Sunday, January 26, 2014

Mourning, Victorian Style

Recently I went to a DAR meeting (Yes, that is Daughters of the American Revolution, and I, with my distinctly un-blue blood, am a member). The wonderful speaker was from the Summit County Historical Society, and her presentation was on the Victorian Woman. She brought all kinds of artifacts from the Victorian era in the U.S., including clothing, underclothing, shoes, books, a calling card case, a coffee grinder, etc. At one point she described mourning customs, which were ridiculously excessive, particularly for women. The Victorians, led by mourner-in-chief, Queen Victoria, elevated mourning to an art form. Victoria's beloved Prince Albert died in 1861, plunging her into a mourning period that lasted half a century.

Cassell's Household Guide, published in 1869, provides tremendous detail regarding funerals and mourning customs, in five separate sections organized in no discernible manner, sandwiched between instructions for making a pincushion, foot-gear, different types of butter, a recipe for salting a herring, and a chapter entitled "Animals Kept for Pleasure and Profit--The Horse." The guide also includes the costs of burial vaults and plots, which ranged from the exorbitant £49 7s. 6d. for a family vault at Highgate Cemetery, to 6s. 8d. for a single grave in unconsecrated, third class ground. Relatives of the deceased sent invitations to funerals, and if the family was particularly wealthy they were also expected to send "mourning coaches" to collect the invitees. Families were expected to use black-edged mourning stationery for correspondence during the entire period of mourning. Fortunately, Cassell's had recommendations on where to purchase such things: "While on the subject of mourning stationery, we may mention that every kind of such articles as may be required, may be obtained of the best quality and at the lowest prices from Messrs. Terry, Stoneman, and Co., the wholesale, retail, and manufacturing stationers of Hatton Garden."

When Cassell's was written in 1869, women were not advised to attend funerals: "It sometimes happens among the poorer classes that the female relatives attend the funeral; but this custom is by no means to be recommended, since in these cases it but too frequently happens that, being unable to restrain their emotions, they interrupt and destroy the solemnity of the ceremony with their sobs, and even by fainting."  By the 1880s, it was customary for women to attend funerals of relatives, "if disposed to do so."

Rules for mourning apparel were complicated; an 1888 book entitled Manners and Rules of Good Society, or, Solecisms to be Avoided, has an entire chapter devoted to the subject. It includes rules for everyone from spouses (two years) to second cousins (three weeks, optional) and contemporaries. For example, it says,

The Regulation Period for a Widow's Mourning is two years; of this period crape should be worn for one year and nine months, for the first twelve months the dress should be entirely covered with crape, for the remaining nine months it should be trimmed with crape, heavily so the first six months, and considerably less the remaining three; during the last three months black without crape should be worn. After the two years two months half-mourning is prescribed, but many people prefer to continue wearing black without crape in lieu of half- mourning. The widow's cap should be worn for a year and a day. Lawn cuffs and collars should be worn during the crape period. After a year and nine months jet trimming may be worn. 

The rules for widowers were rather simpler. They were expected to wear black during the mourning period, but they could enter society sooner than the customary year widows were required to wait. They had to wear black wore black hat bands of different widths, depending upon the degree of the relationship--a man mourning his wife, for example, was expected to wear a hat band seven inches wide. (Fortunately, it was also the era of the tall top hat.)

Such rules seem excessive to us, but are on some level understandable, I think. Customs ventured into the truly bizarre, however, with the practices of post-mortem photography and hair jewelry. For centuries people have painted pictures of the dead, of course, but some families in the Victorian era actually posed their deceased loved ones as if they were alive--propping them up or painting eyeballs on closed lids. There's a great article on one of my favorite sites for the strange and bizarre, io9.com, featuring several photos.

The speaker at the meeting I mentioned at the start of this absurdly long post showed several examples of hair jewelry, which was very popular both in England and America in the late 19th century. Strands of a loved one's hair were included in a locket or a ring, and in more extreme examples, braided into elaborate designs. Google "Victorian hair jewelry" and you'll see more of it than you ever wanted to see. You can even buy some, if you're so inclined, on eBay.

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I started this post a few months ago, but I didn't finish it until a couple of days ago. It seems fitting, and maybe a bit cathartic (okay, maybe a lot), that I should post it now. On January 13, my father passed away at the age of 73. We were estranged for nearly half my life, but thankfully we made our peace in the last few years. He had a completely different life without me, spending more than 25 years in California with his wife, Barb, and her son, whom I still haven't met. My sister, who has always been a more forgiving and attentive daughter than I, was much closer to him, and traveled to California to be with Barb after his death. Clearing out his home office, she said, gave her a more complete picture of who he was--utterly devoted to his wife, and more creative and clever than I ever gave him credit for. I'm sorry for that, sorry I didn't know him better, and that he didn't know me better. But a life filled with regrets wouldn't be a tribute to either one of us, so instead I will remember the little things: he was a talented graphic artist, he tickled my feet so often when I was little that they aren't ticklish any more (I have no idea if there's really a connection between the two, but I like to think so), he made a bizarre but surprisingly tasty brie and pear omelette, he used to call blueberry syrup "slueberry burp," he loved dogs and Fleetwood Mac, he taught me to whistle and to play darts, and when I look in the mirror I see his eyes looking back at me.

Here's to you, Dad. Love you.







Sunday, January 12, 2014

Technology in the Victorian Era

So a couple of months ago I sat in on my son's 5th grade Science class. They were watching a documentary on the Apollo space program, called In the Shadow of the Moon. It occurred to me as I watched that I was the only one in the room who was alive during the first moon landing--even the teacher wasn't born until after the Apollo program had ended. Whether it's a wholly accurate memory or not, I remember sitting in the dining room while my mother cooked, watching the moon landing on our tiny black and white TV.

One of the astronauts in the program said that his father was born around the time of the Wright Brothers' first flight, and the astronaut's son was four when the astronaut went to the moon. The astronaut's father could not even imagine a time when a man could fly to the moon, yet to the son, it was inconceivable that it would not be possible to fly to the moon.

When I mentioned these musings on Facebook, it led to a rousing comment thread, discussing all the technological innovations that have happened in our own lifetimes, or those of our parents. Naturally, since I am immersed in editing my Victorian era WIP, I thought back to that period.

The Victorian era was one of the most sustained and prolific periods for technological and scientific advancement in history. These advancements created significant chances in society, giving rise to the middle class and a new type of wealth.

It saw the rise of the railroad and the improvement of the steamship. The first steam-assisted crossing of the Atlantic took place in 1819, before Victoria, and took 633 hours (just over 26 days). By 1901, the year of Victoria's death, it took only 5 days to cross. Likewise, the railway era started before Victoria's reign, in 1825, but by 1900, trains ran regularly, and with complete safety, at speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. The first lavatories appeared on trains in the 1860s, the first sleeping cars were introduced in 1873, and dining cars came into use from 1879. (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/victorian_technology_01.shtml#three).

The Victorian era also saw these inventions that we take for granted today:

Photograph (1838)
Pedal bicycle (1839)
Postage stamp (1840)
Christmas card (1843
Rubber tires (1845)
Tarmac (1845) and concrete (1849)
Sewing machine (1846)
Gasoline/petrol (1850) and oil (1859)
Flushing toilet (1852)
Steel (1854)
Safety match (1855)
The first underground railway opened in London (1863)
Typewriter (1873)
Chocolate Easter eggs (hurray!) (1875)
Telephone (1876)
First recording of human voice (1877)
Electric street lamps (1878)
Electric light bulb, for home use (1879) (the first electric light bulb was patented in 1875)
Gramophone (1887)
The Kodak box camera (1888)
Comic book (1890)

Cinematograph (1894)
X-ray (1895)
Radio (1895)

(Source: http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/homework/victorians/inventiotimeline.html)

The Victorian period saw the serialization of novels in magazines, which made them more accessible to the public. This is unrelated to technology, but just to give you an idea of the breadth of the Victorian literary world, some lists:

Victorian novelists, in no particular order, included Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), William Thackeray (1811–1863), Emily Bronte (1818-1848), Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855),  Anne Bronte (1820-1849), George Eliot (1819-1880), Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865), Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Mark Twain (1835-1910), Henry James (1843-1916), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), and so many others I'd be here all day if I listed them all.  The era also produced poets Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), A.E. Housman (1859-1936), and Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). Playwrights included George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) and Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). There is a more comprehensive list and some other great stuff at A Literary Odyssey.

Anyway, all of this change is why I set my writing in the period. The dramatic possibilities are endless.

Now I think I'll go pull one of my Elizabeth Gaskell novels off the shelf, and settle in with a cup of tea.

About Me

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Clevelanders are tough, a bit cynical, and just a little crazy, and Marin McGinnis is no exception. She writes tales of Victorian-era romance. When she's not chasing after big dogs or watching small children skate around Ohio hockey rinks, you can find her hanging out here, on her group blog at http://throughheartshapedglasses.com/, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarinMcG, or on Twitter @MarinMcGinnis.

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