#1840’s

[yodawiththeblondehair]

Books I Love #2

So it’s been a while since I “started” this series and then left it for absolute abandon. However today we’re going to dust of these somewhat musty gloves and give this another go. Today I would love to talk about Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. This novel takes it’s space in the Horror genre, I usually don’t read Horror so my options might be skewed, but I really loved this book. The…

[yesterdaysprint]

The Handbook of the Man of Fashion, 1847

[lookingbackatfashionhistory]

• Waistcoats.

Date: 1840's

Medium: Silk and velvet

[forsapphics]

La Chute du Chat (1842)

Jean Alphonse Roehn (1799 - 1834)

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[heaveninawildflower]

Spitalfields brocade dress (American, circa 1840).

Silk brocade and silk satin with cotton lining.

Image and text information courtesy MFA Boston.

[dykeredhood]

My review of The Terror 1.01: Go For Broke

Senior management is the same everywhere, they’re idiots who don’t have a clue what’s going on

[daincrediblegg]

Sincliair Saturday

[verdraaidzaamheid]

I made an 1840's style flower costume and wore it to a Victorian fancy dress ball. The design is pretty much literally taken over from this fashion plate, although I omitted the flowery sleeves (because of poor time management) and the 'necklace' (because I don't like the look of it). I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I planned to make the undergarments months in advance, but struggled so much with the corded petticoat and the corset (still didn't get it quite right in the end, but you can't really tell under the dress), that I only had six weeks to make the dress. I finished it the night before the event, as one does.

If it looks a bit frumpy in these pictures: well, I had to squeeze this dress into a tiny car first and then did some dancing before taking pictures... Still won second best place in the 'best dressed' competition that night :D

[clove-pinks]

Sharing @l832's tags on Paul Gavarni's 1840s men because so true bestie: Gavarni was a master of the Slinky Man.

1842 fashion plate by Gavarni (Yale University Art Gallery)

[dimity-lawn]

In honor of Juneteenth, this post is dedicated to Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818-1907), activist and seamstress, an extraordinary figure who worked towards abolition and should be more well known.

Elizabeth “Lizzy” Hobbs was born in 1818, an illegitimate daughter of Agnes “Aggy” Hobbs, who taught her dressmaking skills, and Colonel Armistead Burwell, the man who held them as his slaves.

At the age of 14, she was separated from her mother when the Burwells sent her to work for their son, Reverend Robert Burwell, and his wife, Margaret. They and a neighbor beat her without reason, and eventually sent her to work for store owner Alexander McKenzie Kirkland, who would repeatedly assault her over the course of the next few years. As a result of one of Kirkland’s assaults, in 1839 she gave birth to a son, who she named George, after her assumed father who had been taken away in her childhood.

After the death of Armistead Burwell, she and her son were inherited by Hugh A. Garland, the husband of her white half sister, Ann, and returned to the family that owned them. In 1847, the Garlands took Agnes, Elizabeth, and George Hobbs with them when they moved to St. Louis, where Hugh Garland continued to practice law (including serving as John Sanford’s defense attorney. John Sanford was the man who held Dred Scott as a slave). During this time, she became an accomplished seamstress, and she Garlands became increasingly dependent on her as a major source of income.

In 1850, she met and developed a relationship with James Keckley, a free African American man, who she refused to marry until she and her son were free as well. Hugh Garland initially refused to free her and her son, but eventually agreed to do so for the price of $1,200. With an end to her and her son’s slavery in sight, in 1852 she agreed to marry James Keckley.

Over the next three years, her attempts at saving the required sum were repeatedly foiled by the Garlands, and eventually she needed to seek help from another wealthy family in St. Louis who were more sympathetic to her plight, and gave her a loan, thus allowing her to finally purchase freedom for herself and her son in 1855. The $1,200 dollars she spent would be worth around $43,320 today.

By 1860 she was able to repay the family who had given her a loan, and she separated from her husband due to his alcohol abuse, which she claimed turned him into “a burden instead of helpmate”. She then moved to Washington D.C., and began to establish herself as a prominent dressmaker for the elite women in the area, especially the wives of politicians.

By 1861, her reputation was such that she was recommended to soon-to-be First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary received the first dress on the morning of her husband’s inauguration. Upon seeing Mary in the dress, Abraham Lincoln (who did not find his wife attractive) said "You look charming in that dress. Mrs. Keckly has met with great success”. Elizabeth would serve as Mary’s personal dressmaker for the next four years, and the two women grew closer after they both lost a son.

Along with her work as a seamstress, Elizabeth also helped others seeking freedom in Washington D.C.. In doing so, she founded the Contraband Relief Association, which helped the many groups of people who had escaped their enslavers, and met many famous abolitionists, including Fredrick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, including later arranging a 1864 meeting between Sojourner Truth and Abraham Lincoln.

After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Elizabeth was an important source of comfort to Mary. However, in 1867, an unfortunate misunderstanding caused a rift in the friendship between the two women, and they fell out entirely in 1868, damaging Elizabeth’s and resulting in the loss of many clients. Despite this, she continued to work as a dressmaker until 1892, when she became the head of a department dedicated to the “Sewing and Domestic Science Arts” at a university in Ohio. Unfortunately, a year later she was forced to resign after suffering from a stroke, and spent the rest of her days at a foundation that helped destitute African American women and children which she had helped to found years earlier.

[horses-in-art-history]

Johan Thomas Lundbye, En hest strigles, 1846, Statens Museum for Kunst, open.smk.dk, public domain.

Johan Thomas Lundbye, En gråskimlet hest strigles i Via Margutta, 1845, Statens Museum for Kunst, open.smk.dk, public domain.

(Picture source for En hest strigles and En gråskimlet hest strigles i Via Margutta)

[pretty-little-fools]

[forsapphics]

The Armed Maiden (1840)

by Friedrich von Amerling

[dolls-self-ships]

contemplating how I draw my rankin bass’s

[amandacanwrite]

Little Witch ☽ The Hallowed Wilds ☾ Chapter One

POV ;; Aurelia ☽ 10 y.o.

Summary ;; Aurelia enjoys the typical day of a young witch protected by the Hallowed Wilds, drawn to the border of the forest where she meets an unexpected friend.

Warnings ;; mention of moths, other insects.

Author Note ;; Hello there! This is the first chapter of my original story called The Hallowed Wilds. It's a star-crossed romance infused with southern gothic horror elements. I'll be posting one chapter per week going forward. I already have 27 chapters written, and I'm hoping by the time I'm running out of chapters I'll be back to writing it again and nearly finished drafting it in totality. If you're interested in joining the taglist for this story, you can find the link for the sign up all the way at the bottom of the post. Last thing: I am someone who doesn't get triggered by much, but it's very important to me that anyone who reads my work doesn't become inadvertently triggered because of my writing. While these early chapters are quite light, this story does get dark at times. If you ever notice something I should have issued a content or trigger warning for, please reach out to me so that I can properly apologize to you and add the warning to the list. That all said, let's hop in!!

The wilds spoke to those that could hear it. Those whose ears were kissed by mother Eterna before their bodies took shape in the womb. She didn’t kiss just any soul, though. No, there was a payment to be exchanged and worth to be proven.

The Priestess had taught this to me since I could remember. This is how my coven lived. We served Mother Eterna, and in exchange, The Hallowed Wilds protected us.

Every day for the ten years I’d lived, I woke up, thanked Eterna for another day and set to work. The work was unique each day because The Priestess encouraged us all to listen to where The Wilds told us to go, for The Wilds had a will of its own and a plan for us.

On this day, The Wilds coaxed me to the River of Rye that separated our home from the village where the Deafened lived. I had no inkling what I would do when I got there, but I was certain that my task would become clear once I arrived, or maybe even somewhere along the way. That’s how it always worked. It was just my job to be quiet and listen for a whisper or wait for a gentle tug.

I dressed for the day in linen as white as starlight, and brushed through my hair with a comb carved from a deer’s antler, given freely by the stag for our needs, as all things were for us in the forest. I slipped on a light cloak made of moth’s silk and made my way out into the day.

“Aurelia, merry meet,” one of my sisters said to me.

I smiled as I passed her, turning to walk backwards so that I could see her as I made my way into the forests. The earth tingled against the soles of my bare feet, bringing with it a feeling of familiar comfort.

“Good morning, Cressida,” I said.

She was preparing more moth cocoons for spinning, it seemed. I wondered if her fingers tingled when she woke this morning, the way mine once had when I learned I was unsuited for the delicate work. “I’m excited to see what you do with the new silk sister.”

“And I’m eager to hear stories of your adventures when you return today,” she called back as disappeared into the trees, leaving the clearing and the rest of the coven behind.

I couldn’t see the River of Rye from where I stood, but I felt a golden thread tug me ever toward it. That thread reeled me in from the center of my chest. It wasn’t far from the clearing—maybe two or three miles—I could run the entire way if I wanted to.

I decided I did want to, in fact.

Somehow, the air in our ever-unchanging forest was different today. It sparkled and fizzled in an unfamiliar way. The sun shone through the boughs of the trees and cast new colors on the ground; rose and orange where there were typically shades of yellow and green. I set into a sprint, my hair flying behind me like the mane of a spirited mare.

Those new colors streaked together as I ran, turning into smears and smudges that hinted at shapes. It reminded me of Ophelia painting our huts with her beautiful, messy fingers—how the pigments came together to form images of flowers and the moon and the night sky.

This was my home, and I loved it as much as it loved me. I cradled it in my heart, as it had always cradled me. It was an even, happy exchange of energy between us—always given freely. Always.

My feet were wet and dirty when I finally made it to the River of Rye. Squirrels and bugs dances around my ankles, having joined me on my journey somewhere along the way. I stopped just at the opening into the wide-open space of that golden river and looked out at the village where The Deafened lived.

Winter had covered their roofs in thick blankets of snow. The world was so quiet with it — the sheets of ice absorbing most sounds that came from the village.

After a lifetime of spring, I wondered what the winter felt like. The Priestess said it was bitterly cold and brought death on its breath that choked the life out of the earth, but as I stared across the expanse of golden swaying rye, I wondered if there was more to it than that.

Surely a season that looked so beautiful and serene couldn’t be so awful. And with the winter brought times of generosity, even in The Wilds. We gave gifts at solstice and spread blessings even to the Deafened in exchange for the strange tools they would leave at the edge of the forest for us.

I wanted to touch that ice that fell in flurries from the sky, leave my hand print in it, and watch as more flurries filled in that imprint. The way snow erased any evidence that someone had passed through was fascinating to me. Tracks could be left in the mud of the forests—sometimes they would be there so long they would be preserved in stone. Snow was different—ever changing, ever making something new.

I thought perhaps that was my task today—experiencing the snow. But I didn’t feel the tug of that thread through the center of my heart as I stood there thinking about snow. No, it seemed I had made it to my destination for the day.

There was a strange cleaving—I couldn’t decide if I heard it or if I felt it. But with that cleaving came a powerful gust of wind that swirled my hair and bit at my nose and cheeks like needles. I’d never felt cold like that before. It stung and I could feel blood riding to my face to compensate for it.

I winced and backed away from the tree line, gently warming my face with my hands. That golden thread pulled me again, this time to the west.

I walked for a time, following the flow of the golden river, stepping over stones and twigs. My feet were silent as sleep as I walked. The Wilds told me to sneak—told me to hide. I wondered what manner of beast or creature I would encounter. I wondered what I would need to do. Wondered if I’d need to help them.

And then he was there, just beyond the massive trunk of an old oak tree.

I hid behind that tree as he spun slowly in place, staring up at the tree canopies that cast the ground in dappled light.

I had never seen a boy before.

I knew I should run away and tell The Priestess. She always told us that the Deafened were dangerous, especially the boys. But…

But he looked so enamored with The Wilds.

It filled me with a strange vicarious happiness to see him take in the forest—see the entrance to what I called my home. An unbidden smile curved my lips as he heaved an awed breath.

With his back to me, he took off his heavy coat with all those tedious buttons, and then took off his scarf. The Wilds were in a perpetual state of spring thanks to Mother Eterna, whose fertility never ebbed. The boy dressed for his village’s winter and must have gotten warm in the vernal heat of the forest.

He wore a billed cap on his head and hair the color of damp tree bark poked out at interesting angles. Flipping at the bill, dusting his nape and his ears. It looked so soft—like a rabbit’s fur or a squirrel’s tail. I wanted to touch it.

That desire drew me out of my hiding place, that golden thread tugging me closer, reeling me in and in and in. I could almost see it glittering in that small distance between us. I took a step toward him, then another, reaching out for him.

And then he turned and saw me.

We froze at the same time.

We were silent for a long time while our eyes devoured unfamiliar sights on each other. I traced constellations in the smattering of freckles on his tanned nose. His blue eyes flicked to my white hair, to my eyes and then to my linen dress. He flushed scarlet and looked pointedly away, seemingly put off or embarrassed by something.

When he broke his gaze he also broke the spell holding me there. After feeling frozen, I remembered who I was and what I was doing.

I turned and ran.

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