Edwardian Promenade

The Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition

Sandrine Thomas — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:00:52 +0000

A major development of the nineteenth century was the emergence of world’s fairs, all of which served to entertain visitors and impress them with the technological and cultural advances of Western nations and their colonies which increased exponentially–and dazzlingly–after the 1851 Great Exhibition hosted by England under the auspices of the Prince Consort. By the [...]

Cocotte of the Week: Sissieretta Jones

Sandrine Thomas — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:00:06 +0000

Opera singers were the world’s first pop stars, and the nineteenth century saw the apex of diva and divo worship, with hundreds of thousands left spellbound by the heavenly voices of Jenny Lind, Nelli Melba, Enrico Caruso, and Jean de Rezke, to name a few stars. Since this was before radio, and definitely before television [...]

Edmonia Lewis’s “Death of Cleopatra”

Sandrine Thomas — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:00:08 +0000

Critical Response: Miss Lewis is by no means a prodigy; she has great natural genius, originality, earnestness, and a simple, genuine taste. Her works are as yet those of a girl. She has read Evangeline, and some others of Longfellow’s poems, and has caught from them a girlish sentimentality, but has rather improved upon her author’s [...]

Lifting As We Climb: the Women’s Club Movement

Sandrine Thomas — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:00:23 +0000

In the late nineteenth century, feminism, suffrage, political action, self-culture and self-help devolved in the women’s club movement, which enjoyed a heyday from the 1890s through the 1920s. Though this movement transformed the lives of upper- and middle-class women of all ethnicities, it made a particular impact on African-American women. The club movement grew out of [...]

Cocotte of the Week: Belle da Costa Greene

Sandrine Thomas — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:00:57 +0000

Belle da Costa Greene summed up her individuality and allure in one phrase: “Just because I am a librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.” The library profession was in its infancy, but this attractive and vivacious woman happened to be the curator of a library owned by one of the world’s most [...]

A Matter of Speaking

Evangeline Holland — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:00:05 +0000

No other two languages are as unalike as the English spoken by Americans and Britons, and countless sociological tomes and travel guides of the Edwardian period devoted a considerable number of pages detailing the differences. Not only did vocabulary vary, but the spelling, and most acutely, pronunciation of words immediately marked one as quintessentially English [...]

Everyday Life in a Boys’ Public School: Winchester

Evangeline Holland — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:00:12 +0000

Among other pithy observations made by the Duke of Wellington, the most famous is the apocryphal boast that “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” Wellington attended the boys’ school during the late 18th century, and indeed, many of Britain’s most famous, most erudite, and most influential gentlemen passed through [...]

Smoking Etiquette

Evangeline Holland — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:55:45 +0000

Smoking in the nineteenth century underwent many amusing changes, per the advice of etiquette books. Where once guides to modern behavior stressed how vulgar it was to smoke, when ladies took up the habit, it behooved these arbiters of social instruction to catch up with the times. From 1844’s Hints on etiquette and the usages of [...]

The Season: Winter

Evangeline Holland — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:00:56 +0000

For much of the nineteenth century, it was customary for Society to spend the winter months in warmer climes such as the Riviera, where the capricious weather of England or Russia was forgotten amongst the charms of sun, warmth and gambling. Some time during the mid-1890s, as the craze for outdoor sports gripped English and [...]

Dining and Dinners

Evangeline Holland — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:00:29 +0000

Nothing preoccupied the mind of an Edwardian hostess so much as planning a dinner party. From matters of food and drink, to table service, to the guest list and matters of precedence, every detail was of the utmost importance, and a dinner of tepid or cold food, of dull guests, and of the seating arrangements [...]