by Kristin Holt | Apr 27, 2016 | Articles
My husband’s brother inherited a piece of antique Victorian-era furniture originally belonging to his great-grandfather. The piece has stood in the living room of my brother- and sister-in-law for many years since Grandma (the original owner’s daughter-in-law) passed away. I’ve admired the piece but didn’t recognize it was more than a glass-fronted cabinet–a writing desk!–until I saw an historic advertisement for a nearly identical piece in a nineteenth century newspaper advertisement.
This article contains newspaper advertisements with engravings, images of current antique combination desk bookcases, and our family heirloom piece. Victorian prices are compared with the modern dollar (accounting for inflation).
by Kristin Holt | Apr 21, 2016 | Articles
Victorian Era Women seldom trimmed their hair, allowing it to grow to incredible lengths. As styled, it often wrapped high in coiffures of twists, curls, braids, loops, pompadours, buns, knots, and more. Once you see the tremendous lengths of photographed ladies’ hair, you’ll understand why women (from the moment they cast off short dresses of girlhood) wore their hair up. It’s no surprise commercially prepared products catered to a woman’s desire to grow her hair to great lengths.
by Kristin Holt | Mar 18, 2016 | Articles
Flourishing in Our Midst are “Matrimonial Agencies” Which Seem to Need Attention:
Trysting Places for fools, Old and Young Which Can Be Dispensed With.
One Institution Investigated, the Vile Character of Which its Proprietors Do Not Deny.
The original newspaper article appeared in The Inter Ocean Newspaper, Chicago, Illinois, 28 August 1887.
by Kristin Holt | Feb 5, 2016 | Articles
The term “Mail-Order Bride” is a 20th century development, though current popular fiction suggests it was common as early as the Civil War.
Matrimonial advertisements were published in newspapers far more often than a “catalog” of sorts. In fact more than one Matrimonial-type newspaper started up in the late 19th Century. The Matrimonial News did quite well in London, Germany, and the United States.
by Kristin Holt | Jan 27, 2016 | Articles
I’ve read books where the intrepid hero has to reuse brown paper the mercantile owner used to wrap a purchase in order to leave the heroine an all-important note. I read another novel where a would-be bride’s employer deducted the cost of paper and envelope from her wages. Was paper that expensive? Did expense translate to scarcity?
