“Gerda” (from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen) by Edmund Dulac
Women eating dinner at the St. Pancras workhouse, 1897. The number of people living in poverty soared following the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, and thus workhouses became increasingly popular. Food and accommodations would be provided to the poor in return for work.
Two men look toward mountain peaks in the Caucasus by Vittorio Sella, 1896.
(via collectivehistory)
Bizarre Victorian fact of the day…
Science played a large role in Victorian Christmas celebrations. Essays, poems and stories celebrating scientific discoveries were published at Christmas time, Christmas books and annuals detailed experiments which could be conducted by children and newspapers were filled with adverts for ‘scientific Christmas presents’. “Galleries of practical science” were highly popular venues for family days out. The Christmas bill of the Adelaide Gallery in London included performances of traditional festive music such as Handel’s Messiah combined with massive projections of microscopic organisms or dramatic displays of electricity.
(via victorianfanguide)
Bizarre Victorian fact of the day…
In the Victorian period it was considered extremely unlucky to put up any Christmas decorations before Christmas Eve. Unlike modern superstition, which dictates that decorations must be taken down before Twelfth Night (January 5th), people in the 19th century commonly left their decorations up until Candlemas (February 2nd).
Victorian Christmas decorations took the form of evergreen plants such as holly, ivy, mistletoe, laurel, box, bay and rosemary. Several superstitions surrounded the use of these plants, particularly holly and ivy. If prickly holly was brought into the house it meant that the husband would be master for the coming year whereas if the holly was smooth it meant the power would stay with the wife. To use ivy on its own or let it be predominant was bad luck and there was sharp disagreement over whether decorations should or should not be burnt once they’d been taken down.
(via victorianfanguide)
The Delineator, April 1899.
Bicycle suits and a hat ad
Princesses Victoria Melita, Alexandra and Marie and Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, September 1884. Photographed by W. Watson.
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