Isabella Bradford's Blog, page 36

Breakfast Links: Week of May 14, 2017

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• The secret, scandalous life of the English country house.
• From a 19thc grocery shelf: the phenomenal promises of Hostetter's Bitters .
• The many reinventions of Winchester Castle's great hall.
• Dress up: what we lost in the casual revolution.
• Online exhibition: Charlotte Bronte: ten letters and a fictional fantasy.
• Orreries in time of war.
• In 1928, five African American women began a 250 mile cycling journey from Washington, DC to New York.
• Video: The Queen Victoria Statue, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
• When the South Bronx was the 18thc mini-kingdom of the Morris family, self-made American aristocrats.
• Ten dangers of Georgian London.
• The mysterious death of 1920s movie star Thelma Todd .
•  Charles Hamilton Houston : the man who killed Jim Crow.
• Image: An early 17thc Dutch barmaid , from the AlbumAmicorum of Michael van Meer.
• 'Lovers Leap ' in Derbyshire.
• One of George Washington's spies, Nathan Hale , taught in this one-room schoolhouse.
• Five pioneering women behind the camera during World War Two.
• The letters between Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his muse Fanny Cornforth are now online to read.
• Video: New York State wants us all to plan an Equal Rights summer road trip, and we're totally on board.
• Splash it on: a brief history of  aftershave .
• Child labor exposed: the photographic legacy of Lewis Hine.
• The dramatic life and mysterious death of  Theodosia Burr , Aaron Burr's only surviving legitimate child.
•  Dorothy Wordsworth : writer, sister, and amanuensis.
• Identity of a  young girl  buried 140 years ago in San Francisco finally discovered.
• Just for fun: Jane Eyre, the emails.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection

Friday Video: Styling Early Victorian Hair

Loretta reports:

My most recent books are set in the 1830s, just before Victoria ascended the throne. Nearly up until about the time she became queen, women’s hair styles were upward bound , wild and crazy and, in my and my heroes’ opinions, highly entertaining.

But about 1836-37 the wild exuberance disappears. Hair sinks from its lofty heights to cling to the scalp, and even the fanciful braids and loops hang rather than leap into the stratosphere.

Still, whether I love the style or not—and I do see the appeal of this as I do other fashions—I love discovering the method of creating it. This video is particularly interesting to us Nerdy History Girls, because it explains how to make the Victorian equivalent of hair spray.

My ladies (1820s-1830s) rely upon pomatums (or pomades), a rather thick concoction, described here and here . Ms Goodman offers quite a different product, called bandoline, of which I was unaware. Also, she’s a treat to watch.

BTW, though I’ve owned Ms. Goodman's How to Be a Victorian for some time, all I’ve had time to do so far is skim. This one is going on the plane with me to England, for sure!


Still  and video from Ruth Goodman's Victorian Hairstyling 101 video on YouTube.


Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Nude Male Races on Kersal Moor, 1777-1811

Susan reporting,

That title got your attention, didn't it?

Auction house listings for old manuscripts are seldom titillating, but when one of the friends of this blog, Mitch Fraas, shared the listing for the "catalogue," left, we knew we had to learn more, because YOU, our faithful readers, would want to know more, too.

The handwritten catalogue is more a record of races held each year on Kersal Moor, Greater Manchester, with dates and times of the winners. The auction house's description is remarkably straightforward:

"Autograph Manuscript, being a catalogue (headed "Calendar") of 35 nude male races held on Kersal Moor between 1777 and 1811....Dating back to at least the middle of the 17th century, the odd custom of naked fell running continued through the middle of the 19th century. According to Lancashire novelist Walter Greenwood, the custom was from the ancient Greek, and "so the lasses can way up form". This small notebook records a series of 35 races between 1777 and 1811, including names of the racers (and nicknames) as well as in most cases, times, distances and amounts wagered, as well as observations on the races. An interesting representation of a strange, but endearing, pastime."

Unfortunately, only one page of the manuscript is shown. From this, however, we can learn that the tersely named Stump (I don't want to guess how he acquired that nickname) ran three laps against Abraham Hershaw alias Tom Born, and won with a time of 14 minutes 29 seconds. He was speedy, that Stump.

But exactly how prevalent was nude racing in England?

In 1787, the Oxford Journal reported on a man named Powel from Birmingham who was attempting to run a mile race in under four minutes. In his trial, "He ran entirely naked, and it is universally believed that he will win the wager."

In the late 19thc., the journal Notes & Queries reminisced about "foot-races by nude men":

"During the summer of 1824, I remember seeing at Whitworth in Lancashire...two races of this description....the runners were six in number, stark naked, the distance being seven miles, or seven times around the moor. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of spectators, men and women, and it did not appear to shock them, as being anything out of the ordinary course of things."

In London, however, it did shock at least one indignant spectator, who wrote this 1808 letter in the Morning Post:

"In passing yesterday...through the Ride in Hyde Park, I was much surprised at meeting two men, nearly stark naked, running an arc on the foot promenade; they were attended by a great crowd....This indecent transaction was at a time when the Park was full of people, Ladies and others, and a few minutes before the Princess of Wales passed in her coach. The two racers...were privates in the Life Guards. I mention this with a view that their Commanding Officers may prevent such indecorous scenes for the future, which are liable to occur in the presence of all the Ladies of the Royal Family, and every female whom pleasure or business may induce to ride or walk through Hyde Park."

But not all females were so delicate; some clearly relished the view. Barbara Minshull, a wealthy 65-year-old widow from Manchester, attended the races on Kersal Moor on Whitsun in 1796. She was so taken with the sight of one of the racers, a strapping 6'4" soldier named Roger Aytoun that she proposed marriage on the spot. He accepted (though he was reportedly so drunk at the wedding that he needed to be supported.) Their marriage lasted until her death fourteen years later, while he went on to become a major general and a hero at the Great Siege of Gibraltar.

Eat your heart out, Magic Mike.

The manuscript will be sold at auction by Bonhams on June 7; here's the link if you'd like to make a bid.

Many thanks to Mitch Fraas, Curator at Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books & Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania, for sharing this first. 

Loretta's New Book: A Duke in Shining Armor

Loretta reports:

When I wasn’t looking, my publisher put up the cover to my new book on the various online bookstore sites. Fortunately, some of my readers were looking, and alerted me. Since I hadn't expected this to happen quite so soon for a book coming out at the very end of November, a mad scramble resulted to get my website updated. Yes, readers can get the basic information at the online bookstores, but I like to provide a little something extra for those who visit my website.

That’s now done, and I can officially invite you to a preview of my newest book, A Duke in Shining Armor . The little something extra is an excerpt.

Set during the 1833 London Season, A Duke in Shining Armor kicks off a new series, titled Difficult Dukes.

Readers like dukes. This is why we historical romance writers have created so many. Hundreds. The reality is, there were twenty-one, if I have counted correctly. At any rate, it’s in that vicinity. A limited number, because being a duke is a very big deal.

My dukes are a big deal, but not necessarily in a good way. The excerpt will offer some clues. I hope you enjoy it.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

A Lace-Trimmed Shirt for a Cherished Baby, c1760-1784

Susan reporting,

Baby clothes hold a special place in costume collections. Except perhaps for wedding dresses, there's no other category of clothing that carries so much emotion. Infant clothes in the past were often made by the mother-to-be or other family members, and each stitch was lavished with love as well as hopes and dreams and probably a prayer or two for the new arrival. Because of their small size, baby clothes were also a splendid opportunity to display superior stitching and the finest of linens, and maybe even a bit of delicate needle-lace.

Too small to be recut or remodeled in a thrifty makeover, they survive as cherished mementos, a tiny little garment carefully tucked away in a drawer or chest. Too often, however, baby clothes are also sorrowful keepsakes from a time of staggeringly high rates of infant mortality, and represent a final link in linen and lace between a grieving mother and her lost child.

The exact reasons for why this particular shirt was preserved have been forgotten; according to the family's history, the shirt was associated with Jane Hodge Nichols, born around 1784 and later wife of Thomas Nichols of Maine. Little Jane was fortunate indeed to wear this shirt, which is rich in costly detail. This was likely a shirt for special occasions, not for everyday wear, and it's small (I'd guess about a modern size 6 month.) The plain-woven linen is extremely fine, the neck and sleeves are edged with bobbin lace, and there are insertions of dainty needle-lace at the tops of the shoulders. The pleats on the sleeves are almost unimaginably narrow, and the entire shirt represents a superior level of needlework. (As always, click on the image to enlarge.)

Most notable are the sleeve buttons (like modern cuff-links), an unusual feature in baby shirts. These are solid gold, with a hexagonal shape and engraved designs. The style of the buttons is earlier than the shirt itself, and it's possible that they were a family heirloom from a previous generation, and passed down along with the shirt. Beautiful and valuable, they must have brought good luck to tiny Jane: she lived until 1861.

Many thanks to Neal Hurst, Associate Curator of Costume and Textile, Colonial Williamsburg, for showing this shirt (plus many other costume goodies!) to me during a visit last month.

Infant's shirt with lace trim, maker unknown, c1760-1784, America, New England, (probably) Maine. Collection of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.

Breakfast Links: Week of May 7, 2017

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• Wisteria , and the celebrated 18thc American Wüster family for whom it is named.
• Painting Persepolis: Sir Robert Ker Porter's drawings from his 1820s travels.
• Dolley Madison's Wednesday Squeezes.
• Searchable and free: 18thc and 19thc cookbooks online.
• Why people once loved linoleum .
• How snakes have been used both as symbols of American political unity and treachery.
• Why are there so many 17thc paintings of monkeys getting drunk?
• "Delightfully creepy" Roseland Cottage and sixteen other pink-painted architectural wonders .
• Image: Spectacular 1920s evening dress sparkling with glass beads and rhinestones.
• "The Queen's big belly": the phantom pregnancy of Mary I.
• Imperfect pages in a medieval manuscript.
• Captive history at the Wayne County Jail in Lyons, NY.
• George Eliot : is this a rediscovered portrait of the author as a young woman?
•  Margaret Fuller  was America's first feminist, first female critic, and first woman foreign correspondent - and known for drowning horrifically in a shipwreck only 50 yards from shore while bystanders watched.
• Voltaire anecdotes.
• Video: How amazing does Rievaulx Abbey look from the air?
• History hunt: what lies in a tangle of brush beneath the George Washington Bridge?
• The mysterious marriages of Thomas Nelson.
• Pineapples, guns, and wine: the forgotten heroine of Louisbourg.
• Image: A cross-stitched picture of roses worked by author Charlotte Brontë.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection

Friday Video: A Silk-Covered Armchair that Belonged to Marie-Antoinette (and Gouverneur Morris, Too)

Susan reporting,

Today's video begins like any other local news feature piece (except, of course, that it's in French, with an English voice-over) but I hope you'll stick with it to reach the part about the nearly-forgotten art of silk weaving. The old wooden looms are beautiful in themselves, and what the weavers create is breathtaking. I love the idea that the modern mechanical looms - driven by automated machinery and computers - are incapable of duplicating the painstaking work of a single highly skilled human.

The video explains how the reproduction piece on the loom is destined to cover an armchair - fauteuil à la reine - made for French Queen Marie-Antoinette in 1779, and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the Museum's site, the chair was part of a set that was intended for the queen's "grand cabinet intérieur at the château de Versailles during the winter months....but the chair and the rest of the set were removed in 1783, when the cabinet intérieur was redecorated, and placed in the queen's billiard room on the floor above."

Like so much of the exquisite craftsmanship commissioned by the 18thc French court, the chair was the work of several different master trades and their workshops. The designer was Jacques Gondouin, the maker was François Foliot, the carving was done by the workshop of Madame Pierre-Edme Babel, the gilding by the workshop of Marie-Catherine Renon, and the original upholstery was by Claude-François Capin.

Since this video was filmed, the project has been completed, and the armchair reupholstered in the reproduction silk lampas with silk passementerie. It's now on display in the Gallery 527, an installed room from the Hôtel de Cabris, right, where I saw it. The colors of the silk are bright and rich, the way they must have been when the queen first chose them. (Click here for more photographs of the chair, including details of the upholstery.) I'm sure Her Majesty would approve.

I thought that would be the end of my post, but to my surprise, there's actually a Hamilton connection to this chair. (I know, I know, because of my new book I, Eliza Hamilton, it seems as if everything has a Hamilton connection for me, but this really isn't as far-fetched as it might seem.) As the museum notes continue:

"Sold during the French Revolution, the entire set of furniture was acquired by the American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who served as minister of the United States in France from 1792 to 1794. The pieces were subsequently sent to Morrisania, Morris's country estate in the Bronx."

Gouverneur Morris was a long-time close friend of Alexander Hamilton, with both men working together from the days of the American Revolution through the fledging American government of the 1780s-1790s. Both were New Yorkers, and often socialized together. When Hamilton died after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, Morris delivered Hamilton's public eulogy, and was instrumental in organizing a collection to help support widowed Eliza Hamilton and the couple's eight children. Considering the closeness of the friendship, it's entirely possible that at some point or another, Eliza and Alexander Hamilton may each have sat in Marie-Antoinette's armchair at Morrisania. How small a place the 18thc world was!

Many thanks to Melinda Watt, Curator, European Sculpture & Decorative Arts and Supervising Curator, Antonio Ratti Textile Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, for her assistance with this post.

Photograph ©2016 Susan Holloway Scott.

If you received this post via email, you may be seeing a black box or empty space where the video should be. Please click here to view the video.

Wills and Married Women in the 1800s

Loretta reports:

Certain of my early 1800s characters—the heroines, usually—will refer in some way to their lack of legal power. Yes, we know they couldn’t vote. But it’s hard for us to grasp just how little control they had over their lives. This excerpt from Tomlins’s Law Dictionary, 1835 edition, dealing with wills, is only one of many I could present. A glance at Caroline Norton’s situation offers several examples of the difficulties women faced.

Even Queen Victoria believed she ought to submit to her husband’s will…to a point. (For an eye-opening, beautifully written exploration of that marriage, I recommend Gillian Gill’s We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals ).

Married women & wills Married women & wills

Image: Rowlandson, “The Wedding,” from The English Dance of Death 1815

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Preserving Historic Hair from George Washington & Alexander Hamilton

Susan reporting,

In the days before photographs, a lock of a loved one's hair was often the single most lasting link that the living could have with the deceased. Whether cut while the person was alive or dead, the hair could be elaborately woven or braided, preserved under glass or incorporated into jewelry, or simply tied with a ribbon or thread and tucked away as a precious memento.

But hair from from a famous head became more than a mourning memento. It was history, a surviving reminder of a notable man or woman. Famous hair was collected and treasured as a tangible reminder of a more glorious past.

I saw these two wisps of hair, left, framed together in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. (As always, please click on the image to enlarge.) Even though these two were surrounded by dozens of other examples, they stood out, and would have been prized for a number of reasons. The strands of hair at the top belonged to Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury (as well as the husband of the heroine of my new book, I, Eliza Hamilton), while the strands on the bottom were from General George Washington, the first President of the United States and "The Father of his Country."

As the Society's records note: "Given by Alexander Hamilton's son, James A. Hamilton of Nevis, to Eliza Jones Hersey Andrew (1826-1898), the wife of Massachusetts' Civil War Governor John Albion Andrew (1818-1867) on October 27, 1865." The hair is affixed to writing paper by red shellac seals, and the inscriptions are by James A. Hamilton.

This gift would have had special significance in the fall of 1865. The American Civil War had just ended, and the Union forces had won. Mrs. Andrew and her husband were ardent abolitionists, and Governor Andrew had been responsible for authorizing the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in 1863 as soon as President Lincoln had permitted the enlistment of African-American soldiers. Mrs. Andrews must have welcomed the gift of hair belonging to two of the Founding Fathers - men who had helped create the original United States that the Union forces had just fought so hard to secure.

But the hair must have been treasured by James A. Hamilton, too. Washington's hair had most likely been given to his mother or father at the time of the general's death in 1799. The hair of his father, Alexander Hamilton, would probably have been cut soon after his death in 1804, following his fatal duel with Aaron Burr - sixty years before its presentation to Mrs. Andrew.

James Alexander Hamilton was the third son of Alexander and Eliza Hamilton. Born in 1788, he was only sixteen when his father died, yet throughout his life he vigorously defended his father's reputation against numerous detractors. Look more closely at the the inscription beneath the hair, and compare the two way he's written his father's name, and then how he's signed his own. Then look at the example of Alexander Hamilton's signature, right: it certainly appears that at some point the grieving son borrowed his father's distinctive signature and made it his own, a small, poignant homage. The MHS's mention of James Alexander being "of Nevis" is a reference to his sizable country house on the Hudson River that he named Nevis in honor of the Caribbean Island that was his father's birthplace. In other words, James Alexander would not have given away his father's hair lightly.

Then, of course, there's the hair itself. Both Hamilton and Washington are so often portrayed in portraits with white hair - the result of fashionable powdering (see my earlier post on Hamilton's hair ) - that it was something of a shock to see that they both did indeed have the reddish-brown hair that contemporaries noted. The strands of Washington's hair are short and fine, a tidy clip, but Hamilton's are long and wirey, weaving back and forth again and again in their thread binding. At the time of Hamilton's death, most men had begun to prefer shorter hair styles, but he still wore the now-old-fashioned long queue (ponytail.) Were these strands cut from that same queue? I wonder....

Many thanks to Anne E. Bentley, Curator of Art & Artifacts, Massachusetts Historical Society, for her assistance with this post.

Above: Strands of hair of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

Preserving Historical Hair from George Washington & Alexander Hamilton

Susan reporting,

In the days before photographs, a lock of a loved one's hair was often the single most lasting link that the living could have with the deceased. Whether cut while the person was alive or dead, the hair could be elaborately woven or braided, preserved under glass or incorporated into jewelry, or simply tied with a ribbon or thread and tucked away as a precious memento.

But hair from from a famous head became more than a mourning memento. It was history, a surviving reminder of a notable man or woman. Famous hair was collected and treasured as a tangible reminder of a more glorious past.

I saw these two wisps of hair, left, framed together in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. (As always, please click on the image to enlarge.) Even though these two were surrounded by dozens of other examples, they stood out, and would have been prized for a number of reasons. The strands of hair at the top belonged to Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury (as well as the husband of the heroine of my new book, I, Eliza Hamilton), while the strands on the bottom were from General George Washington, the first President of the United States and "The Father of his Country."

As the Society's records note: "Given by Alexander Hamilton's son, James A. Hamilton of Nevis, to Eliza Jones Hersey Andrew (1826-1898), the wife of Massachusetts' Civil War Governor John Albion Andrew (1818-1867) on October 27, 1865." The hair is affixed to writing paper by red shellac seals, and the inscriptions are by James A. Hamilton.

This gift would have had special significance in the fall of 1865. The American Civil War had just ended, and the Union forces had won. Mrs. Andrew and her husband were ardent abolitionists, and Governor Andrew had been responsible for authorizing the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in 1863 as soon as President Lincoln had permitted the enlistment of African-American soldiers. Mrs. Andrews must have welcomed the gift of hair belonging to two of the Founding Fathers - men who had helped create the original United States that the Union forces had just fought so hard to secure.

But the hair must have been treasured by James A. Hamilton, too. Washington's hair had most likely been given to his mother or father at the time of the general's death in 1799. The hair of his father, Alexander Hamilton, would probably have been cut soon after his death in 1804, following his fatal duel with Aaron Burr - sixty years before its presentation to Mrs. Andrew.

James Alexander Hamilton was the third son of Alexander and Eliza Hamilton. Born in 1788, he was only sixteen when his father died, yet throughout his life he vigorously defended his father's reputation against numerous detractors. Look more closely at the the inscription beneath the hair, and compare the two way he's written his father's name, and then how he's signed his own. Then look at the example of Alexander Hamilton's signature, right: it certainly appears that at some point the grieving son borrowed his father's distinctive signature and made it his own, a small, poignant homage. The MHS's mention of James Alexander being "of Nevis" is a reference to his sizable country house on the Hudson River that he named Nevis in honor of the Caribbean Island that was his father's birthplace. In other words, James Alexander would not have given away his father's hair lightly.

Then, of course, there's the hair itself. Both Hamilton and Washington are so often portrayed in portraits with white hair - the result of fashionable powdering (see my earlier post on Hamilton's hair ) - that it was something of a shock to see that they both did indeed have the reddish-brown hair that contemporaries noted. The strands of Washington's hair are short and fine, a tidy clip, but Hamilton's are long and wirey, weaving back and forth again and again in their thread binding. At the time of Hamilton's death, most men had begun to prefer shorter hair styles, but he still wore the now-old-fashioned long queue (ponytail.) Were these strands cut from that same queue? I wonder....

Many thanks to Anne E. Bentley, Curator of Art & Artifacts, Massachusetts Historical Society, for her assistance with this post.

Above: Strands of hair of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, Massachusetts Historical Society.