Kathleen Marple Kalb's Blog, page 9
December 27, 2023
YO, CHRISTMAS TREE!
Whether it’s traditional pine, Peanuts-straggly, or pink plastic, most folks who celebrate Christmas want a tree. And you can thank – or blame – Queen Victoria for it.
Evergreens have been associated with the winter holidays since pagan times. They were a key part of solstice celebrations because they retain their color despite the cold and snow. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe and other parts of the world, some of the old customs were co-opted into the celebrations, including greenery.
Cutting down actual trees and bringing them into the house wasn’t popular everywhere – in many parts of the world, that’s a waste of a perfectly good tree that could grow into more firewood. But in some areas, mostly in Northern Europe, there were enough trees, and they evolved into a beloved part of the celebration.
Not in the earliest North American colonies, though. One of the signature features of the Puritans who started the Massachusetts Bay Colony was their grimly serious attitude toward faith – and religious holidays. Christmas, thank you very much, was the day of the Savior’s birth, and an excellent time to spend several hours in church praying to atone for your sins and prevent future ones. It was not fun.
Fun was not a Puritan thing.
Fortunately for everyone who enjoys a good Christmas party, other waves of settlers had different views, and many saw the holiday as a time to rejoice, in both religious and secular ways. As early as the 1830s, German immigrants started celebrating the way they did at home – with decorated trees.
For a few decades, Christmas trees were a mostly German tradition. (German as a general ethnic description – a unified Germany was still a while away.) And then, the most famous woman in the world married a German prince.
Queen Victoria, of course, came from mostly German stock herself. But she identified as culturally English, until she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Knowing he’d given up his homeland for life as her consort, she adopted many of his German traditions, especially holiday celebrations.
In 1848, the American magazine Godey’s published a British print of the Queen, her handsome husband, and their adorable children clustered around a German-style tree, with the Queen’s tiara erased to make her more relatable. (I posted the original version with the link today.) While Victoria was never much of a leader in fashion, she was huge in home life – and the message was clear:
If Queen Victoria had a Christmas tree, every aspiring middle-class family needed one.
The Christmas tree industry grew to address the demand, quickly becoming a major agricultural business – and providing a nice living for farmers.
Growing alongside the real tree business: the fake tree industry.
The first artificial trees were German, made of feathers dyed green. For a while, the feather tree was the main alternative, unless you wanted to follow the Moravian tradition of a wooden, tree-shaped candleholder.
Later, aluminum trees were a popular and pretty substitute. Then came “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in 1965, which painted -- pun only slightly intended -- the aluminum tree as a poor alternative. So much for aluminum.
These days, nobody’s going to judge you for a fake tree, and modern ones are gorgeous. So hang a shining star upon whatever bough works for you…and thank Queen Victoria!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
Evergreens have been associated with the winter holidays since pagan times. They were a key part of solstice celebrations because they retain their color despite the cold and snow. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe and other parts of the world, some of the old customs were co-opted into the celebrations, including greenery.
Cutting down actual trees and bringing them into the house wasn’t popular everywhere – in many parts of the world, that’s a waste of a perfectly good tree that could grow into more firewood. But in some areas, mostly in Northern Europe, there were enough trees, and they evolved into a beloved part of the celebration.
Not in the earliest North American colonies, though. One of the signature features of the Puritans who started the Massachusetts Bay Colony was their grimly serious attitude toward faith – and religious holidays. Christmas, thank you very much, was the day of the Savior’s birth, and an excellent time to spend several hours in church praying to atone for your sins and prevent future ones. It was not fun.
Fun was not a Puritan thing.
Fortunately for everyone who enjoys a good Christmas party, other waves of settlers had different views, and many saw the holiday as a time to rejoice, in both religious and secular ways. As early as the 1830s, German immigrants started celebrating the way they did at home – with decorated trees.
For a few decades, Christmas trees were a mostly German tradition. (German as a general ethnic description – a unified Germany was still a while away.) And then, the most famous woman in the world married a German prince.
Queen Victoria, of course, came from mostly German stock herself. But she identified as culturally English, until she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Knowing he’d given up his homeland for life as her consort, she adopted many of his German traditions, especially holiday celebrations.
In 1848, the American magazine Godey’s published a British print of the Queen, her handsome husband, and their adorable children clustered around a German-style tree, with the Queen’s tiara erased to make her more relatable. (I posted the original version with the link today.) While Victoria was never much of a leader in fashion, she was huge in home life – and the message was clear:
If Queen Victoria had a Christmas tree, every aspiring middle-class family needed one.
The Christmas tree industry grew to address the demand, quickly becoming a major agricultural business – and providing a nice living for farmers.
Growing alongside the real tree business: the fake tree industry.
The first artificial trees were German, made of feathers dyed green. For a while, the feather tree was the main alternative, unless you wanted to follow the Moravian tradition of a wooden, tree-shaped candleholder.
Later, aluminum trees were a popular and pretty substitute. Then came “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in 1965, which painted -- pun only slightly intended -- the aluminum tree as a poor alternative. So much for aluminum.
These days, nobody’s going to judge you for a fake tree, and modern ones are gorgeous. So hang a shining star upon whatever bough works for you…and thank Queen Victoria!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
December 20, 2023
LIGHT IT UP
Light in the darkness has been a winter holiday thing as long as there’ve been winter holidays. There’s a primal human impulse to shine a light into the void, to remind ourselves cold and dark will inevitably give way to warm and bright, as winter gives way to spring.
Until the last century and a half, that light was usually a candle or an oil lamp.
Solstice celebrations often feature candle-lighting or gatherings around a fire. The Hanukkah miracle is eight days of light from one day’s oil. Christians light Advent candles in the weeks before Christmas.
From Advent candles to lights on Christmas trees is a very short leap, probably made in Germany in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. While Christmas trees didn’t become widespread until the Victorian era (next week’s post!) candles – and in Jewish communities, menorahs – in the window were long a winter holiday fixture in much of the world.
Christmas trees became widely popular in the mid-19th century, still lit with candles, which were every bit as much a fire hazard then as now…without smoke alarms or reliable home fire extinguishers. No surprise, then, that as soon as there were electric lights, people started looking for ways to use them on Christmas trees.
The first electric tree lights were a string of 80 red, white, and blue bulbs hand-wired around a tree by Edward H. Johnson, an assistant to none other than Thomas Edison, in 1882. Edison had actually started an outdoor Christmas light display at his Menlo Park lab two years earlier, but Johnson’s was the first tree light set.
Both light displays caused a sensation: Edison’s was near the railroad, so plenty of folks saw it – and Johnson invited reporters to his home to get a good look.
Though electric lights were clearly a great addition to the holiday celebration, they weren’t within reach for most people for a long time. At first, the tree lights had to be hand-wired, making them extremely expensive.
In the 1890s, companies began to mass produce strings of light. In 1894, the White House tree had its first electric set. By 1914, they were becoming more affordable, and in 1920, General Electric put out the first pre-assembled, reasonably priced set, and by the 1930s electric Christmas lights were common.
Big outdoor displays grew along with the technology, as developers came up with sturdy strings that could survive weeks outside in the winter, as well as new colors and new ways to use them. Communities, businesses, and families now put up huge displays for fundraising – promotion – or just fun.
Now, there’s also a whole range of lights for indoor and out. You can buy a pre-lit tree that will flash in rhythm with your favorite Christmas tunes…an LED menorah to shine in your window…or gleaming icicle strings for your roof, to name a few.
And it all comes back to that one simple idea: bringing light in a time of darkness.
However you understand it, and however you celebrate, may you get your light this holiday season!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments.
Until the last century and a half, that light was usually a candle or an oil lamp.
Solstice celebrations often feature candle-lighting or gatherings around a fire. The Hanukkah miracle is eight days of light from one day’s oil. Christians light Advent candles in the weeks before Christmas.
From Advent candles to lights on Christmas trees is a very short leap, probably made in Germany in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. While Christmas trees didn’t become widespread until the Victorian era (next week’s post!) candles – and in Jewish communities, menorahs – in the window were long a winter holiday fixture in much of the world.
Christmas trees became widely popular in the mid-19th century, still lit with candles, which were every bit as much a fire hazard then as now…without smoke alarms or reliable home fire extinguishers. No surprise, then, that as soon as there were electric lights, people started looking for ways to use them on Christmas trees.
The first electric tree lights were a string of 80 red, white, and blue bulbs hand-wired around a tree by Edward H. Johnson, an assistant to none other than Thomas Edison, in 1882. Edison had actually started an outdoor Christmas light display at his Menlo Park lab two years earlier, but Johnson’s was the first tree light set.
Both light displays caused a sensation: Edison’s was near the railroad, so plenty of folks saw it – and Johnson invited reporters to his home to get a good look.
Though electric lights were clearly a great addition to the holiday celebration, they weren’t within reach for most people for a long time. At first, the tree lights had to be hand-wired, making them extremely expensive.
In the 1890s, companies began to mass produce strings of light. In 1894, the White House tree had its first electric set. By 1914, they were becoming more affordable, and in 1920, General Electric put out the first pre-assembled, reasonably priced set, and by the 1930s electric Christmas lights were common.
Big outdoor displays grew along with the technology, as developers came up with sturdy strings that could survive weeks outside in the winter, as well as new colors and new ways to use them. Communities, businesses, and families now put up huge displays for fundraising – promotion – or just fun.
Now, there’s also a whole range of lights for indoor and out. You can buy a pre-lit tree that will flash in rhythm with your favorite Christmas tunes…an LED menorah to shine in your window…or gleaming icicle strings for your roof, to name a few.
And it all comes back to that one simple idea: bringing light in a time of darkness.
However you understand it, and however you celebrate, may you get your light this holiday season!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments.
December 13, 2023
BIG BRIGHT POINSETTIAS
Every year, my grandfather bought my grandmother a huge, beautiful red poinsettia. It was an annual family tradition; we all hopped in his big green Buick (coincidentally known as The Green Grinch) and drove to a garden center way out in the country, where we’d walk through a hot house in our winter coats, looking at rows and rows of glorious red flowers.
They were incredible, a splash of exotic red beauty in the middle of a gray Western Pennsylvania winter. And Grandpa took such joy in giving her the plant, which usually ended up in their picture window for the season, actually enjoying more pride of place than the tree.
No wonder – the Christmas tree was for everyone. The poinsettia was a special thing between Grandma and Grandpa.
Poinsettias are special.
The Aztecs were the first ones to cultivate them, for red dye and medicine.
By the late 16th century, they were associated with Christmas in Mexico, with Franciscan friars putting the bright red plants in their churches. Even now, they’re known as “Noche Buena” flower in Mexico and parts of Central America – the Christmas Eve flower.
So how did we end up calling them poinsettias?
Well, that’s thanks to one Joel Poinsett, a botanist and U.S. Minister to Mexico, who sent some back to his South Carolina greenhouse in the 1820s. Soon, the bright flowers became a holiday standard, and growing them a massive industry. In 1900, the Ecke family started growing poinsettas in California, and developed a special grafting technique to make beautiful bushy ones. For the next ninety years, they owned the poinsettia market, until someone finally figured out how they did the grafts and published the method, allowing competitors to horn in, and eventually move production to countries where labor costs were lower.
Poinsettias are still the world’s most economically important potted plant, with some 70 million sold every holiday season in the U.S. These days, of course, they’re not all red: pink, white, and mixed ones are practically routine – and some gardens even dye them blue. (Which feels kind of like cheating but doesn’t hurt the plant or anyone around it.)
Popular as they are, though, poinsettias still have a couple of misconceptions.
The big one is that they’re deadly to children and animals.
They’re not.
Researchers have tested the equivalent of five hundred poinsettia leaves and found nothing dangerous. Which does not mean you should feed the kid a poinsettia salad. The sap can be irritating to some people, and commercially grown plants often have chemical fertilizers and other things you don’t want to eat.
But nobody’s going to drop dead if they accidentally chew on a leaf. That’s an urban legend.
The other poinsettia misconception?
Those big pretty red blooms.
They’re not blooms at all. They’re actually bracts, a special kind of leaf, and they turn color when the plant gets long periods of night followed by bright sunshine. So greenhouses have to carefully calibrate the light and dark cycles to get the most brilliant colors.
So, yes, Grandpa was right when he got Grandma her poinsettia every year. They really are something special!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
They were incredible, a splash of exotic red beauty in the middle of a gray Western Pennsylvania winter. And Grandpa took such joy in giving her the plant, which usually ended up in their picture window for the season, actually enjoying more pride of place than the tree.
No wonder – the Christmas tree was for everyone. The poinsettia was a special thing between Grandma and Grandpa.
Poinsettias are special.
The Aztecs were the first ones to cultivate them, for red dye and medicine.
By the late 16th century, they were associated with Christmas in Mexico, with Franciscan friars putting the bright red plants in their churches. Even now, they’re known as “Noche Buena” flower in Mexico and parts of Central America – the Christmas Eve flower.
So how did we end up calling them poinsettias?
Well, that’s thanks to one Joel Poinsett, a botanist and U.S. Minister to Mexico, who sent some back to his South Carolina greenhouse in the 1820s. Soon, the bright flowers became a holiday standard, and growing them a massive industry. In 1900, the Ecke family started growing poinsettas in California, and developed a special grafting technique to make beautiful bushy ones. For the next ninety years, they owned the poinsettia market, until someone finally figured out how they did the grafts and published the method, allowing competitors to horn in, and eventually move production to countries where labor costs were lower.
Poinsettias are still the world’s most economically important potted plant, with some 70 million sold every holiday season in the U.S. These days, of course, they’re not all red: pink, white, and mixed ones are practically routine – and some gardens even dye them blue. (Which feels kind of like cheating but doesn’t hurt the plant or anyone around it.)
Popular as they are, though, poinsettias still have a couple of misconceptions.
The big one is that they’re deadly to children and animals.
They’re not.
Researchers have tested the equivalent of five hundred poinsettia leaves and found nothing dangerous. Which does not mean you should feed the kid a poinsettia salad. The sap can be irritating to some people, and commercially grown plants often have chemical fertilizers and other things you don’t want to eat.
But nobody’s going to drop dead if they accidentally chew on a leaf. That’s an urban legend.
The other poinsettia misconception?
Those big pretty red blooms.
They’re not blooms at all. They’re actually bracts, a special kind of leaf, and they turn color when the plant gets long periods of night followed by bright sunshine. So greenhouses have to carefully calibrate the light and dark cycles to get the most brilliant colors.
So, yes, Grandpa was right when he got Grandma her poinsettia every year. They really are something special!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
December 6, 2023
POOR TRAGIC CHILD
Victorian literature is littered with orphans and dying children. You can’t swing a torn stocking without hitting some poor little cherub being borne off to heaven on the wings of angels. Even perfectly sensible writers like Louisa May Alcott can’t resist the lure of the tragic sister. (And neither can readers – I can’t be the only one who read Beth’s death scene over and over and cried every time!)
But they weren’t just playing with our heartstrings. Though, of course, Charles Dickens knew exactly what he was doing when he killed off Little Nell and threatened to do the same to Tiny Tim.
They were also working out the simple, and horrific, reality of life in a world without antibiotics or vaccines for most childhood illnesses. A reality, actually, that’s all too understandable to many of us in this post-pandemic world.
While improved sanitation and medical care were starting to drive down child mortality rates, they were still extremely high by modern standards. It’s not an exaggeration to say every family knew someone who had lost a child…or had lost one themselves. And all of it amid the growing idealization of family and parental love.
All those feelings had to go somewhere, and where they went was the angelic dying child. Beth, Little Nell, and their ilk are whistling in the dark – or a safe way to deal with the unimaginable.
Close kin is the poor (usually orphan) child. In most books, this child suffers almost as much as the dying angel, but is miraculously rescued in the end. Think our good friend Tiny Tim, or Sara Crewe in A LITTLE PRINCESS. Again, all that misery is a safe way of dealing with the true horror of what happened to sick or vulnerable children.
Many readers ate this up the way we now devour the memoirs of people who’ve come through horrible experiences, and for most of the same reasons. And, just as those memoirs do for some of us, the stories inspired people to push to make social change.
However inspiring those stories were, though, there’s one person in Gilded Age New York who would never pick up Dickens: Ella Shane. She doesn’t need to read it -- she lived it.
As young Ellen O’Shaughnessy, she lived in a tiny, cold tenement room with her consumptive mother, Malka (Molly) Steinmetz O’Shaughnessy, scraping a thin living on piecework. Over time, her mother’s illness became worse, and young Ellen took up as much sewing as she could, finally leaving school to stay with her mother…and waking up one cold morning with her body. If her aunt hadn’t taken her in, she would have ended up in the orphanage.
So, though the safe and successful opera diva Ella Shane reads everything, she doesn’t read Dickens. And she usually doesn’t sew. When, in A FATAL FIRST NIGHT, she offers to sew on a button for the Duke, it brings back terrible memories. That flashback, as a modern reader would understand it, is probably the first time the Duke has seen vulnerability from the invincible Miss Shane, and it’s a pivotal moment in their relationship.
More, it’s a reminder that even the lucky orphan who’s rescued doesn’t escape unscathed…and they never forget where they’ve been.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
But they weren’t just playing with our heartstrings. Though, of course, Charles Dickens knew exactly what he was doing when he killed off Little Nell and threatened to do the same to Tiny Tim.
They were also working out the simple, and horrific, reality of life in a world without antibiotics or vaccines for most childhood illnesses. A reality, actually, that’s all too understandable to many of us in this post-pandemic world.
While improved sanitation and medical care were starting to drive down child mortality rates, they were still extremely high by modern standards. It’s not an exaggeration to say every family knew someone who had lost a child…or had lost one themselves. And all of it amid the growing idealization of family and parental love.
All those feelings had to go somewhere, and where they went was the angelic dying child. Beth, Little Nell, and their ilk are whistling in the dark – or a safe way to deal with the unimaginable.
Close kin is the poor (usually orphan) child. In most books, this child suffers almost as much as the dying angel, but is miraculously rescued in the end. Think our good friend Tiny Tim, or Sara Crewe in A LITTLE PRINCESS. Again, all that misery is a safe way of dealing with the true horror of what happened to sick or vulnerable children.
Many readers ate this up the way we now devour the memoirs of people who’ve come through horrible experiences, and for most of the same reasons. And, just as those memoirs do for some of us, the stories inspired people to push to make social change.
However inspiring those stories were, though, there’s one person in Gilded Age New York who would never pick up Dickens: Ella Shane. She doesn’t need to read it -- she lived it.
As young Ellen O’Shaughnessy, she lived in a tiny, cold tenement room with her consumptive mother, Malka (Molly) Steinmetz O’Shaughnessy, scraping a thin living on piecework. Over time, her mother’s illness became worse, and young Ellen took up as much sewing as she could, finally leaving school to stay with her mother…and waking up one cold morning with her body. If her aunt hadn’t taken her in, she would have ended up in the orphanage.
So, though the safe and successful opera diva Ella Shane reads everything, she doesn’t read Dickens. And she usually doesn’t sew. When, in A FATAL FIRST NIGHT, she offers to sew on a button for the Duke, it brings back terrible memories. That flashback, as a modern reader would understand it, is probably the first time the Duke has seen vulnerability from the invincible Miss Shane, and it’s a pivotal moment in their relationship.
More, it’s a reminder that even the lucky orphan who’s rescued doesn’t escape unscathed…and they never forget where they’ve been.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
November 29, 2023
THAT'S LADY KATHLEEN TO YOU!
So, I did a thing. I bought myself a title.
It’s been a rough year (If you don’t know, I won’t bore you with the details – let’s just say losses, family health issues, and more) and there’s no award for hitting your marks while all h-e-double hockey sticks is breaking loose.
And so, when I stumbled across the word that the Principality of Sealand will, for a reasonable sum, award a noble title, I ponied up. I’m now Lady Kathleen Marple Kalb, Baroness of Sealand, and I have the beautifully framed document to prove it.
It sounds like a goofy midlife crisis thing to do – and it probably is – but there’s actually some pretty solid history behind this.
First off, the Brits don’t get to look down their nose and tell me nobody ever bought one of THEIR titles. In the early 1600s, King James I sold a bunch of them to finance his move from Scotland to England when the two crowns were united. There was a huge kerfuffle at the time over whether – gasp! – tradespeople should be allowed to hold titles. Ol’ King Jim got over that when he saw their lovely money.
But real titles, ones that count (small pun intended), are for special people going back to the Dark Ages, aren’t they? Sure. The king handed out titles to his buddies and the guys who brought men and arms to help him stay king. So yeah, the 18th Baron of Widdlewhatever is more special than me because his ancestor either got drunk with or bribed by the king a thousand years ago.
Okay. Go with that if it works for you.
Then there’s the argument that Sealand isn’t a real place and the titles aren’t real.
Nope. Sealand is a real micronation. I’ll leave the question of international recognition up to the lawyers. But it’s real, and it’s out there. The place was an old WWII fortress in the North Sea, then a pirate radio station, and finally taken over by another group who became the small royal family. Who make a bit of coin selling titles. (See King James I, above.)
As for the reality or lack thereof for the titles, I’ll remind you that to this day, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people running around Europe who haven’t ruled anything since World War I, and folks still address them as Prince or Landgrave or whatever. Sure, some of them have castles. Some of them are happy to have a compact car.
France, Germany, and many other European countries formally abolished titles more than a century ago. But plenty of folks still use them and get away with it because they’re “courtesy titles,” meaning society is being polite and paying respect to their families’ centuries of history. Or maybe nobody feels like telling them they’re not Princes any more.
So, with all that historical insight, I defy you to tell me our gloriously scrappy Sealand royals can’t hand out titles as they wish, and those of us who’ve bought in can’t use them. Will I expect my boss or editor to address me as My Lady? Nah. Is this all in the spirit of good fun and great irony? You betcha. And is this also maybe just a little bit of fairy dust for a scruffy kid from the backcountry who always wanted to be a princess? Damn straight.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea for Lady Kathleen? Drop it in the Comments!
It’s been a rough year (If you don’t know, I won’t bore you with the details – let’s just say losses, family health issues, and more) and there’s no award for hitting your marks while all h-e-double hockey sticks is breaking loose.
And so, when I stumbled across the word that the Principality of Sealand will, for a reasonable sum, award a noble title, I ponied up. I’m now Lady Kathleen Marple Kalb, Baroness of Sealand, and I have the beautifully framed document to prove it.
It sounds like a goofy midlife crisis thing to do – and it probably is – but there’s actually some pretty solid history behind this.
First off, the Brits don’t get to look down their nose and tell me nobody ever bought one of THEIR titles. In the early 1600s, King James I sold a bunch of them to finance his move from Scotland to England when the two crowns were united. There was a huge kerfuffle at the time over whether – gasp! – tradespeople should be allowed to hold titles. Ol’ King Jim got over that when he saw their lovely money.
But real titles, ones that count (small pun intended), are for special people going back to the Dark Ages, aren’t they? Sure. The king handed out titles to his buddies and the guys who brought men and arms to help him stay king. So yeah, the 18th Baron of Widdlewhatever is more special than me because his ancestor either got drunk with or bribed by the king a thousand years ago.
Okay. Go with that if it works for you.
Then there’s the argument that Sealand isn’t a real place and the titles aren’t real.
Nope. Sealand is a real micronation. I’ll leave the question of international recognition up to the lawyers. But it’s real, and it’s out there. The place was an old WWII fortress in the North Sea, then a pirate radio station, and finally taken over by another group who became the small royal family. Who make a bit of coin selling titles. (See King James I, above.)
As for the reality or lack thereof for the titles, I’ll remind you that to this day, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people running around Europe who haven’t ruled anything since World War I, and folks still address them as Prince or Landgrave or whatever. Sure, some of them have castles. Some of them are happy to have a compact car.
France, Germany, and many other European countries formally abolished titles more than a century ago. But plenty of folks still use them and get away with it because they’re “courtesy titles,” meaning society is being polite and paying respect to their families’ centuries of history. Or maybe nobody feels like telling them they’re not Princes any more.
So, with all that historical insight, I defy you to tell me our gloriously scrappy Sealand royals can’t hand out titles as they wish, and those of us who’ve bought in can’t use them. Will I expect my boss or editor to address me as My Lady? Nah. Is this all in the spirit of good fun and great irony? You betcha. And is this also maybe just a little bit of fairy dust for a scruffy kid from the backcountry who always wanted to be a princess? Damn straight.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea for Lady Kathleen? Drop it in the Comments!
November 22, 2023
THANKS FOR THIS!
People have been giving thanks for a good harvest ever since they’ve been growing things. It’s a natural impulse to thank your Higher Power when a growing season of brutal work ends with plenty of food to feed your family.
Let's just dispense with all those happy little myths about friendly Indigenous people joyfully feeding the Pilgrims. It’s entirely possible that some tribes did indeed help out the first settlers…and it’s undeniable that the new arrivals repaid them badly.
By the late 1600s, both Massachusetts and Virginia had official fall thanksgiving events, and as other colonies and states evolved, they followed suit. Dates were all over the late-autumn calendar, but by the end of the 18th century, everyone was settling on the last Thursday in November. It helped that it was close to “Evacuation Day,” the date the new nation celebrated the exit of the last British troops.
Thanksgiving’s biggest booster was Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Englander who spent 40 years advocating for a national holiday. In the heat of the Civil War, she found an appreciative audience in President Lincoln, who declared a nationwide Thanksgiving celebration on the last Thursday in November 1863. During Reconstruction, it was one of the few things everybody could agree on, and it became a settled part of the calendar.
Until FDR, that is.
One of the less well-known – and less successful – ways President Roosevelt tried to help pull the nation out of the Depression was to move Thanksgiving up to the next-to-last Thursday in November, in hopes of extending the holiday shopping season and consumer spending. Opponents called it “Franskgiving,” some states ignored it, and a few observed both. None of it had the intended effect, and after three years of confusion, Congress passed a joint resolution formally making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November, and Roosevelt signed it in December 1941.
That, by the way, is why every once in a while we have a year like this one, where Thanksgiving hits almost a week early.
This, of course, is all about American Thanksgiving. Many other countries celebrate it at
different times. Those of with Canadian friends know about theirs: the first Monday in October, the day that we Americans observe Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples’ Day in many areas). Other countries have celebrations across the fall calendar, from a mid-August ritual in Rwanda to a Liberian holiday that focuses on religion and relaxation, but not feasting on the last Thursday in October.
The form and date of the holiday may change, but the idea remains pretty consistent across cultures. It’s a natural human impulse to want to pause, gather our loved ones, and give thanks for our blessings, one that cuts across religious and cultural lines. Honestly, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for exactly that reason.
We may offer our thanks to different beings, in different ways, and many of us may not have that many blessings to count. But we can be thankful for the ones we do have.
It might just be the one thing we can (almost) all agree on!
.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
Let's just dispense with all those happy little myths about friendly Indigenous people joyfully feeding the Pilgrims. It’s entirely possible that some tribes did indeed help out the first settlers…and it’s undeniable that the new arrivals repaid them badly.
By the late 1600s, both Massachusetts and Virginia had official fall thanksgiving events, and as other colonies and states evolved, they followed suit. Dates were all over the late-autumn calendar, but by the end of the 18th century, everyone was settling on the last Thursday in November. It helped that it was close to “Evacuation Day,” the date the new nation celebrated the exit of the last British troops.
Thanksgiving’s biggest booster was Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Englander who spent 40 years advocating for a national holiday. In the heat of the Civil War, she found an appreciative audience in President Lincoln, who declared a nationwide Thanksgiving celebration on the last Thursday in November 1863. During Reconstruction, it was one of the few things everybody could agree on, and it became a settled part of the calendar.
Until FDR, that is.
One of the less well-known – and less successful – ways President Roosevelt tried to help pull the nation out of the Depression was to move Thanksgiving up to the next-to-last Thursday in November, in hopes of extending the holiday shopping season and consumer spending. Opponents called it “Franskgiving,” some states ignored it, and a few observed both. None of it had the intended effect, and after three years of confusion, Congress passed a joint resolution formally making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November, and Roosevelt signed it in December 1941.
That, by the way, is why every once in a while we have a year like this one, where Thanksgiving hits almost a week early.
This, of course, is all about American Thanksgiving. Many other countries celebrate it at
different times. Those of with Canadian friends know about theirs: the first Monday in October, the day that we Americans observe Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples’ Day in many areas). Other countries have celebrations across the fall calendar, from a mid-August ritual in Rwanda to a Liberian holiday that focuses on religion and relaxation, but not feasting on the last Thursday in October.
The form and date of the holiday may change, but the idea remains pretty consistent across cultures. It’s a natural human impulse to want to pause, gather our loved ones, and give thanks for our blessings, one that cuts across religious and cultural lines. Honestly, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for exactly that reason.
We may offer our thanks to different beings, in different ways, and many of us may not have that many blessings to count. But we can be thankful for the ones we do have.
It might just be the one thing we can (almost) all agree on!
.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
November 15, 2023
WHAT'S UNDER THERE?
It’s one of my favorite bits in THE STUFF OF MURDER: historian Christian Shaw explaining pre-industrial men’s underpinnings to movie star Brett Studebaker, and later Joe Poli, the state’s attorney investigating Studebaker’s death. Both fellas – who otherwise have nothing in common – are horrified by the thought that many men didn’t wear underpants until the 19th century.
Christian’s embarrassed to be the one to tell them, but she’s the expert – and she’s right.
Underwear history is inevitably a little speculative. The few pieces of clothing that have survived from the earliest periods are special-occasion items like wedding gowns or coronation robes – and art, like tomb paintings or portraits, didn’t usually depict people in their skivvies.
Historians have been able to gather enough scraps to get a sense, though, and it’s fair to say that neither boxers nor briefs are part of the picture. Loincloths were probably around from the time Adam and Eve realized they needed something a bit sturdier than fig leaves – they’re seen in Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman paintings on both men and women. A second strip of cloth that looks like a modern bandeau bra is often added to the ladies’ kit.
By the medieval era, some men were wearing pants, and they might wear something called “braies” underneath – essentially, yes, light linen underpants. These were especially popular for working men, who could take off their outer pants and still be decent on hot days.
But anyone wearing tights couldn’t fit pants under them. Tights were usually sewn, not knitted, and they didn’t fit like our modern ones. An extra bit of fabric in the middle covered the essentials and made bathroom breaks easier. At first, it was just a plain piece of fabric, secured by buttons, or clips, or sometimes straight pins (ow!). As fashion evolved, though, the simple codpiece became decorative, with beading, embroidery, and other embellishments – and just about the most noticeable part of a man’s outfit.
Paging Dr. Freud.
When tights and codpieces went out, breeches came in. Most of the time, they were a bit looser than tights. (Though Regency bucks wore skin-tight ones that were put on wet and dried to reveal everything. Everything.)
All this time, men were still wearing one basic item of underwear: the shirt. A man’s shirt, like a woman’s chemise, was usually the first layer next to the skin. Poorer people might well sleep in them, too – if they didn’t sleep naked to save their clothes. Men’s shirts were often quite long, so they could serve as a single undergarment, with the wearer tucking the ends in around everything.
Historically accurate, sure. Kind of icky? You bet.
In THE STUFF OF MURDER, Brett Studebaker has a hard time wrapping his brain (sorry!) around the idea…and Christian eventually draws him a diagram. That shuts him up!
The 19th century Victorian obsession with cleanliness and propriety was more than enough to kill the shirt-as-underwear option. Underpants – sometimes ankle-length! – became a required part of a man’s outfit. By the end of the century, knitting mills were producing thin wool union suits, which started out as a covering from ankle to neck to wrist…and eventually evolved into short singlets, and – in the 20th century – the briefs we recognize today.
Boxers? Well, those initially started with, yes, boxers…but that’s a post for another day!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the Comments!
Christian’s embarrassed to be the one to tell them, but she’s the expert – and she’s right.
Underwear history is inevitably a little speculative. The few pieces of clothing that have survived from the earliest periods are special-occasion items like wedding gowns or coronation robes – and art, like tomb paintings or portraits, didn’t usually depict people in their skivvies.
Historians have been able to gather enough scraps to get a sense, though, and it’s fair to say that neither boxers nor briefs are part of the picture. Loincloths were probably around from the time Adam and Eve realized they needed something a bit sturdier than fig leaves – they’re seen in Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman paintings on both men and women. A second strip of cloth that looks like a modern bandeau bra is often added to the ladies’ kit.
By the medieval era, some men were wearing pants, and they might wear something called “braies” underneath – essentially, yes, light linen underpants. These were especially popular for working men, who could take off their outer pants and still be decent on hot days.
But anyone wearing tights couldn’t fit pants under them. Tights were usually sewn, not knitted, and they didn’t fit like our modern ones. An extra bit of fabric in the middle covered the essentials and made bathroom breaks easier. At first, it was just a plain piece of fabric, secured by buttons, or clips, or sometimes straight pins (ow!). As fashion evolved, though, the simple codpiece became decorative, with beading, embroidery, and other embellishments – and just about the most noticeable part of a man’s outfit.
Paging Dr. Freud.
When tights and codpieces went out, breeches came in. Most of the time, they were a bit looser than tights. (Though Regency bucks wore skin-tight ones that were put on wet and dried to reveal everything. Everything.)
All this time, men were still wearing one basic item of underwear: the shirt. A man’s shirt, like a woman’s chemise, was usually the first layer next to the skin. Poorer people might well sleep in them, too – if they didn’t sleep naked to save their clothes. Men’s shirts were often quite long, so they could serve as a single undergarment, with the wearer tucking the ends in around everything.
Historically accurate, sure. Kind of icky? You bet.
In THE STUFF OF MURDER, Brett Studebaker has a hard time wrapping his brain (sorry!) around the idea…and Christian eventually draws him a diagram. That shuts him up!
The 19th century Victorian obsession with cleanliness and propriety was more than enough to kill the shirt-as-underwear option. Underpants – sometimes ankle-length! – became a required part of a man’s outfit. By the end of the century, knitting mills were producing thin wool union suits, which started out as a covering from ankle to neck to wrist…and eventually evolved into short singlets, and – in the 20th century – the briefs we recognize today.
Boxers? Well, those initially started with, yes, boxers…but that’s a post for another day!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the Comments!
November 8, 2023
COLLAR UP
The bright, clean top of a dress shirt is so important that it’s become slang for the jobs that require one: white-collar. And not so long ago, you could buy the collar on its own.
Fancy collars of some kind have been around since Queen Elizabeth I and her friends swanned around in pleated ruffs, but the dress shirt and its collar are another 19th century evolution.
Until then, men’s shirts had been pretty much the same since the Dark Ages: shapeless, blousy, and long. (Sometimes REALLY long – before modern underwear, men sometimes just tucked the shirt end in around everything. Yeah, you probably didn’t want to know that.)
By the 19th century, though, as the Romantic Era gave way to the Victorian, men’s clothes started to settle into a familiar configuration: tailored jacket, vest, and trousers, with a somewhat fitted shirt underneath (and yes, thank you, actual underpants!). Early in the century, shirts usually had attached collars, often starched up and worn with a cravat, the precursor to the tie, either inside or outside.
As industrialization went on, more and more men were working indoor jobs like clerks, bookkeepers, and managers, and they followed the same dress code as their “betters.” But all that washing, starching, and ironing was more than many of them could handle – or afford.
In the days before washing machines, laundry was a huge issue, whether in cost or time. Somebody had to get those shirts bright white and stiff – a woman in the home, or an outside laundry, and either way, it didn’t come cheap.
Fortunately, a blacksmith’s wife in Troy, New York had gotten sick of washing his shirts every day. Hannah Montague cut off hubby’s collars in 1827, cleaned them, and sewed them back in place. A local minister picked up the idea and ran with it, and detachable collars and cuffs soon became standard menswear.
Then it got even more interesting.
In another corner of the Industrial Revolution, celluloid was being invented as an early form of plastic. It was used as a substitute for ivory, in billiard balls, vanity sets, and any number of other things.
In the 1870s, some enterprising folks figured out a way to make celluloid into thin transparent sheets, and collar makers quickly realized it was a great way to keep their products stiff, clean, and waterproof – forever.
The new celluloid collars cost the same, or a bit more than the original linen or cotton ones, but since they didn’t have to be washed – and in fact couldn’t be – they were much cheaper in the long run. Cost per wear, the calculation some folks use even today when considering a clothing purchase, was far lower with celluloid.
Celluloid collars were an affordable way for the Bob Cratchits of the world to meet Scrooge’s workwear standards without his laundry budget. As women began inching their way into the office world, they, too, started wearing collared shirts, and they also bought celluloid ones. Everyone went white-collar…literally.
Celluloid collars went out in the 1930s when fashions changed.
One of celluloid’s other uses, though, lingered for a much longer time: in film stock. It was the standard in the film industry for decades. Early formulas, though, weren’t stable, and many historic movies no longer exist because they’ve simply disintegrated.
Some of the collars have survived in better shape, so some pieces of the early costumes have lasted longer than the films, which would have been far more important to history than those bits of early plastic. Irony alert!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
Fancy collars of some kind have been around since Queen Elizabeth I and her friends swanned around in pleated ruffs, but the dress shirt and its collar are another 19th century evolution.
Until then, men’s shirts had been pretty much the same since the Dark Ages: shapeless, blousy, and long. (Sometimes REALLY long – before modern underwear, men sometimes just tucked the shirt end in around everything. Yeah, you probably didn’t want to know that.)
By the 19th century, though, as the Romantic Era gave way to the Victorian, men’s clothes started to settle into a familiar configuration: tailored jacket, vest, and trousers, with a somewhat fitted shirt underneath (and yes, thank you, actual underpants!). Early in the century, shirts usually had attached collars, often starched up and worn with a cravat, the precursor to the tie, either inside or outside.
As industrialization went on, more and more men were working indoor jobs like clerks, bookkeepers, and managers, and they followed the same dress code as their “betters.” But all that washing, starching, and ironing was more than many of them could handle – or afford.
In the days before washing machines, laundry was a huge issue, whether in cost or time. Somebody had to get those shirts bright white and stiff – a woman in the home, or an outside laundry, and either way, it didn’t come cheap.
Fortunately, a blacksmith’s wife in Troy, New York had gotten sick of washing his shirts every day. Hannah Montague cut off hubby’s collars in 1827, cleaned them, and sewed them back in place. A local minister picked up the idea and ran with it, and detachable collars and cuffs soon became standard menswear.
Then it got even more interesting.
In another corner of the Industrial Revolution, celluloid was being invented as an early form of plastic. It was used as a substitute for ivory, in billiard balls, vanity sets, and any number of other things.
In the 1870s, some enterprising folks figured out a way to make celluloid into thin transparent sheets, and collar makers quickly realized it was a great way to keep their products stiff, clean, and waterproof – forever.
The new celluloid collars cost the same, or a bit more than the original linen or cotton ones, but since they didn’t have to be washed – and in fact couldn’t be – they were much cheaper in the long run. Cost per wear, the calculation some folks use even today when considering a clothing purchase, was far lower with celluloid.
Celluloid collars were an affordable way for the Bob Cratchits of the world to meet Scrooge’s workwear standards without his laundry budget. As women began inching their way into the office world, they, too, started wearing collared shirts, and they also bought celluloid ones. Everyone went white-collar…literally.
Celluloid collars went out in the 1930s when fashions changed.
One of celluloid’s other uses, though, lingered for a much longer time: in film stock. It was the standard in the film industry for decades. Early formulas, though, weren’t stable, and many historic movies no longer exist because they’ve simply disintegrated.
Some of the collars have survived in better shape, so some pieces of the early costumes have lasted longer than the films, which would have been far more important to history than those bits of early plastic. Irony alert!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
November 1, 2023
BRIGHT WHITE
Bright colored clothing was very rare until the mid-19th century, but bright white was possible much earlier – if you had the time and energy. Not to mention the kind of life that enabled you to keep your clothes clean.
Undyed cotton, linen, and some wool, all end up in varying shades of off-white…but as early as Ancient Egypt, people had figured out how to bleach them to true white. The first, and simplest bleaches, were water and the sun: cloth would be spread out in “bleachfields” to allow the sun to do its work. It was probably much more effective in the merciless desert sun of Egypt, but it was popular across the world.
By the 17th century, there was a whole cloth-bleaching industry in Western Europe, where workers spent six months soaking cloth in lye and acid baths to create a brilliant white. In the late 18th century, chlorine-based bleaches came in, and by the turn of the 20th century, hydrogen peroxide was also around.
So it wasn’t a stretch to get white cloth.
Keeping it bright white, though, was a much bigger lift.
In a world before cars and desk jobs, the general level of grubbiness was just higher than what we’re used to. All-white clothes weren’t practical for anyone but the most sedentary or special – there’s a reason that some orders of monks and nuns are famous as the “White Sisters” or Brothers.
Even in very hot places, people were more likely to wear thin light colored outer clothes than true whites. It was just too much work to keep them bright.
But when it came to underclothes, white was the color.
For centuries, both men and women started their outfits with a shirt or chemise of thin cotton or linen, usually white. By the 19th century, with reliable bleach and relatively modern laundry methods, it was possible to have pristine white undergarments on a regular basis, as long as you weren’t afraid of a day of backbreaking work.
Laundry was such a horrible chore that it was often the first thing women sent out when they became more prosperous. If they didn’t have the resources to push the chore off on to someone less fortunate, they’d work together in groups to plow through it.
It took a full day job from dirty clothes to bright whites hanging on the line, including beating, boiling, and wringing. Even into the 20th century, and beyond, a day or more on the line or lying on the grass in the sunshine might be part of the process…the same natural bleach the ancients used.
The ironing might take another day. Before electric irons, that was no fun either, with gloppy natural starches, irons heated in the fire – or with coals dropped in a box. No surprise, then, that a crisp, starched, and ironed white shirt became the signature of prosperous businessmen.
That shirt proclaimed they could afford someone (whether wife or laundress) to keep it up to standard. Eventually, an overworked wife got wise and invented removable collars and cuffs, which is a different post – coming next week!
White eventually also evolved into the color of brides (yep, separate post again!) and lingerie dresses, the lovely thin summer garments that women wore as much for comfort as fashion before air conditioning.
All of these carried one simple and practical message, along with all the other resonance: you wear white because you – or someone close to you – can keep it clean. A very big deal before machine washing!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
Undyed cotton, linen, and some wool, all end up in varying shades of off-white…but as early as Ancient Egypt, people had figured out how to bleach them to true white. The first, and simplest bleaches, were water and the sun: cloth would be spread out in “bleachfields” to allow the sun to do its work. It was probably much more effective in the merciless desert sun of Egypt, but it was popular across the world.
By the 17th century, there was a whole cloth-bleaching industry in Western Europe, where workers spent six months soaking cloth in lye and acid baths to create a brilliant white. In the late 18th century, chlorine-based bleaches came in, and by the turn of the 20th century, hydrogen peroxide was also around.
So it wasn’t a stretch to get white cloth.
Keeping it bright white, though, was a much bigger lift.
In a world before cars and desk jobs, the general level of grubbiness was just higher than what we’re used to. All-white clothes weren’t practical for anyone but the most sedentary or special – there’s a reason that some orders of monks and nuns are famous as the “White Sisters” or Brothers.
Even in very hot places, people were more likely to wear thin light colored outer clothes than true whites. It was just too much work to keep them bright.
But when it came to underclothes, white was the color.
For centuries, both men and women started their outfits with a shirt or chemise of thin cotton or linen, usually white. By the 19th century, with reliable bleach and relatively modern laundry methods, it was possible to have pristine white undergarments on a regular basis, as long as you weren’t afraid of a day of backbreaking work.
Laundry was such a horrible chore that it was often the first thing women sent out when they became more prosperous. If they didn’t have the resources to push the chore off on to someone less fortunate, they’d work together in groups to plow through it.
It took a full day job from dirty clothes to bright whites hanging on the line, including beating, boiling, and wringing. Even into the 20th century, and beyond, a day or more on the line or lying on the grass in the sunshine might be part of the process…the same natural bleach the ancients used.
The ironing might take another day. Before electric irons, that was no fun either, with gloppy natural starches, irons heated in the fire – or with coals dropped in a box. No surprise, then, that a crisp, starched, and ironed white shirt became the signature of prosperous businessmen.
That shirt proclaimed they could afford someone (whether wife or laundress) to keep it up to standard. Eventually, an overworked wife got wise and invented removable collars and cuffs, which is a different post – coming next week!
White eventually also evolved into the color of brides (yep, separate post again!) and lingerie dresses, the lovely thin summer garments that women wore as much for comfort as fashion before air conditioning.
All of these carried one simple and practical message, along with all the other resonance: you wear white because you – or someone close to you – can keep it clean. A very big deal before machine washing!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
October 25, 2023
HEAVY METAL
Ironing has been around pretty much as long as wrinkled cloth.
Historians can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but it’s a good bet that some ancient person got sick of everyone looking like they’d been slept in and started smooshing out the wrinkles with a rock. Round linen smoothing stones or glasses start showing up in women’s graves in the Viking era, and by the late medieval period, people -- yes, almost certainly female people! -- were using something called a “slickstone.” It’s pretty much what it sounds like: a smooth stone that could be rubbed across cloth on a flat surface.
Small smoothing devices survived into the 19th century because they were handy, a quick way to mash out a few wrinkles without the effort of heating up an iron.
Serious ironing was a project – and sometimes a profession – from Ancient Egypt onward. Somebody had to press those pleated linen robes the pharaohs wore, and that somebody used hot iron pokers. Tomb paintings show workers pressing each little pleat into place. A thousand years later, in the Renaissance, similar small pokers would be used to shape those big white neck ruffs.
Most ironing, though, wasn’t done with pokers. Flat irons – which look very much like the ones we use today – start showing up in the late Middle Ages. While many were, yes, iron, they could also be made of stone or terra cotta. All required a rag or towel around the handle, because wooden ones weren’t invented until the 1870s. Anyone who wanted to get the ironing done fairly quickly would need at least two of them – one to use and one to heat.
These pieces were also called “sad irons,” not because ironing was depressing (though it makes sense!) but because “sad” stemmed from an older word for solid.
Eventually, the box iron joined the laundry arsenal: with its space for hot coals, it could stay hotter longer, and make the process a bit less onerous.
Just ten years after the wooden handle came the biggest technological innovation: electricity. Henry Seely of New York patented the “electric flatiron” in 1882. It took another decade for General Electric and Crompton and Company to come up with a way to adjust the iron’s heat.
From there, iron-makers added all kinds of bells and whistles intended to appeal to the women who used them. By the 1950s, ironing took up a huge amount of space in the household hints books, and we have to assume, the minds of their readers. A properly-ironed shirt was a matter of pride for both the white-collar man who wore it – and the wife who maintained it.
These days, though, thanks to new fabric treatments and looser dress codes, it’s entirely possible to be a decently-dressed professional human of any gender without benefit of ironing. Lifestyle writers wonder about the future of ironing, with good reason.
While it’s not generally popular now, ironing is still an important and useful skill in fiber arts. Everything from adhesive jewels to properly-blocked scarves requires ironing.
In THE STUFF OF MURDER, ironing is relaxing. Main character Christian Shaw irons her vintage oxfords every Saturday night, enjoying the scent of clean cotton and steam, and the satisfaction of crisp, smooth fabric. Since she’s an expert on 18th and 19th century home goods, she’s well aware of the background, which only adds to her fun. And if she enjoys being interrupted by a call from an appealing prosecutor, one Joe Poli…well, that’s her business!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
Historians can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but it’s a good bet that some ancient person got sick of everyone looking like they’d been slept in and started smooshing out the wrinkles with a rock. Round linen smoothing stones or glasses start showing up in women’s graves in the Viking era, and by the late medieval period, people -- yes, almost certainly female people! -- were using something called a “slickstone.” It’s pretty much what it sounds like: a smooth stone that could be rubbed across cloth on a flat surface.
Small smoothing devices survived into the 19th century because they were handy, a quick way to mash out a few wrinkles without the effort of heating up an iron.
Serious ironing was a project – and sometimes a profession – from Ancient Egypt onward. Somebody had to press those pleated linen robes the pharaohs wore, and that somebody used hot iron pokers. Tomb paintings show workers pressing each little pleat into place. A thousand years later, in the Renaissance, similar small pokers would be used to shape those big white neck ruffs.
Most ironing, though, wasn’t done with pokers. Flat irons – which look very much like the ones we use today – start showing up in the late Middle Ages. While many were, yes, iron, they could also be made of stone or terra cotta. All required a rag or towel around the handle, because wooden ones weren’t invented until the 1870s. Anyone who wanted to get the ironing done fairly quickly would need at least two of them – one to use and one to heat.
These pieces were also called “sad irons,” not because ironing was depressing (though it makes sense!) but because “sad” stemmed from an older word for solid.
Eventually, the box iron joined the laundry arsenal: with its space for hot coals, it could stay hotter longer, and make the process a bit less onerous.
Just ten years after the wooden handle came the biggest technological innovation: electricity. Henry Seely of New York patented the “electric flatiron” in 1882. It took another decade for General Electric and Crompton and Company to come up with a way to adjust the iron’s heat.
From there, iron-makers added all kinds of bells and whistles intended to appeal to the women who used them. By the 1950s, ironing took up a huge amount of space in the household hints books, and we have to assume, the minds of their readers. A properly-ironed shirt was a matter of pride for both the white-collar man who wore it – and the wife who maintained it.
These days, though, thanks to new fabric treatments and looser dress codes, it’s entirely possible to be a decently-dressed professional human of any gender without benefit of ironing. Lifestyle writers wonder about the future of ironing, with good reason.
While it’s not generally popular now, ironing is still an important and useful skill in fiber arts. Everything from adhesive jewels to properly-blocked scarves requires ironing.
In THE STUFF OF MURDER, ironing is relaxing. Main character Christian Shaw irons her vintage oxfords every Saturday night, enjoying the scent of clean cotton and steam, and the satisfaction of crisp, smooth fabric. Since she’s an expert on 18th and 19th century home goods, she’s well aware of the background, which only adds to her fun. And if she enjoys being interrupted by a call from an appealing prosecutor, one Joe Poli…well, that’s her business!
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
