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Tag Archives: social history
“CHILD FOUND”
You have to wonder what was the eventual fate of this unfortunate baby girl — though perhaps being given up was the best that could have happened to her, given the alternative that parents often chose. Infanticide followed by … Continue reading
Body shaming is not new
A poignant tale from 1798…
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Tagged body shaming, social history, society, Tall people in history
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The piratical eyes of the magnetic healer
Leamington is a quiet little spa town in Warwickshire near Stratford upon Avon. In the late 1880s it is not difficult to envisage how very Jane Austen it still must have been, with its Pump Room and all, though visitor … Continue reading
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Tagged culture, Leamington Spa in 19th century, San Francisco, social history, women
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Lock Up Your Daughters
I’d like to introduce you to Thomas Napper and his nemesis, Ferdinand Philip Fischel Strousberg. Their story is at the creepier end of plots labelled ‘psychological drama,’ but it was real life and publicly played out in England during the … Continue reading
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Tagged bigamy, Ferdinand Strousberg, Philip Strousberg, social history, Strousberg
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Looking for a new hobby?
There’s a Brit named Tom Jackson who buys picture postcards — mostly from the sixties and seventies — from garage sales, thrift shops and car boot events. He then puts the picture postcards into the ether via Facebook with just … Continue reading
Jemmy Wood the banker’s banker
He was not what you’d call a looker. In profile Jemmy Wood bore a passing resemblance to Mr Punch following a good lunch – but James Wood esq, ‘the eccentric banker, merchant and draper’ of the city of Gloucester, England … Continue reading
“She rode to town on her own horse”
Just a further thought on the “scandalous practice of wife selling” from the previous story. This idea of an auction was not any brutalising suttee of a marriage where women were subjugated by gnarly unreconstructed men who had tired of the old … Continue reading
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Tagged plymouth England wife sale, social history, wife auction, wife selling, women
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The end of an un-civil partnership
A note of a dubious anniversary from Robert Chambers, writing in his 1869 Book of Days, though history is full of these quasi-divorces throughout the 19th century. Usually they were surprisingly amicable affairs based on village common sense when a marriage … Continue reading
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Tagged divorce in 19th century, social history, wife auction, wife sale, wife selling
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Your seed catalogue for 1797 has arrived
Fresh off the ship from England, five, yes count them, five, different varieties of asparagus seed and 23 different melon varieties. Things weren’t so bad in Philadelphia after the war as long as you could feast on 13 different kinds … Continue reading
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Tagged gardening, Goldthwait and Moore, Seed Catalogue 1797, social history
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(I do not) Want Ad
You did not want to mess with this lady, Mrs Nancy Turtle. She surely believed in the power of advertising, though her forgiveable spluttering volcano of anger could have been phrased better, this stream of consciousness rant paints a perfect picture of her lantern-jawed, one-eyed philanderer excuse for a husband Continue reading
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Tagged 19th century, Advertising history, crime and punishment, punishment, social history
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