Victorian Society at Falls Church, Virginia

01/03/2023

Two dresses, one by a couturière in Paris and the other by a local dressmaker in downstate Illinois, both about 1875-76, demonstrate that while we can recognize which gown is from Paris, the rural American girl could keep up with fashion just fine, thank you (with the help of paper patterns from Demorest’s or Butterick, most likely).
The recently elongated bodice and curvy torso, the dropped bustle, and the shirring and knife pleated flounces, plus the fancy silk cording all show that Mary Abbott of Logan, Illinois was perfectly au courant with the latest shift in styles. She wore this at her wedding in 1875.
The Paris dress bears the label of Mme. La Ferrièrre, Rue Taibout, Paris (in the chic shopping neighborhood, near other more famous names like Worth and Doucet).

https://collections.dar.org/mDetail.aspx?rID=96.50.1.a&db=objects&list=det&dir=DARCOLL&page=undefined
https://collections.dar.org/mDetail.aspx?rID=97.18.1.a&db=objects&list=det&dir=DARCOLL&page=undefined

01/03/2023

Drink Like Dickens With the Author's Punch Recipe

Drink Like Dickens With the Author's Punch Recipe

With flair and fire, he turned mixology into a performance.

12/28/2022

Timeline photos

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Thorn!

Elizabeth Thorn was born on this date in 1832. Thorn, a German immigrant, lived with her three young sons in the Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse during the Battle of Gettysburg. Pregnant at the time of the battle and with her husband off fighting in the war, Thorn and her elderly father and sons buried over 90 Union soldiers within weeks of the battle. Thorn died in 1907 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, where a statue is dedicated in her honor.

12/25/2022

Merry Christmas!

Read more about the history of this card here: https://bit.ly/3vesWJw

12/24/2022

A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories

A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories

Though the practice is now more associated with Halloween, spooking out your family is well within the Christmas spirit

12/24/2022

Merry Christmas

12/05/2022

Making Christmas Crackers (1910) | BFI National Archive

Making Christmas Crackers (1910) | BFI National Archive

Making Christmas Crackers (1910) | BFI National Archive. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subscribetotheBFI.After a businesslike introduction to the manufacture of...

12/01/2022

History of Electric Christmas Tree Lights

History of Electric Christmas Tree Lights

The history of electric Christmas lights began in the 1880s, when an employee of Thomas Edison created lights to hang on his family's Christmas tree.

11/30/2022

The Life and Death of London’s Crystal Palace

The Life and Death of London’s Crystal Palace

From the opening of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park to the tragic fire that destroyed it, the Crystal Palace inspired photographers on the ground and in the air.

10/19/2022

We are thrilled to announce that the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum in Washington, DC will be open this Friday!

Join us from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. without a reservation. Just snag your ticket at the front desk and explore Barton's Civil War home.

10/18/2022

Photos from DAR Museum's post

09/28/2022

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19th Century vampire hunting kit.

09/26/2022

Picture this: A mosaic quilt made from scrap silk fabrics belonging to 19th century seamstress Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, who designed dresses for many high society clients, including First Lady Mary Lincoln.

Such a piece exists, aptly referred to as the Keckly quilt! The quilt was made between the years of 1862 and 1880 while Keckly was working in Washington D.C. It includes possible scraps from Mrs. Lincoln’s dresses as well as any number of Keckly’s other clients, featuring edging of red fringe, red tassels at the corners, and an embroidered floral design. At its center is a gray bird with a flag, and a sole word: “Liberty.”

The Keckly quilt ties first lady fashion into America’s rich history of quilt-making, a common pastime for women during the Civil War, that has remained popular today. It also provides an early example of sustainability in fashion, an initiative which has resurged in popularity.

Learn more about Keckly and her quilt in our Digital Library exhibit, Glamour and Innovation: The Women Behind the Seams of Fashion at the White House, which highlights the storied – but often forgotten – careers and lives of eight designers, seamstresses, and couturiers who made their mark on first lady style and fashion history: https://www.whitehousehistory.org/digital-library/exhibits/glamour-and-innovation-the-women-behind-the-seams-of-fashion-at-the-white-house/elizabeth-keckly

Image: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

09/01/2022

On August 31, 1842, Boston activist and journalist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was born. During the Civil War, she and her husband, George Lewis Ruffin, helped recruit African American men for the Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments. After the war, she dedicated much of her activism to women's suffrage, helping to form the American Women Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. In 1886, she founded "The Women's Era" the first newspaper to be published by an African-American woman. In 1910, she was one of the charter members of the NAACP. She died March 13, 1924. Portrait appears in "The African Abroad" by William H. Ferris, 1913.

08/29/2022

Photos from Spirits of Tudor Hall's post

08/29/2022

Edgar Allan Poe Museum

Edgar Allan Poe Museum

This museum devoted to the gothic author holds such interesting ephemera as his socks and walking stick.

08/16/2022

Newspaper Ad Placed By Man Looking For Wife In 1865 Is Hilarious

Newspaper Ad Placed By Man Looking For Wife In 1865 Is Hilarious

Newspaper Ad Placed By Man Looking For Wife In 1865 Is HilariousInspireMore If you think online dating is a hard gig, try finding a significant other in 1865. Somehow, someway, this ‘wife wanted’ ad, found in a newspaper from the 19th century, was passed down until a photocopy made its way onto ...

08/15/2022

Wearing a 19th-Century Mourning Veil Could Result in — Twist — Death

Wearing a 19th-Century Mourning Veil Could Result in — Twist — Death

Grieving for a loved one sometimes caused rashes, irritation, and one’s own demise.

08/14/2022

How Suffragists Used Cookbooks As A Recipe For Subversion

How Suffragists Used Cookbooks As A Recipe For Subversion

Women seeking the right to vote published the cookbooks both to raise funds for their cause — and as a strategic rebuttal to those who painted them as neglectful mothers and kitchen-hating harridans.

08/08/2022

How England's First Feline Show Countered Victorian Snobbery About Cats

😻😻😻

The 1871 cat show ushered in a new era of appreciation for the furry rat-catchers.

08/02/2022

😹😹😹

07/15/2022

Photos from The Victorian Historian's post

07/04/2022

Ten years after the first women’s rights convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton was still struggling for the freedom to pursue her goals.

On July 4th, 1858, she wrote a letter to Susan B. Anthony talking about how different her husband’s life was from hers…

“How rebellious it makes me feel to see Henry going about where and how he pleases. He can walk at will through the whole wide world or shut himself up alone, if he pleases, within four walls. As I contrast his freedom with my bo***ge and feel that, because of the false position of woman, I have been compelled to hold all my noblest aspirations in obeyance in order to be a wife, a mother, a nurse, a household drudge, I am fired anew . . .”

This Independence Day learn a little bit about one of the women who helped pave the way for the freedoms we enjoy today Women's Rights NHP: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/wori/shs3.htm

Image 1: Melinda Grube, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, sitting in the Stanton parlor telling a story to several young women seated on the floor.

06/24/2022

The ‘Sociable Tricycle’ of 1877 allowed two riders to sit side by side, giving women the chance to ride with their husbands. 🚴

However, these machines took up a lot of space, and later models adopted a tandem arrangement with one rider in front of another. ➡️ https://bit.ly/3th7T8Q

06/21/2022

The Raven that Inspired Dickens and Poe

The Raven that Inspired Dickens and Poe

The taxidermied remains of Charles Dickens' pet raven, which helped inspire one of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poems.

06/20/2022

Here’s the list of Queen Victoria’s Burial Request in her Final Moments

Here’s the list of Queen Victoria’s Burial Request in her Final Moments

In an era of unbridled patriarchy, when women were advocating passionately for the right to vote, Queen Victoria was such a formidable figure that an entire period is named after her: the Victorian age. When we think of Victorian England, Victorian houses, or the Victorian style, we tend to think of...

06/16/2022

Timeline photos

Have fun, but not too much fun: Victorian ball etiquette - https://mailchi.mp/recollections.biz/jun-16-2022-victorian-ball-etiquette Victorian balls were highly prescribed social events that demanded adherence to the understood etiquette of the day, with one’s reputation at stake.

06/16/2022

Football, Beerhouses and Books: How Victorian Mill Workers Entertained Themselves

Football, Beerhouses and Books: How Victorian Mill Workers Entertained Themselves

The lives of Victorian mill workers were far from easy. So what did they do with their spare time?

06/04/2022

Did you know Abraham Lincoln loved cats? Mary Todd Lincoln once remarked that collecting cats was Lincoln’s hobby. We have no way of knowing how many cats Lincoln had over the years, but he did have at least two while in the White House. In August of 1861, Secretary of State William Seward () gave Lincoln two kittens which he named Tabby and Dixie. During one visit to the White House, Seward’s daughter F***y witnessed the kittens playing with Lincoln and she wrote in her diary, “Mr L. seems quite fond of them. Says they climb all over him” According to one story, he even let them eat at the dining room table much to Mary’s frustration. When Mary told him to stop feeding the kitten from the table, Lincoln responded, “If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.”

05/26/2022

Photos from Victoria and Albert Museum's post

05/12/2022

Maria E. Beasley was an American entrepreneur and inventor. Between 1878 and 1898, she patented fifteen inventions in the United States that included a footwarmer, an improved life raft, and an anti-derailment device for trains. However, her primary success as an inventor rose from a specialty in barrel-making machines and processes. She licensed a patent to the Standard Oil Company, exhibited her work at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition and the World's Columbian Exposition, and founded two companies for the design and manufacture of barrels (one of which later sold for $1.4 million, the equivalent to $42,222,963 in 2021).

05/07/2022

Clearing Up Some Myths About Victorian 'Postmortem' Photographs

Clearing Up Some Myths About Victorian 'Postmortem' Photographs

Stories abound of dead people being propped up on stands to seem alive. The reality was different.

05/06/2022

Timeline photos

The Women's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 highlighted contributions from women in art, science, literature, and much more.

This official exhibit guide, available in our Digital Library, offers an important look at how women were described at turn of 20th century. Browse it online: https://s.si.edu/39tyzqL

04/12/2022

Walter Crane's Painting Book (1889)

Walter Crane's Painting Book (1889)

Long before the current craze for adult colouring books came this 19th-century painting book from one of the finest contributors to the Golden Age of illustration.

04/08/2022

On April 6 and 7, 1862, the battle of Shiloh engaged more than 65,000 Union troops against nearly 45,000 Confederate troops. A nurse named Almira Fales, one of the first women to offer aid to Union soldiers during the war, was on the scene tending to thousands of wounded and sick soldiers.

“Almira flew into action with the force of a hurricane. ... She slept in tents and ambulances, sharing the rigors of life in the field alongside boys less than half her age. Behind the front lines, Almira personally delivered reading material to 60-70 forts, opened more than 7,000 boxes filled with supplies and distributed in excess of $150,000 of comforts to needy patients.” Learn more about Almira's life and war efforts via The Library of Congress. https://guides.loc.gov/civil-war-soldiers/almira-fales

04/05/2022

When and collide! This trade card for Boston and Worcester photographer Simon Wing has a small gem sized tintype attached to it, possibly of Wing himself. Wing was located at 144 Washington street in the early 1860s.