos, all gathered for you from around the Twitterverse.
• Hope this comes to US television: recreating the Netherfield ball from Pride & Prejudice.
• Science from 1912: "Mars peopled by one vast thinking vegetable."
• All-purpose explanation: the lewd women made me do it, 1752.
• Collection of cigarette ads from 1920s-30s, claiming that smoking makes you slimmer, prettier, healthier.
• "I married beneath me; all women do": Nancy Astor, first woman to sit as an MP in House of Commons.
• First book of fashion: reverse-engineering Renaissance fashion.
• America's first secret societies used rituals to build ties among members, not foster world domination.
• Photoshop portraits: how Shakespeare, Marie-Antoinette, Henry VIII, others, might look today.
• A distinctive orange wedding dress, worn by a flapper from Maine.
• Eight famous people who had the good fortune to miss the Lusitania.
• Recreating Cyprian powder, a 17th c. perfume.
• Irish Victorian writer Amanda McKittrick Ros, creator of legendary purple prose.
• "He is an asse, a peece of ginger-bread/Gilt over to please foolish girles": 17th c. gingerbread.
• American dreams: in the 18th-19th c., where did minds wander at night?
• A lush printed taffeta evening gown by Sarmi, c. 1959.
• Lovely short animated video features Pre-Raphaelite model Lizzie Siddal.
• Tales that hang from a gentleman's watch fob, 1890.
• Solving the mystery of a British soldier buried in the dunes of Holland 200 years ago.
• The Connoisseur eavesdrops at Vauxhall Gardens, 1823.
• The first of May is Chimney Sweeps' Day.
• Sidesaddles & suffragettes: the fight to ride and vote like a man.
• Slideshow featuring four centuries of food & drink in European painting, 1400-1800.
• Cautionary tales of the 18th c.: masturbation and the dangerous woman.
• The lost 1863 Empire Skating Rink, NYC.
• The 18th c. bathing dress.
• One strong Tudor woman: Bess of Hardwick's letters now on line.
• Big backsides ruled the 1800s: the progression from the Regency through the 1890s.
• Untouched for 200 years: the curse of "The Dirty Bottles" at Ye Olde Cross, Alnwick.
• Meat pie, anyone? The true story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street.
• The Thames of Old London in vintage photos.
• Fascinating ear trumpet specially designed for the Victorian wearer who was in mourning.
• Other things found in old recipe books include the contents of an 18th c. jewellery box.
• Beheaded for treason in 1820: the men behind the Cato Street Conspiracy to murder the prime minister and his cabinet.
• An 18th c. wig box, indispensable aid to looking your best after wearisome coach travel.
• Pure historical silliness: truly strange fabric shows the Founding Fathers (plus Honest Abe) shirtless & buff.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily!

Casual Friday: Curious Tudor Laws

Loretta reports:

The Tudors got their own TV show, which, from what I've seen, took some historical liberties.  But I'm not sure even TV can come close to the nuttiness of the real thing.  Here, Horrible Histories offers a glimpse of a few Elizabethan laws about clothing.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a rectangle or square where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Skating Away, c. 1760 & 1823

Isabella reporting,

One of the reasons that Loretta and I began this blog was to have a place to stash the odd stories and discoveries that we stumbled across while researching our books.  Sometimes it will be things that don't have a place in our stories, but are simply too interesting not to share. Sometimes, too, it will be things that if we DID put into a book, our editors might scratch their heads and say (politely) "Uh, maybe not."

The story below is one I'd love to incorporate into a story – I'm just not quite sure how. We've seen the incredible craftsmanship of inventor John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) here on the blog before. An inventor and goldsmith with a gift for mechanical clockwork, he's credited with making this magnificent silver swan, and he exhibited many similar pieces at the popular Merlin's Mechanical Museum in London.  His other creations ranged from the prototype of modern wheelchairs to a device to permit the blind to play cards. His imagination was apparently boundless, and in his obituary it was noted that "he hardly ever let a moment slip by unemployed."

He also was a bit of a showman, and delighted in demonstrating his inventions. This, however, could go disastrously awry, as happened one evening when he sported a pair of his latest creation: roller skates. This almost sounds like a scene from a modern out-of-control Hollywood party, not Georgian London:

"Merlin's mind was adequate to the embracing the whole compass of mechanical science and execution; at least, in the articles connected with elegant and domestic amusement. One of his ingenious novelties was a pair of skaites contrived to run on small metallic wheels. Supplied with a pair of these and a violin he mixed in the motley group of one of the celebrated Mrs. Corneily's masquerades at Carlisle-house, Soho Square; when, not having provided the means of retarding his velocity, or commanding its direction, he impelled himself against a mirror of more than five hundred pounds value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces and wounded himself most severely."

This story comes from Concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes of Music and Musicians, Ancient and Modern, by Thomas Busby, 1825 – a wonder for history nerds, and all volumes are available as free ebooks via Google.

The print, above, is about sixty years after Merlin's disaster, and clearly the skates have advanced. These jaunty fellows are wearing the "Volito, or Summer Skait" which look a great deal like modern in-line Rollerblades, right down to the rear brake. (As always, click on the image to enlarge it.) While the little poem at the bottom of the print mournfully explains how such skates could save children from falling through the ice and drowning, the splashier use for the skates seems to be helping a miscreant in striped trousers escape justice. Says the officer's assistant: "'Tis no use, master! the fellow has got wings on his heels."  Now picture that in a book....

Above: The volito, or, Summer and winter skait: for amusement in cold weather without ice, & is equally useful on stones, boards, &c. London, 1823. From the collection of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. 
Many thanks to fellow-blogger Mike Rendell aka The Georgian Gentleman for first sharing this print with us.

Fashions for May 1810

Loretta reports:

These fashions for May 1810 offer some food for thought.  You may notice that while the look is tubular, as we expect in this period, the waistline is more or less in its natural position.  According to English Women's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, the waist was lengthened in this year.  Not being a seamstress, though, I wonder whether we're seeing an artistic illusion.  In any case, the style reminds me most forcefully of fashions of the early 20th century, especially the 1920s (whose designers apparently borrowed heavily from the Prince Regent's era).  Also interesting is the wild mix of cultural references:  the Arabian, Egyptian, Armenian, Greek mix is accessorized with York tan gloves.

Click here to read online

—Ackermann's Repository, May 1810.

Please click on images to enlarge.

The Female Bruisers, 1768

Isabella reporting,

For some inexplicable reason, many men have a weird fascination with brawling women. I don't know if this has to do with unbridled animal passions, or the hope that clothes will be torn off, or the fact that ordinary women are too sane to engage in fisticuffs, but whether it's mud wrestling or Mob Wives, guys will watch. This is, of course, nothing new; this painting of The Female Bruisers by John Collett dates from 1768, and became one of his most popular prints, doubtless pinned to the walls of hundreds of taverns and alehouses for the edification of the male patrons. (As always, click the image to enlarge it.)

Like all of Collett's pictures, there's a great deal going on here. The two combatants are likely prostitutes, perhaps old rivals with a long-standing feud. This isn't the best of neighborhoods, with a house selling Neat Wine on the right and a likely brothel on the left, with an amorous couple kissing in the upstairs window. A pair of fighting cocks in the lower left squawk at one another. A tattered playbill on the wall advertises a performance of The Rival Queens.

The battling woman on the left is the more prosperous, with a sheer embroidered apron, an elegant bracelet, and a watch on a chatelaine at her waist. In the heat of battle, she has dropped her ermine-trimmed cape to the street, while a pair of barefoot, soot-covered chimney-sweeps have made a prize of her ermine muff. Damage has been done: her sleeve ruffles are tattered, her hat's been torn off, and her hair's been pulled.

Beside her, a butcher has left his shop in the background to dab something - I'm guessing a half-lemon?- at her battered nose, and to offer a go-get-'em pat on her back. He's protecting his striped jacket (similar to this one) from his trade with tie-on blue sleeve cuffs (disturbingly like the ones worn by Georgian surgeons!) and an apron tied around his waist.

The other combatant isn't as well-dressed, even before her clothes were torn. She's not wearing stays, the way a respectable woman would, which allows the man who's helping her back to her feet help himself to a squeeze of her breast. Another, older woman (perhaps the madame to one or both of the fighters) is charging forward; she's ready to jump into the fray, but is being held back by a laughing man.

In fact, while there are a couple of fascinated girls watching, most of the onlookers are male of every rank, from bemused gentlemen to the gawking country-man who is having his pocket picked. Some are astonished, but most seem to be enjoying the spectacle. You can almost hear the frat-boy chants of "cat fight!", can't you?

Top: The Female Bruisers, by John Collett, 1768. Museum of London.