Debuting on CBC and CBC Gem on Monday, February 21 at 9 p.m. (9:30 NT)

Inspired by real events and set in the roar of the 1920s, THE PORTER (8×60) follows the journeys of an ensemble of characters who hustle, dream, cross borders and pursue their ambitions in the fight for liberation – on and off the railways that crossed North America.

It is a gripping story of empowerment and idealism that highlights the moment when railway workers from both Canada and the United States joined together to give birth to the world’s first Black union. Set primarily in Montreal, Chicago and Detroit as the world rebuilds after the First World War, THE PORTER depicts the Black community in St. Antoine, Montreal – known, at the time, as the “Harlem of the North.”

They’re young, gifted and Black, from Canada, the Caribbean, and the U.S. via the Underground Railroad and through the Great Migration, and they find themselves thrown together north and south of the colour line, in an era that boasts anything is possible – but if change isn’t coming for them, they will come for it. By any means necessary.

A CBC and BET+ original series produced by Winnipeg-based Inferno Pictures and Sienna Films (a Sphere Media company), THE PORTER is originated and created by Arnold Pinnock (Altered Carbon, Travelers) and Bruce Ramsay (19-2, Cardinal), with Annmarie Morais (Killjoys, Ransom, American Soul), Marsha Greene (Ten Days In The Valley, Mary Kills People) and Aubrey Nealon (Snowpiercer, Cardinal), and produced by Winnipeg-based Inferno Pictures Inc. and Sphere Media’s Sienna Films. Morais and Greene are showrunners and executive producers. Charles Officer (Akilla’s Escape, Coroner) and R.T. Thorne (Blindspot, Utopia Falls) will direct the series, and are executive producers. Pinnock also serves as an executive producer, and Ramsay a co-executive producer. Jennifer Kawaja serves as Executive Producer for Sienna Films and Ian Dimerman as Executive Producer for Inferno Pictures. The series is written by Morais, Greene, Andrew Burrows-Trotman, Priscilla White, Pinnock and Ramsay, with Thorne participating in the writers’ room.

https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/the-porter

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Julian Fellowes’s new period drama, The Gilded Age, premieres on HBO/HBO Max on January 24, 2022.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve revisted the works of Edith Wharton. I stumbled upon a copy of The House of Mirth at 18 and was hooked–I reread it once a year for the next ten years. Later, The Custom of the Country battled for the title of my favorite Wharton novel, with The Glimpses of the Moon and her short story Roman Fever not far behind.

The Age of Innocence, oddly enough, has never been a favorite. Perhaps the edge of Wharton’s pen in her retrospective novel was too biting for me. Or, I just couldn’t seem to sympathize with Newland Archer. Nevertheless, this Pulitzer Prize winning novel set the tone for how we think of Gilded Age New York, especially the period on the precipice of the passing of the old Knickerbocker set and the emergence of the gaudy, ostentatious era of Newport cottages and monkey dinners. Julian Fellowes undoubtedly took his cue from this novel and others of Wharton’s (and her friend and sometimes rival, Henry James) in the development of his new series.

Join me here for a readathon of The Age of Innocence, and sign up for my newsletter for the history behind the novel. Read along with me if you’d like!

Schedule
Week 1 (Jan 3) – Chapters 1-9
Week 2 (Jan 10) – Chapters 10-19
Week 3 (Jan 17) – Chapters 20-29
Week 4 (Jan 24) – Chapters 30-34

The post Gilded Age Literature: Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence Readathon appeared first on Edwardian Promenade.

What Is It About?

At long last, Julian Fellowes’s original period drama set during the Gilded Age will premiere on HBO, January 24, 2022. The Gilded Age is set in 1882, against the backdrop of New York City’s transformation into the center of arts, culture, technology, finance, and high society. When Marian Brook moves to New York City from rural Pennsyvlania after the death of her father, she is plunged into the world of Knickerbockers (old money) and the burgeoning “400 (new money),” as well as the incredibly diverse population of New York City.

CAST

Main Characters

Christine Baranski as Agnes van Rhijn – Agnes is a proud and stubborn aristocrat who will never accept that the world has changed, and that ancient values are being replaced by new ones. She found herself penniless as her parents’ fortune was foundering, but she managed to catch a husband just in time. Now a widow, Agnes still has her son Oscar, whom she worships, but her worship is not returned.

Cynthia Nixon as Ada Brook – Unlike her sister Agnes, Ada never found a husband and was forced to rely on her sister’s charity. She is not naturally confrontational, but she is capable of standing up for what she believes.

Carrie Coon as Bertha Russell – Bertha comes from the ordinary middle-class. She backed her instincts when she set out to catch her husband George, the son of a merchant family who has proved to be a financial genius. She is determined to use her money and position to break into a society that resists change at every turn.

Morgan Spector as George Russell – A classic robber baron of his own time, Russell is pleasant enough in company. He’s fond of his wife and his children, but utterly ruthless in business. He has already acquired millions and many more will follow. In every challenge, George must win.

Denée Benton as Peggy Scott – Is a young, ambitious, writer. She was raised in New York and educated at the prestigious Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. We meet Peggy at a crossroads. She’s haunted by her past and lingering questions that’s she unable to find answers to, so she chooses to leave Pennsylvania and return home. When she meets Marian both women are seeking a fresh start, and form an unlikely friendship as they begin this next chapter of their lives in New York. But Peggy’s secret will eventually be revealed, causing a tectonic shift in her world.

Louisa Jacobson as Marian Brook – Our principal heroine. Lovely and strong. Born to an old Pennsylvania family, but her father has left her without a penny. In one way, Marian knows that her probable fate will be to marry as well as she can and survive, but she wants more than this. She is curtailed by the rules of her time, but there is a modern streak in her, too. She wants to do something with her life. She wants to be fulfilled. She moves from Doylestown to New York City after her father dies to live with her estranged aunts, Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook.

Taissa Farmiga as Gladys Russell – A classic, innocent and lovely child of the rich who doesn’t want a governess or for her mother to treat her as a child anymore—she yearns to be out in society meeting suitable young men. She doesn’t really know how her father made his money, and she doesn’t much care, but she is used to it and wouldn’t know what to do without it. She has an independent streak, but her defiance is no match for her mama. Her mother uses her as a tool for her own ambition and forces her toward socially advantageous situations.

Blake Ritson as Oscar Van Rhijn – Agnes van Rhijn’s charismatic son. He’s decided it’s time to settle down and has become obsessed with money while on the lookout for a serious heiress who will allow him to live, as he would put it, properly. Smart, attractive, poised, charming and mischievous, he enjoys witty banter. He is one of the few who will stand up to his mother and will not listen to his mother’s advice which will cause her a good deal of frustration.

Simon Jones as Bannister – An English immigrant the van Rhijn’s butler joined the household a year before the death of Mr van Rhijn and so, for the old lady, he is a link with her own past. He likes to give the impression that he is immensely grand, and keeps a watchful eye over the rest of the staff.

Harry Richardson as Larry Russell – Appealing and good natured with an easy charm, Larry is a recent Harvard university graduate eager to make his way in the world. Above all, Larry is his mother’s child, her Achilles’ heel, the one person she loves without limit and he loves her as well. He is protective of his little sister, Gladys, and like her he is a classic child of the rich. He thinks he doesn’t care about money, because he has always had plenty of it.

Thomas Cocquerel as Tom Raikes – Tom is a sensible young lawyer from Doylestown, PA. He’s been a solitary and career-driven practical man but is smitten when he meets Marian, his late client’s orphaned daughter. He relocates to New York City in pursuit of a relationship with Marian. Tom understands that Marian’s aunts are very conservative and he’s careful not to overstep any boundaries along the way. He’ll put up a fight to get what he wants, but he’s an appealing, charming gentleman above all else.

Jack Gilpin as Church – Church is the Russell family’s butler. He is American, from a dismal background, but evades his past by excelling at his job. He has no time for nonsense in the workplace due to his attention and care for his job. Above all, he’s Bertha’s ally and he intends to stay reasonably true to her every step of the way, unlike her own maid.

Historical Characters
Donna Murphy as Mrs. Astor – imperious and commanding, Mrs. Astor is the most prominent American socialite of the time. As the chief gatekeeper standing in the way of the Russell family’s acceptance into New York society, Mrs. Astor’s approval is something that Bertha Russell is willing to achieve at any cost.

Amy Forsyth as Caroline “Carrie” Astor – Carrie Astor is the handsome daughter of one of the most powerful women in New York City and her mother’s status often disrupts the ease with which Carrie would prefer to live her life as one of the most popular young women in town.

Nathan Lane as Ward McAllister – is chiefly remembered now as the inventor of the phrase, “the four hundred.” This was the number of people who were worth bothering with in New York society. McAllister serves as Mrs. Astor’s right-hand man and his chief business and pleasure in life is help her guard the gates to High Society. He has a great deal to offer Bertha Russell in the way of opening doors if she can enlist his help. Luckily, he has a soft spot for wealth and ostentation, which she can supply in spades.

Sullivan Jones as T. Thomas Fortune – He was born into slavery in Florida. As a child he witnessed the terror of the Ku Klux Klan that fueled his activism as an adult. He had some formal education at Howard University and practical education as a printer’s assistant. In the early 1880’s Fortune became an influential member of the Black intellectual community in New York as an activist, orator, journalist, writer, editor and publisher of The New York Globe and other papers. Through Fortune we are invited into the elite world of the Black press where he meets Peggy Scott. Fortune recognizes her talent and hires her to write for The Globe. Fortune is not averse to conflict, questioning authority and breaking the rules in both his personal and professional life.

Linda Emond as Clara Barton – was a pioneering nurse, who founded the American Red Cross. She was a champion of women’s education, as well. and, during the Civil War she was known as the “Florence Nightingale of America.” She assisted the Grand Duchess of Baden in founding military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when she became involved with the Red Cross, and she determined that there would be an American branch, opening her first local society in Dansville in 1881. She also became interested in women’s suffrage, and racial equality, a comparatively new idea for her generation. Her name, on schools, on streets, on buildings, is to be found all over the United States.

The Official Trailer

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It seems fitting that the lead up to the 100th year celebrations of the Harlem Renaissance (more accurately known as the Negro Renaissance–more on that soon on EP) begins with an adaptation of the one of defining novels of the period: Nella Larsen’s Passing. Published by Knopf in 1929, Larsen’s second and final novel follows the interactions of two childhood friends, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, whose unexpected meeting at restaurant where both were passing for white, sets off a psychologically rich novel of obsession, identity, sexuality, and race. Actress Rebecca Hall wrote and directed the adaptation, and Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga star as Irene and Clare, respectively. It recently screened at Sundance and Netflix snapped it up, so we should hopefully be seeing this film soon!

Watch the director and cast discuss their own interest and approach to this adaptation

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Premiering on Sunday, January 17 at 8/7c

When headstrong Eliza Scarlet is left penniless after the death of her father, she has two choices for financial security: marriage or her father’s private detective agency. But no matter how well she knows the tricks of his trade, the trade itself is deemed entirely inappropriate for a genteel lady of the 1880s. Enter “The Duke,” Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector William Wellington, a notorious drinker, gambler, womanizer…and a partner in running the agency and solving crime, all with a dash of will-they-won’t they energy, wit, and moxie!

Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders) stars in a six-part mystery as the headstrong, first-ever female detective in Victorian London, who won’t let any naysayers stop her from keeping her father’s business running. Stuart Martin (Jamestown) plays her childhood friend, professional colleague, and potential love interest, Scotland Yard Detective Inspector William Wellington, a.k.a., The Duke.

The cast includes Andrew Gower (Poldark, Outlander), Kevin Doyle (Downton Abbey), Ansu Kabia (World on Fire, The Long Song), and Cathy Belton (Philomena).

Trailer

Masterpiece: Miss Scarlet and The Duke

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Though African American performers dazzled British society and its royals since the days of Walker and Williams (who brought their minstrel revues to English shores in the early 1900s), and performers like Aida Overton Walker, Sissieretta Jones, and others were viewed as the epitome of Black glamour–there was something different about Florence Mills. The magnetic actress, whose petite figure and throaty voice immediately captured attention, got her big break in 1921’s Shuffle Along. This music spawned such enduring hits as “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” and not only did it launch the careers of Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Fredi Washington, but its massive popularity provided the soundtrack of the Jazz Age.

The musical toured across the United States, becoming an extraordinary vehicle that appealed to all races in a virulently segregated United States (recall that the 1920s saw the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan). Shuffle Along hopped across the Atlantic, where it played in all of the major European cities to a growing crowd of ardent fans of jazz, Black performers, and jazz dancing. Mills’ star rose higher and higher, and when she was cast in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1926, Mills Mania reached its peak. Newspapers on both sides of the pond breathlessly covered her hairstyles, her clothing, her outings, her records, and her next career steps; dolls were made in her image, and the fans crowned her the “Queen of Happiness.”

Enter…the Princes

In the 1920s, the Prince of Wales was the most eligible bachelor in the world and he knew it. And now, since the death of his grandfather, Edward VII in 1910, high society was fun again. When Florence Mills and Blackbirds toured Europe, the Prince of Wales not only bragged about seeing it nearly twenty times, but he dragged his friends and family to see the musical and its enchanting star again and again. His younger brother, Prince George–also known as a party prince–fell head over heels for Mills, and she was rumored to be seen with him at London’s smartest nightclubs and exclusive restaurants.

Alas, the (rumored) romance ended when Blackbirds‘ astonishing 300 record-breaking performances ended. Florence returned to the United States, triumphant–and also gravely ill with tuberculosis. She died in 1927 at the height of her fame, her sudden death shocking the entire entertainment industry. Thousands of people attended her funeral in New York, and her most ardent fans of all races, including dignitaries and politicians, mourned her death. But the Queen of Happiness lived on in the hearts of all who loved her, even if for a brief moment.

The post The Prince and the Actress: When Florence Met George appeared first on Edwardian Promenade.

Dear Readers,

I’m in the process of revamping Edwardian Promenade to be more intentionally inclusive and multicultural. When I started this blog back in 2007, I was a budding history geek who was excited by the enormous changes and innovations of the early 20th century. This blog was literally a brain dump of interesting facts I discovered in books, magazines, and documentaries.

From the beginning, I wanted to include everyone possible. From the beginning, I was met with racism.

On one of the earliest posts I wrote, I included a photograph of W.E.B. Du Bois. The first comment was from a man who told me to get that black man off my website; he didn’t belong.

I was angry and shaken, but I also immediately shrank from opening myself to more racist abuse if I put my face on this website and continued to naively write about anything of interest in an inclusive way. Over the years, I made an effort to include the stories of people of color, and especially women of color, in my delight in the early 20th century. I boosted the stories of any black character added to the period dramas I loved (see Jack on Downton Abbey, or Tilly on Mr. Selfridge).

But after a few years into my doctoral studies, the experience of this ongoing pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter uprisings in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May, I have recognized that I was never explicit enough.

That I have been complicit online in the things I research, write, and lecture against in real life: turning history into a fairytale and a playground of the wealthy elites; supporting the ahistorical trend of history education and entertainment erasing or placing Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color in the margins; feeding the people who believe that the inclusion of people of color “ruin” the fantasy of an all-white world (and also that racism is the sole defining characteristic of a BIPOC in the past when included in the mainstream).

So I state it explicitly: BLACK LIVES MATTER. This is a political slogan that argues for the humanity of Black people against the societal and institutional structures that oppress. And it follows the theory of Dr. Anna Julia Cooper (the fourth African American woman to earn a Ph.D), who said in her 1892 publication, A Voice From the South:

It’s not a coincidence that I am moved to write this on the thirteenth anniversary of Edwardian Promenade’s founding. Thirteen is commonly seen as an unlucky number, but if you’re a believer (not the Justin Bieber kind), thirteen is also the number of death and rebirth, or renewal.

If you’d like to see what I’ve been up to since entering my PhD program and my current research project, visit my professional website atpublichistory.com. Thank you for being dedicated readers of Edwardian Promenade, and I hope to continue with this website for many years to come.

Regards,

Evangeline Holland (aka Angela Tate)

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Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not like movie theaters. Not because of any hygienic issues but because I never feel like I can relax in my seat like I can wrapped up in a blanket at home, with my inexpensive snacks and drinks at hand. And so, alas, even the Downton Abbey movie couldn’t pry me from my prejudice! But renting the digital copy proved a comfort in this time of corona, and I also had no idea that it was exactly ten years to the day when I discovered an ITV press release about an upcoming period drama series and posted it on Edwardian Promenade.

Don’t believe me? Take a look here!

(It’s also 118 years since the Titanic’s maiden voyage, in which Julian Fellowes also dipped his hand with the ABC mini-series that aired in 2012).

It was so surreal to realize that I said goodbye to the Crawleys and staff five years ago (four, if you go by the PBS airdates!), and that for all of the drama and sometimes illogical plot points, I missed them! I missed the breathtaking view of Highclere Castle, the chime of the servants bell, the beautiful score by John Lunn, and the mix of humor and heart that Julian Fellowes knows exactly when to tap into. Was it an amazing movie? No. But it was a hugely comforting experience that reminded me of why I was so happy to be running Edwardian Promenade during Downton’s airing.

I even splurged on the most recent Downton Abbey books, including the upcoming one on afternoon tea and the Christmas cookbook.

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When the clock struck midnight on January 1, 1920 everyone awoke from the spell cast by the Great War and the Spanish Flu to a world changed–and yet not. Common perceptions peg the 1920s as one long party, where things considered “modern” emerged. If you comb through Edwardian Promenade’s archives you’ll see the presence of modernism in the pre-war period; furthermore, great anxieties lingered behind the popular images of flappers, gangsters, champagne, and raccoon coats.

In Paris (The Sphere, Jan 3, 1920):

We are short of many things— coal, petrol, milk, sugar, salt, tobacco—but nothing is rationed, and if you have money and are prepared to pay the price there is nothing that cannot be bought. Butter varies from 6s. to 7s.6d. an English pound (compared at the old rate of exchange), but we know nothing of the British restrictive legislation limiting one to 13 ounces per head per week. France jumped at the offer of the Dutch butter which England (perhaps wisely, in view of the existing rate of exchange) a few weeks ago refused. From the point of view of the comparative political economist, the fact is significant of much, as Carlyle would have said. It measures, perhaps, much of the best and the worst that is comprised in the essential differences between the France and the England of to-day. “One of the worst difficulties Paris has to face at present is the housing problem. What this means may be expressed in the single fact that there are something like 150 newly-elected members of the Chamber who are absolutely unable to find flats or houses in the city, or within easy reach of it. The shortage, which is by no means confined to Paris, is easily explained. Owing to the destruction by the Germans of scores of thousands of houses in the invaded districts, some millions of people were driven to find shelter during the war in Paris and other large cities of the North, which will be a matter of many months at least, housing accommodation throughout the rest of France will continue to be very difficult to obtain. Paris has had her share of strikes, too: first the strike of the underground railways—which, as in the case of the similar strike in England, caused most discomfort among the working population—and then the strike of the shop assistants and printers, both of which ended in the submission of the strikers. The question was handled with admirable firmness; a daily newspaper was published in two editions, morning and evening, and the proprietors of the big shops made shift to keep their establishments open and to attend to the wants of customers. But the chief trial of Paris this winter has undoubtedly been the lack of coal, which at one time menaced the supply of electric light and threatened the industrial life of the city and entailed a considerable amount of suffering on the part of the inhabitants.

Russia remained locked in a bitter, bloody civil war between the Red and White armies that would last until 1922, when the Red Army emerged victorious and Russia became the USSR. Until then, the world watched the fighting from afar, wondering how Russia would fit into the new world of the Post-war era. The rest of continental Europe remained equally unstable, with the end of the German Empire and the Hohenzollern Dynasty–whose ruler, Wilhelm II (Queen Victoria’s grandson) had abdicated shortly before Germany’s defeat–and the establishment of a republic. The breakup of Austria-Hungary and the end of the thousand year Hapsburg rule created many independent countries eager to determine their own fate.

The Sphere, con’td:

That grave distress exists to-day throughout Europe is generally known, and we have been warned that our own economic troubles are by no means at an end. In Germany our troops in occupation have failed to notice any special signs of hardship or destitution; but there can be no doubt of the distressing conditions in the provinces of the former Austrian Empire, and above all at Vienna. Twenty thousand ragged and starving children swell the horde of mendicants who throng the streets. All the schools are closed. As to general conditions, there have been recently 100,000 deaths…The daily ration for the population of the once-brilliant capital of the Hapsburg Empire is 100 grammes of bad bread–a little over three ounces-per head. The American Relief Commission still provides one meal a day to 100,000 children, but the British Food Mission is about to close down owing to lack of funds.

Furthermore, on January 10, 1920, the Treaty of Versailles finally went into effect, demanding that Germany pay reparations, return Alsace-Lorraine to France, and a number of other conditions that created a culture of resentment and persecution well into the new decade.

Food and goods shortages. Illness. War. Destitution. Great loss.

Definitely not things we associate with the 1920s!

The post Welcome to the Roaring Twenties (Redux?) appeared first on Edwardian Promenade.

As the influenza pandemic, known colloquially as “la grippe” or the Spanish Flu, spread across the globe, governments and health officials immediately began to call for the use of masks as a solution to keep more people from getting sick.

Soon, the streets were filled with people wearing these gauze masks, much to the tut-tutting of The Haberdasher, a San Francisco-based men’s clothing magazine, who bemoaned the appearance of the masks in an editorial:

Now every man has become a patron of a drug store for the “dernier cri” in face adornments, popularly known as the “flu mask.” The haberdashers missed a trick in the game of business when they did not seize on this craze and lay in a stock of exclusive high-grade masks, perhaps with initialed corners, instead of letting all this good business go to the drug stores. The law compelled every citizen to don such a mask, and most people have from three to six in order to have frequent change. BUT, horror of horrors, every one of these million or more masks is fashioned on the same general lines and made of the same material and color. Here we have an example of exceptionally bright business men overlooking an opportunity not only to turn a pretty penny, when business was otherwise dull, but also to turn a ghastly parade of more or less white-swathed faces into a thing of beauty and riot of color. Naturally all this flow of money into the tills of the drug stores and away from the haberdashers, where it belongs, has had its effect on business. And quite as naturally the ugly mask which the people adopted instead of a thing of beauty, which was possible, has turned the thoughts of all away from the festivities.

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