Category: Victorian

Happy Valentine's Day!

2/14/2017

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I always loved finding old greeting post-cards when I worked at the archive. What better day to share some of my favorites?

Classic cupid cherubs are always a good choice for telling your valentine how much you care...

But then, you can also get more original. These are two of my favorites. I couldn't decide if the one with the Dutch children is poorly translated, or if it is supposed to be wrong, as if they can't quite make their English flirting correct. And I've definitely printed copies of the tickle card. I find it such a great image of how couples had to flirt in the early 1900s.

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Ghosts at the Edge of the World

11/24/2016

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At the southernmost tip of South America, the Andes mountain range plummets into the ocean and collides with the pampas plains of Argentina. Here, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, the wind whips across the landscape, the Straight of Magellan churns; the beauty of nature collides with the harsh realities of an Antarctic climate. For thousands of years, the Ona tribe called this place home. But as European settlers expanded throughout South America, they took the land the Ona lived on, systematically killed the Ona, and diminished their way of life. Finally, in the 1970s, the last person of full Ona ancestry died.

The land of Tierra del Fuego, 2007.

Images above and left from Charles W. Furlong's article on the Ona and Haush from 1915.

This Thanksgiving, as Native Americans are fighting for clean water and clean air here in the United States, I wanted to feature images of the Ona, with some historical and cultural context, as a reminder of the cultures and ways of life that have been destroyed because of a lack of understanding and respect for people that are labeled different and other.

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Lost Witch Song from the Wizard of Oz

10/27/2016

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Image of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and Dorothy from the 1902 production of "The Wizard of Oz."

While searching through the Levy Collection at in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collection for witch images, I came across "The Witch Behind the Moon," and it was so complex that I thought it deserved it's own post.

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Lady Liberty

7/22/2016

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We're right in between the 2016 Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, and things feel a bit divided. Maybe some images of Lady Liberty will help keep our spirits up?

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Dr. Doyen and the Hindoo Twins

2/10/2016

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It's 1902. Two young girls are conjoined near the waist. A daring doctor decides to separate them and film it.

Yup, this is a story line in Season 2 of the Knick (y'all know I love it, check out my post about Season 1 here.) If you know anything about the making of the show, it's that they do a really good job of being historically-medically accurate, thanks to their consultants at the Burns Archive. It's a story line, but it's based on a real operation done by Dr. Eugene-Louis Doyen in France on two conjoined twins named Radica and Doodica.

In a typical side-show cabinet card promotional photograph, Radica and Doodica stare just to the right of the viewer, no doubt very used to the fact that people paid to stare at them.
Frederick Drimmer briefly describes the lives of Radica and Doodica in his book Very Special People. They were born in Orissa, India in 1888 and by the early 1890s, on display in Europe with circuses. For Radica and Doodica, it wasn't just the fact that they were conjoined twins that made them exotic, it was also that they were South Asian. The Victorian Era was a time of putting the exotic on display (including that time the Bronx zoo put a small Congolese man in a cage...), and Radica and Doodica were no exception, often dressed in "traditional clothing" during shows.

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Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow (Part 2)

1/14/2016

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Let's taste test this stuff.

(For background on the cookbooks I used, visit part 1 of this post.)

Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm, where many episodes of Historieätarna were filmed.

One of my very favorite TV shows is a Swedish series called Historieätarna, which is based on a British show called The Supersizers.... (If you speak Swedish, you can check it out here.) Lotta Lundgren and Erik Haag devote one week to living from a period in Swedish history. They go whole hog - clothes, drink (which means they are drunk a lot), activities, work, and food. Their professional chef cooks mostly what seem like bizarre, but historically accurate, meals from the past.

The last post was about those Victorian cookbooks, and this one is about becoming a history eater in just a tiny way and testing some of those recipes. (But warning, I'm not a food blogger... don't let anyone every tell you that's easy....)

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Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow. (Part 1)

1/11/2016

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If it were 1899, and you were making a New Year's resolution, it might be to try that healthy eating style they're calling 'vegetarianism' ....

“You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.” - from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895

But if you're not eating the ape and instead sharing dinner with him, what are you eating? Some Victorian cookbooks offered the solution long before the California 1960s hippies did.

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Come in, the stacks are open.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I always loved finding old greeting post-cards when I worked at the archive. What better day to share some of my favorites?

Ghosts at the Edge of the World

Lost Witch Song from the Wizard of Oz

While searching through the Levy Collection at in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collection for witch images, I came across "The Witch Behind the Moon," and it was so complex that I thought it deserved it's own post.

Lady Liberty

We're right in between the 2016 Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, and things feel a bit divided. Maybe some images of Lady Liberty will help keep our spirits up?

Dr. Doyen and the Hindoo Twins

It's 1902. Two young girls are conjoined near the waist. A daring doctor decides to separate them and film it.

Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow (Part 2)

Let's taste test this stuff.

Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow. (Part 1)

If it were 1899, and you were making a New Year's resolution, it might be to try that healthy eating style they're calling 'vegetarianism' ....

Come in, the stacks are open.

Archives

Categories

Come in, the stacks are open.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I always loved finding old greeting post-cards when I worked at the archive. What better day to share some of my favorites?

Ghosts at the Edge of the World

Lost Witch Song from the Wizard of Oz

While searching through the Levy Collection at in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collection for witch images, I came across ​"The Witch Behind the Moon," and it was so complex that I thought it deserved it's own post.

Lady Liberty

We're right in between the 2016 Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, and things feel a bit divided. Maybe some images of Lady Liberty will help keep our spirits up?

Dr. Doyen and the Hindoo Twins ﻿

It's 1902. Two young girls are conjoined near the waist. A daring doctor decides to separate them and film it.

Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow (Part 2)

Let's taste test this stuff.

Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow. (Part 1)

If it were 1899, and you were making a New Year's resolution, it might be to try that healthy eating style they're calling 'vegetarianism' ....

Come in, the stacks are open.

Archives

Categories

While searching through the Levy Collection at in the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries Special Collection for witch images, I came across "The Witch Behind the Moon," and it was so complex that I thought it deserved it's own post.

Dr. Doyen and the Hindoo Twins