The air is the only element which remains to man to conquer for his own use and enjoyment. Consequently air ships are in the air, both in conversation and in fact; ballooning is the newest sport of the smart, balloon parties are the latest social departure, and membership of the Aero Club is sought alike by chic woman and scientific man. Balloons of great tourist tonnage are being devised. M. Santos Dumont meditates an air-ship on the lines of an Atlantic steamer, warranted to waft its passengers from Havre to New York within two days.

Meanwhi1e, the Aero Club, of 119, Piccadilly, exists to encourage ballooning in all its branches, from scientific war-waging aerial machines down to delightful balloon trips for members and their guests, starting from picturesque Ranelagh, or the inaccessible Crystal Palace. Ladies are chivalrously admitted to all the privileges of the Aero Club, save the use of the Club house, which forms part of the Automobile Club premises at 119, Piccadilly. Rumour hath it that the Aeroists themselves would not deprive their soaring sisters of the privilege of their Club house were it not for the well-known monastic tendencies of the Automobile Club, which relegate the woman motorist to some sort of Car Cloisters, and deny her entrance Piccadilly, either mobilist.

Few women have so far developed a taste for sky-sailing. But all who take a trial trip in the clouds become confirmed “balloonatics,” for there is no other sensation at all like it. No other pursuit or sport is quite so delightful as floating sky-high in a new atmosphere, discovering all sorts of lovely new scenery and cloud effects, and gazing down with a sense of superiority on the fussy small world below, which looks like a pitiful little Noah’s Ark farmyard set out for the amusement of grown-up Liliputians.

The main objects of the Aero Club are to encourage all branches of aeronautics, and to organise cloud excursions for the benefit of members who care to take part in these fascinating trips. The Club at present owns a membership of nearly three hundred, has an aerial stud of three balloons, and intends to largely increase its sailing stable as its list of members grows. All congresses, races, contests, and exhibitions of aeronautic subjects and machines are held under its auspices; the Club also acquires grounds from which ascents may be made, and arranges for all the paraphernalia needed to inflate balloons with hydrogen gas, etc. Doubtless all sorts of delightful aerial tournaments will be held under its aegis within the next few years.

A picturesque feature of this Club consists in the training of carrier pigeons to act as messengers between the clouds and the earth. In wartime such ballooning pigeons would serve a very useful purpose in carrying cipher messages to beleaguered towns and far-off troops. Indeed, ballooning, with its hundred sporting and pleasurable possibilities, is only in its tender infancy. And perhaps this is why it is so interesting, for who does not enjoy conquering a totally new world in this blase twentieth century, whose boast is that everything is played out?

Ballooning, anyway, is not blast nor played out. It is fresh and young and fascinating; and the writer recommends it from personal experience as an ideal and alluring pastime.

The Hon. Lady Shelley is a member of the Aero Club, and is ardently interested in ballooning. She is a daughter of Lord Llangattock, and sister of the famous motor racer, the Hon. C. S. Rolls, and is herself a keen motorist. Mrs. Templer, another lady aeroist, is particularly interested in military ballooning. Her husband, Lieutenant-Colonel Templer, has for many years commanded the War Office Balloon Factory, and has had most thrilling adventures in the air in India and many other parts of the world. He took charge of the balloon manoeuvres during the South African War, and the adoption ot military ballooning and the progress made in this direction in the British Army is entirely due to Colonel Templer.

If you want to go a-sailing heavenwards, the first step is to find your balloon—not always an easy matter. There is only one private balloon-owner in the United Kingdom, Mr. Leslie Bucknall, the ardent aeronaut, who keeps balloons as other men keep hunters. Vivienne I. has gone to the St. Louis Exhibition, and Vivienne III. is just brand-new, and has only lately taken her maiden trip. Mr. Bucknall baptizes his balloons after his pretty little daughter Vivienne, who delights in ballooning, but so far has only been allowed to take her flight in a “captive.”

If you belong to the Aero Club you may buy the pleasure of a prolonged balloon sail for the very small sum of two guineas, ascending at your “own risk,” and with no claim on the Club for any personal damage or injury resulting from the excursion. Of course, the possibility of accident is slight, but this is a necessary self-protective clause for the Club.

– The Lady’s Realm (1904)

Millionaires of the Gilded Age looked to Europeans–or more specifically, the British–for cues on how to recreate the leisured life in America, copying them from the construction of country estates, to golf clubs, to social seasons, all the way down to the bottom of this lifestyle: domestic servants. Yet, save indentured servitude and slavery, American culture was built on the premise that there was no servant class. Perhaps one reason why Americans invented and/or took to labor-saving devices with alacrity can be traced to the difficulty of hiring and retaining large numbers of domestic servants: a banker’s wife in Chicago could not expect to find cheap and willing labor like a banker’s wife in London, so electric lights, central heating, vacuum cleaners, and up-to-date bathrooms were a must. However, immigration from the Old World provided a steady, if not completely reliable stream of would-be servants, and as testament to America’s geographical individuality, servant culture was not uniform or standard across the nation.

The first note of Americanism into the equation was the near absence of the word “servant”. Over the course of the late nineteenth century, advice columns and etiquette books wrangled over how to address the people who helped with the smooth running of one’s household, from “help” or “hand” to “staff”, to referring to a lady’s maid as “semptress” and a footman as “waiter”. William Randolph Hearst preferred to call his own maids, butler, chauffeur, etc his “staff” or “employees,” but ironically, the word “servant” was reintroduced into the homes of the wealthiest Americans by both their aggressive aping of English habits and the immigrants they employed (who were accustomed to being referred to as servants). These people, the very social elite, with their mansions in New York, their cottages in Newport, their 200 ft yachts, their country estates on Long Island or along the Hudson River, their camps in the Adirondacks, and their winter homes at Tuxedo Park or in the Berkshires, took the staffing of their residences to another level.

To facilitate the nouveau riche into their new setting, Mary Elizabeth Carter, a former housekeeper to the elite, published Millionaire Households and Their Domestic Economy, where she stressed:

The loud and prolonged outcry against servants as a class unquestionably is due to inefficiency of the average mistress, past and present, quite as much as to servants’ lack of training. The latter is an outcome of the former, because the ranks of housekeepers are constantly being augmented by women and girls untaught and inexperienced in the management of well-ordered homes. They know neither how to do nor how to direct the work of their houses, and are, in consequence, ignorant of what should be required as a fair day’s service from each servant.

To tackle the thorny issue of the “Servant Question”, American housewives found two solutions: improve the conditions of their servants, and lighten the burden of work. Servants quarters in an American mansion were generous and attractive, and unlike in English households, were furnished with new furniture and linens (perhaps not the exquisite items owned by the lady of the house, but new and comfortable, nonetheless). New homes, such as Clarence Mackay’s Harbor Hill on Long Island, were planned with the housing of the staff in mind.

The Mackays employed twenty-five indoor staff, and many more outdoor staff, who were housed in their own wing of bedrooms, upper servants’ and lower servants’ dining halls, a butler’s den, a housekeeper’s room, and a laundry room and sewing room set aside for their personal use. The construction of the American country house also lightened the workload for the staff, and the typical English country house feature of separate rooms for separate work was abolished (placing greater emphasis on the kitchen), as well as the long corridors separating the kitchen from the dining room (as the English abhorred the smell of cooking emanating from the kitchen).

Truly easing the life of household and staff were electrical appliances. The English were slow to adopt labor-saving apparatuses until the servant shortages and high wages of post-WWI, but Americans were–the words of Clarence Cook–a nation “in love with machines and contrivance.” Gas ranges eliminated the arduous and dirty work of laying a fire in the old coal-burning ranges, as well as the expense of coal, and they didn’t have to be lit all day. Then, with electricity came the toaster, the vacuum cleaner, the coffee percolator, and the electric fan, all of which–including the telephone–were considered the “New Answer to the Servant Problem”.

The other issue plaguing upper class Americans was whom to hire. American racial prejudices and the differing waves of immigration played a part in just who you might find working in the kitchens of a city mansion or country estate. In the South, the long history of slavery held firm in the ethnic make-up of domestic staff, though the migration of Northerners to vacation spots in Florida or Georgia or to Washington D.C., and the negative race relations, influenced the decline in African-American upper servants. In the North, Irish immigrants made up the majority of domestic staff in cities like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, but they were considered “dirty” and “lazy”, and many mistresses didn’t bother learning their names, instead calling all Irish housemaids “Bridgets” or “Biddys”.

German servants were common in Mid-West cities like Chicago and Denver, though an article in the New York Times characterized them as “admirable, clean, obliging, and wonderfully hard working, but they lack the finish of good English servants.” In the West, particularly in coastal cities like San Francisco, Sacramento, and Seattle, Chinese servants were common, though their lives bore a similarity to African-American servants in the South. Other ethnic groups involved in domestic service were Norwegians, Poles, Italians, and Swedes, with the latter being considered at the top of the totem pole, so to speak, due to the commonly held assumptions about their cleanliness, cheerfulness, and hardiness.

Despite the racial coding of domestic service, the downstairs segment of the household were better treated, better paid, and better housed than their British and European counterparts, the precepts of the “American Dream” urged the servants into greater mobility than just life in service, and the unique situation caused by immigration to the New World gave each ethnic group a sense of identity outside the bounds of class or occupation. The wealthy in America could imitate the Old World in leisure activities, society, fashion, and housing, but up to a point, and after that point the notion that “all men are created equal” held fast.

Further Reading:
The American Country House by Clive Aslet
I Go to America: Swedish American Women and the Life of Mina Anderson by Joy K. Lintelman
Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House by Richard Guy Wilson
Biltmore Insider’s Tour
Servants in Gilded Age Newport
Chinese Servants in the North American West
Servants’ Room Virtual Tour – Flagler Museum
Hearst Castle
The Gilded Age Billionaires
Servants in Glessner House
Pittock Mansion
Nemours Mansion and Gardens

When Sissieretta Jones: “The Greatest Singer of Her Race,” 1868-1933, is published May 15 by the University of South Carolina Press, it will be the culmination of a nine-year effort to bring this outstanding African American soprano the historical recognition she deserves. I began this project in 2003 after seeing a photograph of Sissieretta, who grew up and lived in my home state of Rhode Island. I was fascinated by her accomplishments, particularly in light of the many obstacles she faced because of her race. I’ve heard some biographers say that their subjects chose them and this describes my experience after seeing Sissieretta and learning more about her.

Few people today know about Sissieretta Jones, yet she was one of the first African American female vocalists to sing at Carnegie Hall and she performed at Madison Square Garden, London’s Covent Garden, and the White House. The first part of her career, 1888-1896, she sang opera selections, concert ballads, and European art songs on the concert stage. She was called “Black Patti,” a comparison to the famous European opera star Adelina Patti. She toured some in the West Indies, parts of South America, and Europe, and extensively throughout the United States and Canada.

The second half of her career, 1896-1914, she was the star of an all-black musical comedy company called the Black Patti Troubadours and later the Black Patti Musical Comedy Company. This company, owned and managed by two white men, provided her the opportunity to continue singing operatic arias and serious music when there were fewer concert opportunities available to her. The troupe entertained in hundreds of American and Canadian opera houses and theaters. The company, which toured by private railcar, performed in almost every one of the lower 48 states and was particularly popular in the South and Southwest. Sissieretta’s company provided a training ground for many African Americans to break into the entertainment field and some became famous in their own right.

Matilda Sissieretta Joyner was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1868, just three years after the end of the Civil War. Both her parents were former slaves. In 1876, her family had an opportunity to move north to Providence, Rhode Island. She got her start singing in Providence churches. She received vocal training in Providence and later in Boston and New York. At the age of fifteen, she married David Richard Jones. Her first big break came in 1888 when she was hired as the star of an African American troupe that toured throughout the West Indies. Throughout her 28-year career Sissieretta lived in Providence when she was not on the road entertaining. She retired there in 1915 and lived in Providence until her death in 1933.

Sissieretta, often billed as the “greatest singer of her race,” was the pride of African Americans during her day. She was highly successful, well-paid, and greatly admired for her work. Her concert performances were well attended by both black and white audiences. Her beautiful voice, singing operatic arias rather than minstrel songs, gave white audiences a new appreciation for the talent and potential of African American vocalists. She helped to pave the way for other African American opera divas who would follow her such as Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price and Marion Anderson. She deserves to be remembered as one of the first African American entertainment superstars.

My new biography, Sissieretta Jones: “The Greatest Singer of Her Race,” 1868-1933, (ISBN 978-1-61117-072-6, $39.95) will be available May 15 from the University of South Carolina Press, (www.uscpress.com) and Amazon. I will have signed copies available for purchase through my website, www.sissierettajones.com, or you can order the book from your favorite local bookstore. Like the official Facebook page.

Origins of the Cancan

Well, this was probably an obvious post. LOL! But yes, as a former dancer I eventually was going to have to talk about dancing. The cancan is a very high energy dance. Seriously, if you think you are in good cardio shape take a run at it and you will quickly learn otherwise. I certainly did!

The dance consists of much skirt waving, high kicks, and screaming. Lots of screaming. You can see the current troupe of dancers from the Moulin Rouge doing a version on TV here.

“…traditionally performed by a chorus line of female dancers who wear costumes with long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings.”

-Wikipedia

The cancan derived from a dance called the Galop, often done as the last part of the Quadrille, was popular in the Paris common dance halls. The cancan was considered vulgar because of the lack of control and (oh my!) it left the women out of breath. The dance evolved from a casual haphazard movement to a ritualized dance that was choreographed to a specific score of music.

The dance halls were places that held events more like a public dance than a review with a stage. It was in the early 1900’s that the hall turned into more of a theater style performance. You may notice I set more of a stage like scene in the book in order to create the interaction between the hero and heroine.

The cancan, as performed to Jacques Offenbach’s score was eventually choreographed and performed all over France. It is described as

“A boisterous rhythm, balance, flexibility, on the verge of acrobacy…”

-MoulinRouge.fr

One pervasive myth, is that the dance was performed with no underwear. This can be attributed to the fact that in the early 1800’s when the dance was still appearing in the dance halls, women only wore two tubes of material as undergarments. After the 1850’s with the advent of crinolines and hoop skirts, drawers became a standard undergarment and were worn by the dancers of The Moulin rouge.

Another true story is one that describes the dancers as staging a bet with male patrons. They would bet that they could knock their hats off without using their hands and then proceed to knock it off with a quick high kick. Needless to say this also served as a pointed display to discourage the men from touching the girls.

In the end the dance fell out of favor until it was revived in the late 1960’s. Since then it has continued to be performed as part of a review style show at the Moulin Rouge and many, many other shows.

So, have you ever seen the cancan performed? Ever danced it yourself?

Thanks for stopping by to celebrate with me and remember to comment on each post during the blog tour for more chances to win! (Not sure what I’m talking about? Click here.)

Post Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can-can

http://lesfollesjambettes.webs.com/historyofthecancan.htm

http://www.moulinrouge.fr/index_gb.php#/histoire/

The Cancan Dancer and The Duke

Can a lady on the lam and a duke on the make find love at the Moulin Rouge?

Cathedrals and museums are not Lady Charise Colton’s idea of European adventure. Turn-of-the-century Paris beckons, and she wants to grab it while she can…or rather, cancan. Flirting with fate and half of Paris, Charise eludes her chaperones and joins the cancan revue at the Moulin Rouge.

Ethan Greer, Duke of Lofton, is in Paris to settle some estate business. Chafing under his responsibilities, he discovers an enchanting distraction at the Moulin Rouge, a flirtatious dancer who stirs his lust and something more. He must have her—even if it means offering carte blanche.

Terrified of discovery, Charise tries to hold her persistent suitor at bay, though her heart has already surrendered. Will she lose him if he learns the truth, or is love enough to bind the cancan dancer and the duke?

Excerpt:

The singular sound was a soft whisper at first. The audience strained forward to catch even a note of the eerie melody carried on the fetid air of the cafe. As the song picked up, her voice grew stronger, the words more clear. Ethan relaxed into his seat and let the warm rich alto caress him. His body grew warm with the promises carried by the witch’s husky tones.

He remained unaware of anything in the room except the siren walking toward him. Each steady, unhurried step she took further drew him in. His gaze feasted on the curve of her hip, the swell of her breast. Ethan rode the knife’s edge between lust and propriety.

The song described, in lurid detail, two lovers in the throes of passion. Upon reaching him, the dancer propped the toe of her boot onto the edge of his seat—square between his thighs. The luscious creature presented impossibly sheer bloomers which hid everything and yet nothing, causing him to let out the breath he, until now, unknowingly held. His cock grew rigid, the uncomfortable throbbing causing him to shift. The desire to haul her into his arms and demonstrate every action she described with the most sensuous mouth he’d ever seen rode him hard. Her full lower lip begged for his kiss. Ethan wanted to see it slick and glowing pink from his attentions.

The wanton dancer continued to taunt him, but his good breeding won out. Forcing himself to stay seated, his fists balled and his jaw grew rigid with frustration, but his raging lusts remained leashed. The song ended, sending her into the nether regions of the cafe in a swirl of skirts.

Purchase from The Wild Rose Press

Add it to your shelf at: GoodReads

Find Dara Young on her Website, like her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter! Dara also runs the San Diego branch of the popular romance reading salon, Lady Jane’s.

I am giving away three copies of The Cancan Dancer and the Duke. Leave a comment below with a link to your favorite cancan dance video on YouTube!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

According to the Daily Mail, 178 plate-glass negatives were found inside a size-nine Peter Lord shoebox by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) in Edinburgh.

They are said to have been taken in the country at the time of the British Raj and it is thought the negatives were untouched for almost 100 years.

Archivists at RCAHMS have already confirmed that some of the images were definitely taken in 1912, when King George V and Queen Mary visited Calcutta. It was the only visit by a British monarch to India as Emperor of the subcontinent.

See more photographs of Calcutta/Kolkata circa 1911-12 here. All 178 negatives have been digitized and can be found on the RCAHMS website!

Raj in a Shoe Box – The Indian Express
Stunning cache of British-era Calcutta scenes found – The Hindu

Our British brethren are great sticklers for ancient usage so far as spelling is concerned. Booksellers, publishing books for sale on both sides of the water, find it necessary to use the English orthography, if they wish to capture British trade. Yet the same people who insist that “honour” must be spelled with a “u,” think it strange that we should prefer such Shakespearian words as “apothecary” and “lawyer,” to “chemist” and “barrister,” o illogical is human nature! It should be noted that “baggage” is also to be found in Shakespeare. Hence we Americans have good authority for its use, even though the English always say “luggage.”

Among the Briticisms which Mr. White mentions are the following:

“As well” used, in the sense of “all the same.” “Her aged lover made her presents, but just as well she hated him.”

“Awful” for “very.” I had always supposed that our countrymen were responsible for this misuse of the words “awful” and “awfully,” but Mr. White says that we are not.

He “commenced” poetry, or he “commenced” school, for he “began to write” poetry, or “began” to study. This form of expression is certainly very slipshod.

“Directly” used in the sense of “when,” “as soon as.” “Directly Mr. Parnell rose to his feet, the cries of the opposition began.”

“Stop” for “stay.” As Mr. White says, to stop is to arrest motion, to stay is to remain where motion is arrested. Hence it is better to say, “I stayed at a hotel,” than to adopt the English phrase, “I stopped at a hotel.”

“Ill” for “sick” is another Briticism. The English confine the use of the latter to seasickness and its equivalents. Yet the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church speaks of the “visitation of the sick,” and the Bible uses the word in the same general sense.

English people employ the word “nasty” much more commonly than Americans, who find it unpleasant.

With regard to the use of “bid” and “bidden” for invite and invited, it can at least be said that this is a return to the old use of the words. Bidden has a rather quaint and pretty sound, and is less offensive to our ears than some of the other words used by Anglophiles.

– A-B-C of Correct Speech and the Art of Conversation (1916)

Ty.phoo Tea and McVitie’s Digestives from World Market

Courtesy of Ye Olde Fashion Tumblr via the Victoria & Albert Museum

Everywhere in these days one hears the same story. The American woman in her home, whether in city or country, is becoming as dependent upon the telephone as her husband in his store or office. She orders the family dinner by telephone, upbraids her dressmaker by telephone and electioneers by telephone for the presidency of her club. If she happens to live in one of the houses equipped with the latest pattern of telephone apparatus she gives her orders to the cook in the kitchen without leaving her chair in the sitting-room, for the telephone has taken the place of the speaking-tube in the up-to-date city residence. No habit grows by what it feeds on more rapidly than the telephone habit.

Things have come to such a pass that an elaborate code of telephone etiquette has come into being. A first rule has been formulated to the effect that messages shall be sent only to social equals. It is a breach of good telephone form for Mrs. A to ask her servant to call up Mrs. B; and Mrs. B, if snubbed in that way, would be quite satisfied in cutting Mrs. A’s acquaintance. Of course, it is possible for Mrs. A to send her message by means of a servant, but in order not to give offence it is necessary that Mrs. A’s servant repeat Mrs. A’s message to Mrs. B’s servant and that Mrs. B’s servant take the message to Mrs. B.

When, however, Mrs. A calls for Mrs. B it is to be expected that a servant may respond. In that case it is perfectly proper for Mrs. A to give the servant a message for Mrs. B, but care must be observed if, for instance, an invitation to drive or to dinner is being extended, that it be expressed in language as carefully chosen as any that a gentlewoman would use in a written note. In general, Mrs. B, if she is at all punctilious, will prefer to go to the telephone and to accept or decline the invitation personally. If she permits the servant to make the reply it is incumbent upon her to have the message worded with a formality equal to that used by Mrs. A.

“The Telephone in Home Life” – New Era Illustrated Magazine (1904)

I’ve been in possession of the original copy for about five years, and I’ve loved it ever since my first read. It really is, as a reporter for the Kansas City Star gushed in an interview with one of the co-authors, Carol McD. Wallace, “like a 400-page history class”. Needless to say, I certainly did not expect secondhand copies to match the price of a college-level history course when Julian Fellowes told the New York Times it was a direct inspiration for Downton Abbey. Since overpriced secondhand books are my particular bête noire, I was very pleased to discover that this amazing book was being reissued twenty-three years after its initial publication–and better yet, it was also being released e-book format!

You can tell how much I highly, highly recommend this book by the fact that I now own the original copy, the new copy, and an e-book copy. Both print versions are identical inside the cover, so no worries over omissions, edits, or changes, and I can honestly say that the e-book version (at least the epub version, since I own a Sony PRS-700) manages to retain every bit of text and every image in the print book. Since I can’t think of anything more to say besides incoherent gushing over the masses of information, the great photographs and illustrations, and the now-accessible bibliography (thanks to Google Books), go off and buy!

Amazon Print and Kindle, Kobo, B&N Nook and Print, and Sony Ebook.