Here is our Final project on Starbucks!
By Corinne Prenatt, Brandon Fiege, Bethany Wynne and Juliana Arango
Author: prenattc1
mapping victorian london- edgware road
This is a screenshot from google maps of Edgware road, the address mentioned in “Scandal in Bohemia,” only briefly, in a single sentence spoken by Irene Adler’s fiancee in the cab that was taking them to the church. Edward road was indeed the location of the chapel where Godfrey and Adler tied the knot, with a priest and Sherlock, who was disguised as a peasant to be the witness.
These maps of the same area, in the present (left), and the victorian period (right) display Edgware Road (hi- lighted in green on the left) was a main road from Charles Booth Online Archive. According to this archive, the area surrounding the street is marked with quite a bit of red, or “well to do” according to The Booth archive. just like the story states, this is quite a ritzy area and Irene was married in an extravagant chapel. Irene being a woman of class and taste, this location reflects accurately upon her standards. According to “Locating London,” the area around Edgware street was famous for having many churches (which is fitting for the role the street plays, being where the church Irene is married in is located). According to old bailey online archive, there was not a ton of violent crime, not a very dangerous area. The occasional theft is what is shown in the archive’s records. an interesting fact about Edgware Road is that at the end of the Victorian period it became a highly populated jewish area, with the building of many synogogues at the end of the era, according to the Booth online archive and Locating London.
these more close-up images go more in-depth with the exact neighborhood wealth statuses, yellows (upper-class/ wealthy), pinks (comfortable/good earnings), but mostly reds in the neighborhoods branching off of and surrounding the street.
Fusion Tables
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1slx3Z4BbOyBqVOV-yWSwKw1SH2I3W9DVtSZxJBF3
Corinne Prenatt WeVideo
https://www.wevideo.com/view/492446795
ngrams
According to this ngram chart, there was a rise in Musical Theatre in Victorian England, specifically between 1840-1860 and 1870-1875, with major spikes in 1874 and 1853. Now according to branch collective.org, that chart activity has a lot to do with play activity o the east end. For example in 1847 (according to Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, of branch collective.org), Victorian playwright, George Dibdin Pitt wrote the first Sweeney Todd dramatization for Brittanica of London’s east end and fit the melodrama to the specific audience and the acting to the company’s individual talents.” Also, in the winter of 1942, a man named John Curwen started “Tonic Sol-fa” which is a method to teach singing. Curren thought that this”would improve individual and national morality” and later in the century, this had come to help a thousands of singers practice, and even began to compete with singing by means of sight-reading and “promoted a way of managing behavior that worked alongside rational recreation and newly introduced institutional surveillance strategies.”-Phyllis Weliver. So the awareness of new plays, and new singing methods created a type of interest in musical theatre. Keeping up with the trend of seeing shows on the East End since they were very popular was a big part of life. As stated above, in the excerpt about Sweeney Todd, the script was tailored to a specific audience, which in the east end was populated mainly by working class and impoverished individuals. The victorian english loved to be entertained, and specifically enjoyed gory spectacles and freak shows, which in that case, would make Sweeney Todd a very popular, and a very heavily demanded production on the east end. So whatever shows were suited exceptionally well for that type of audience would create a spike in the popularity of musical theatre at the time. Tt really depended on what shows were being put on or put out then.
Booktraces: 1880 prize
http://www.booktraces.org/submission-successful/
While searching in the stacks, I came across a small, dark green, hard-backed book with gold leafing on the pages and the front and back covers. It was titled “William Cullen Bryant; A Biographical Sketch, With Selections From His Poems and Other Writings.” The first thing i noticed was this inside cover because of the blue sticker attached to it. The sticker includes a decorative font and appears to be a gift tag for a christmas gift from the principal, to a student (Master Edward J. Brooks) at St. John’s Middle Class School in Tottenham, for “Excellence In Arithmetic.” This book was the first prize award. What really struck me was the fact that this was made out is 1880! The calligraphy it is written in is amazing and beautiful. The book itself was published in Gaslow in March of 1880, and given as a gift in December 1880. The author is A.J. Symington. Aside from the prize tag, there is no personal writing or other marginalia in the book. The book is falling apart and the pages are brown and pulpy. It is so amazing and interesting that we can see time paralleled, and personal relations through history. I looked up Tottenham: an area in the London Borough of Haringey, in north London, England, about 8 miles northeast of Charing Cross. How did this book, belonging to a man named Edward Brooks in England end up in the New School Library which would later become SUNY New Paltz’s Library system? It’s amazing trying to think of the many ways this could have happened, but also how fortunate for us here at this school to have such a worldly, historic collection amongst us for use. I was so amazed that i was able to check out some of these beautiful old books that are pretty much historical documents themselves.
“Victorian London: Clothing: Dress and Social Status” by Corinne Prenatt
The “Victorian London: Clothing: Dress and Social Status” article By Max Schlesinger highly concentrates on the fact that any working class citizen in 1853 Gravesend, could have appeared to be a Gentleman or a Lady. The stereotypical clothing items that were popular amongst the women were “colored silks, black velvets, silk or straw bonnets with botanical ornaments are worn by the Lady’s maids as well as the Lady.” (Schlesinger) The only real difference between the two may have been in the cost of the dress, in that the maid’s dress may have been slightly cheaper, according to Schlesinger. The main point of the article is, one could not tell the difference between those of a higher class, visually and based off of their dress. As far as men’s fashion goes, black, silk hats were a staple and the sole headwear that is accepted amongst the male populous of Gravesend (Schlesinger). A black dress coat, a hat, and a white tie or “Cravat,” as they called it, was the traditional attire of whom could very well be a Gentleman, a tailor, barber, waiter, tailor or shoemaker, according to Schlesinger. The line between rich and peasant is invisible to the naked eye. A man can completely look the part of an upper class man, but truly be a peasant who crafts the suit he wears. A couple in church could fool the average local townsperson, a man wearing the suit he makes, a gold chain, a waistcoat, with his hair done, and a clean-shaven face with his wife by his side, wearing linens passable to a Lady’s, together look like an elite, and important pair, especially if they exuded the tiniest sense of entitlement or superiority. There was emphasis placed on dressing well. Even those without much money make it priority to look worthy, and to represent themselves well.
Corinne Prenatt’s Introductory blog post
Hello! My name is Corinne Prenatt and I am a Junior here at SUNY New Paltz. My major is Digital Media Production and i enjoy painting with acrylics and taking photographs in my free time.