Tag: Victorians

James Marsh

Post author By Betz
Post date June 8, 2017

Have a drink with: James Marsh
Maybe pass on the coffee, though…

Ask him about: Arsenic and old cases

In case you missed, it, I recently wrote at Atlas Obscura about 19th century efforts to take the threat and mystery out of arsenic poisoning, until then one of the most frequent and stealthy means of getting rid of that one person in your life who really can’t take a friggin’ hint. The development of the Marsh Test in the early 1800s meant that suddenly there was a precise, scientific means of figuring out whether someone had been knocked off with history’s own real-life version of iocane powder. Read on:

Tags Crime & Punishment, Law Geekery, Poison, Science!, Victorians

19th Century

19th Century Sexting

Post author By Betz
Post date February 7, 2017

Have a drink with: Lovestruck 19th C New Yorkers
Don’t do it, girls!

Ask them about: Victorian-era sexting

In 1893, the city of Baltimore got serious about keeping harmful and degenerate behavior out of its city parks. By which it meant it was tired of kids flirting on on public property, and forbade young couples from courting in the parks lest they offend public morals. The New York press seized on the opportunity to make fun of its southern neighbor, with the World quipping: “A man must not put his arm around a woman’s waist if he has scruples about being indicted…the affectionate and spooning throng have been informed of the terribleness of the fate that will overtake them if they are caught swapping gum or tootsy-wootsying within the park limits.” They also made sure to proudly note that, in New York, “joy is unconfined.” Nyah.

Joy does have its limits, though. You may have earned the right to tootsy-wootsy in Central Park by now, but if we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times: NO SEXTING.

Tags Holidays, New York Ledger, PDA, Slut-shaming, Valentines, Victorians

19th Century

The Wellington Statue

Post author By Betz
Post date April 12, 2016

Have a drink with: The Duke of Wellington Statue
“A gigantic triumph of bad taste over public opinion.”

Ask it about: Free beer.

In the 1830’s, the Napoleonic Wars were still fresh in memory and Britain was eager to redecorate. Since few things say classicism, patriotism and self-praise quite like a good monument, the idea arose to honor Arthur Wellesley (better known as the Duke of Wellington) with a grand commemorative statue.

Depicting the “Iron Duke” on his trusty horse Copenhagen as the pair might have appeared during the Battle of Waterloo, the bronze statue was commissioned of sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt to sit atop a sculptured arch in Hyde Park Corner. Wyatt planned a statue thirty feet high and weighing forty tons, making it the largest equestrian statue in Britain at the time.

He did not plan on all of Britain thinking he was the giant horse’s ass in the whole affair.

Tags Aristocracy, Art, England, Hot Messes, Jackassery, Statuary, Victorians

19th Century

Vinegar Valentines

Post author By Betz
Post date February 10, 2016

Have a drink with: Vinegar Valentines
You’re awful; I love you

Ask them about: Negging in the Victorian era

Is Valentine’s Day not for you? Are you sick to death of hearts and teddy bears? Can Starbucks shove its molten chocolate latte up its molten mermaid tail? Are you looking for something that more befits the holiday in our modern age, but maybe short of actually cheering for gangland murder?

Search no more, for here to the rescue is the heartless Internet troll of the 19th century: the insult comic valentine.

Tags Angry Mob, Comic Relief, Entrepreneurship, Holidays, New England, Slut-shaming, Trolling, Valentines, Victorians

19th Century

P.T. Barnum

Post author By Betz
Post date January 22, 2016

Have a drink with: P.T. Barnum
Ask him to bring Jumbo. That elephant could drink.

Ask him about: Picking your Powerball numbers

Last week I gave in to the siren song of Powerball and joined millions of other people in the giddy exercise of mentally spending the billion-plus dollars of my inevitable destiny (what would it cost for the local museum to let me ride the Brontosaurus skeleton, anyway?).

The unprecedented size of the recent jackpot may have created a real and novel sense of reward, but it doesn’t change the most fundamental truth about the lottery, which has remained unchanged over centuries: the real money isn’t in winning the lottery so much as it is in running it.

Tags Barnum, Circus, Connecticut, Gambling, Humbug!, Marketing, Victorians

19th Century

Victorian Cough Syrup

Post author By Betz
Post date December 7, 2015

Have a drink of: homemade 19th century cold medicine
Ask your doctor if it’s right for you!

Side effects may include: vomiting, euphoria, dysphoria, poetry, death.

Getting the sniffles now that winter is upon us? For a fun holiday project, make like it’s the Victorian era and mix up some DIY cough syrup, as directed by the January 1842 issue of the New-York Visitor and Lady’s Album (basically: antebellum Cosmo, with more engravings and fewer sex tips):

Three pops of this each day, and your cough will be gone in no time! Withdrawal symptoms may take a while.

Tags DIY, Doctor in the House?, Drugs, Victorians

19th Century 20th Century

Spirit Photographers

Post author By Betz
Post date October 28, 2015

Have a drink with: Spirit Photographers
Ray? When someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes.

Ask them about: Selfies with your dead relatives

In 1848, two sisters from Hydesville, New York spread word that they heard mysterious rapping noises on the walls and furniture of their home, and could speak with spirits through tapped code. An enthralled public declared the girls spirit mediums, and over the years household seances, lectures, even Spiritualist “churches” formed a movement – one that survived and grew even after one of the Fox sisters admitted that their spiritual “conversations” were total fluff, the noises no more than dropped apples and cracking their toes under the table.

Just in time for Halloween I’ve been reading David Jaher’s new book The Witch of Lime Street, a detailed romp through the spiritualist revival of the 1920’s, starring Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini and a real-life parade of mediums, journalists and hucksters. Jaher talks about the movement’s surge in the post-WWI years, due in no small part to the inescapable impact of war and influenza on the populations of the Western world. With so many suddenly dead from violence or virus, the grieving were understandably receptive to the idea that they might contact their friends and family in the hereafter. Would the spirits speak to you? Could they?

That’s all well and good, but Jaher ignores a more pressing question: would they hold still for a selfie?

Tags Barnum, Law Geekery, Photography, Roaring 20's, Spooks & Spirits, Victorians, Woo-woo