Prostitution in 19th Century Victorian London

August 31, 2015August 31, 2015 ~ delancem1

Atypical “Attitudes Towards Prostitution”

A practice many would think is far beyond moral taboo for 19th Century London women actually received varying views. One anomalous opinion was written in The London Times in 1858 which expressed that call girls of the day were merely “practising their trade, either as the entire or partial means of their subsistence.” This writer views prostitution as any other occupation, which is fascinating for a time when women weren’t technically even ‘supposed’ to have jobs. The notion that women who practice prostitution are morally wicked is another common view not held by this author. He writes, “they have their virtues, like others; they are good daughters, good sisters, and friends.” In short, the author sees prostitution as a job like any other, one in which a woman can find not only means for subsistence but she can find success.

“Causes of Prostitution”

Another article published in The London Times is written from a different and woman’s perspective. This one was written by a woman who feels unsettled with the limitations on which women can know or offer suggestion about a troubling occurrence in a society. That a woman should not only stray from the practice but not even acknowledge such a topic, for she should not know of such things, that she should ignore and not ask questions: “We have been told heretofore by men whom we respect that it becomes a woman to be absolutely silent on such revolting topics – to ignore, or rather to affect to ignore, such a ‘state of things’ as you allude.” In this passage, prostitutes are referred to (by the woman) “outcasts of our own sex.” All other women are referred to as “virtuous women”, and the writer refers to herself as the latter. The writer sees this topic as one that affects all members of the gender and seems to be deeply concerned. Her view is probably leaning towards the typical view of the time, because she thinks of them as “wretches whose sole and profitable occupation is to hunt down and ensnare victims…” Men are referred to as ‘victims’ of prostitution. So the woman conforms to the gender norms in society that everything morally incorrect is at the fault of women more than at the fault of men, though both deserve equal blame (Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Fruit being the prime example. She even mentions the Bible and Christianity a couple times in her ramble.)

Summary

We have two opinions, one ironically written by a man with outlandish views and one by a woman who conforms to what was seen as acceptable in her society. The articles in this section all prove the idea discussed in class that the issues and topics of Victorian times are virtually no different than those of modern times.

– Miranda Delancey, Online Assignment #1

The Victorian Age: A Summary Of pockets in woman’s clothing

August 31, 2015 ~ janowskr1 ~ 3 Comments

In Lee Jackson’s “Dictionary of Victorian London”, the subject of woman and their clothing from the 1800’s struck me as interesting. More specifically, pockets in women’s clothing. Funny enough, as Paris is considered the fashion capital in our modern world, it was considered the same in the Victorian age. And as it is today considered a luxury to have clothing made in Paris, it was then too. Only the finest clothing was made in Paris with the finest jewels and jewelry. “Single girls wore few jewels, and their dresses, although flounced and bulgy, were usually of simple material.” Usually, when a woman was wearing a poor amount of jewelry, this was how it was advertised they were single. Usually, when woman were wed, their husbands would try to dress them in the nicest clothing to prove how they could provide for their wives.

A large staple in woman’s fashion consisted of crinolines which were petticoats made from stiff material. Alfred Rosling Bennett states that, “When ladies had to sit close, as in a train or bus, or pass through a narrow doorway, something had to bulge, and hoops perforce became oval”. The material was so stiff that when standing it created a perfect circle around a lady’s body.

crin1856

In this time period, Woman would be ostracized if they showed too much skin. Hence, woman were forced to wear these ridiculous outfits with absurd amounts of material. Although, the excessive amount of material did give them one advantage, pockets. Not only did the adult women have pockets but so did the young girls. It was a big deal that woman could have pockets. In the 1800’s, only men’s clothing had pockets which represented superiority, and woman’s clothing now having pockets was considered to be a societal upgrade.

I found it surprising that something as simple as pockets that seems so insignificant, were of huge significance for women of the 1800’s.

DeFranco_Mapping Holmes Assignment

April 7, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

I chose to focus on Leadenhall Street from the Sherlock Holmes story, A Case of Identity for this mapping/research assignment. This image is screen-shotted from the Victorian Google Maps website. Leadenhall Street is the thick, long street running horizontal through the image.

On the Old Bailey Archive I did a search of Leadenhall Street in the 1800s and found man phrases that much of what came up seemed business related, as if Leadenhall was a bustling, though not incredibly wealthy, business district with many places of employment and local businesses. Here are some examples of what I found that lead me to make this conclusion:

-“…I am a clerk at the post office, 114, Leadenhall Street…”
-“…Holder Brothers, Ship brokers, 146, Leadenhall Street…”
-“…he was an advertising agent in Leadenhall Street…”
-“…I am a printer, of 18, Leadenhall Market…”
-“…I am a tea importer, of 158, Leadenhall Street…” etc.

On the Charles Booth Online Archive I searched for the Street and came up with the following 1898-99 map.

According to the legend, the coloring of the map showing the surrounding areas of Leadenhall Street indicate that this was not a wealthy area. It seems that most of this area (the light blue range) is poor and some (the dark blue) indicates very poor areas. I can’t really tell if there are actually dark blue areas or if it’s just light blues layered on top of each other making certain spots look darker. Anyway, from this information and what I previously discovered about the many businesses along Leadenhall Street, it seems that it was a very working class area where people just barely managed to scrape buy and support their families and provide the necessities. Maybe there aren’t quite and “very poor” dark blue areas because there are lots of small local jobs in the area so people are not in the range of “chronic want.”

On the Locating London website, I did a search of Leadenhall Street to discover what typed of crime were reported in this area in the early 1800s. What I found were that all of the offenses were related to theft: pickpocketing, grand larceny, coining offenses, theft from a specified place, shoplifting, highway robbery, etc. I supposed this makes sense if the area was full of businesses and people just barely making it by. I’m not associating the poor with the crime, but these people were, in some way, wanting (indicated by the map showing wealth), and this could lead to theft.

Google Ngrams: An Etymological Study

March 6, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

Screen Shot 2015-03-05 at 2.59.52 PM — click to enlarge

I don’t tell many people this, so consider yourselves lucky. I have my super-secret time machine whirring to life in the garage, so why don’t you join me on a trip? We can travel back into the 19th century to investigate three common words, how their usage began or changed during those hundred years, and potential reasons why this was the case.

After we hide the Delorean, our work can begin. I chose musket (or musquet), anesthesia (or anaesthesia), and scientist, hoping that these three words would provide some interesting results from Google Ngrams. I set the years for 1800 to 1900, and settled on a smoothing of 5. The lower the smoothing number, the more jagged of a graph would be produced.

Musket is a word that refers to a type of infantry gun, and it had French origins from the 16th century. There were many spellings throughout the centuries, which is why I included the most popular alternate spelling. From 1800 to around the start of the Civil War, its usage almost doubled. In this same period of time, musquet was about 1/4 as popular as musket by 1800, and it had basically stopped being used by 1860. This coincides with a sharp decline in musket after 1860 as well. According to Oed.com, musket was reserved for obsolete weapons, while the more common rifle was adopted for contemporary firearms.

Next, I wanted to find a word whose usage began during the 19th century, and I settled upon anesthesia, which is generally spelled anaesthesia in Britain. Both versions were included in the search, and it is derived from Latin. Prior to 1840, there is practically no use of anaesthesia, yet thanks to the Oxford English Dictionary, we can see the use increased greatly for the remainder of the 19th century, peaking in the 1880s. The American version, anesthesia, slowly grew in usage towards 1900, but was still well below the British spelling. Of course, this word coincided with better medical technology, especially during the Civil War in the United States.

Finally, I chose another word, scientist, which I expected to rise in usage throughout the century. The slope of the graph grows slowly from the 1860s, possibly in response to Charles Darwin, who published On the Origin of Species in 1859. The Oxford Dictionary helps elucidate the origin of the word scientist, as W. Whewell stated in 1834:

…the want of any name by which we can designate the students of the knowledge of the material world collectively. We are informed that this difficulty was felt very oppressively by the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meetings..in the last three summers… Philosophers was felt to be too wide and too lofty a term,..; some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form scientist…

More succinctly, in 1834 a gentleman compared art and science, and if someone who practices art is an artist, then a practitioner of science should be a scientist. This is how scientist became a word, and Ngrams shows its usage grew by about 10 times from 1870 to 1900.

Ok, its time to go…you get to choose the time machine destination this time, though.

A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith: 19th Century Book Study

February 19, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

While looking through the stacks of the Sojourner Truth Library, I found some marginalia traces as well as a few newspaper inserts in one of the first 5 books that I looked in (a very lucky find). The book is titled A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. This book was written by Reverend Sydney Smith’s daughter, Lady Saba Holland, in 1855, 10 years after Sydney Smith’s death, and was published in London. Reverend Sydney Smith was a 19th century English clergyman and writer.

This book is the first of two volumes, with this volume having the title the Life & Letters of Sydney Smith.

The marginalia trace that I found is right before the title page of the book, on the inside cover page. So when I first opened the book, I immediately hit jackpot. It’s written in fountain pen, which was the biggest indication that this is a trace from the 19th century. This is probably the signature of the original owner of this book. From inspection, it looks like it says the name “Olive B. Sarry”. It bummed me out because I spent some time trying to research the name, but I couldn’t find any clues to help me figure out who this person was.

The other things that I found in this book were newspaper inserts that all pertained to Reverend Sydney Smith. They range from about 1945-1954. Though they’re not from the 19th century, I still thought that they were a really cool find. The first one that I found is pasted right on the title page. It’s an article called No Matter, talking about a man named Bishop Berkeley and his criticisms against Sydney Smith. I also found a couple newspaper inserts on page 448. One of them is from the Times Literary Supplement, a weekly literary review published in London.

Along with this, there were a few other little notes that I found written throughout the book. They seemed to be random numbers (or years?) written in pencil, so they might not be from the 19th century.

*Also, here’s my link to my submission to Book Traces!

Project_19th Century Books with Marginalia_DeFranco

February 19, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

I got carried away in the library looking for books that would meet the criteria for this project. I must have spent at lease two hours total searching high and low. I want to share some of my smaller discoveries in addition to the one that I think is the most substantial.

The first marking of interest came from a book called The Life of Laurence Sterne by Percy Fitzgerald. (1896, Downey & Co. 21 York St., Covent Garden, London) This book has a script (probably male?) name, “Letteme” in the first few pages under a black and white photograph of a man. It looks authentic (pen type and writing style, dark/light, etc.) but I’m not positive that it’s written and not copied or printed.

The second book I looked at was Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Othello, The Moor Of Venice, edited, with notes, by William J. Rolfe. (1886, New York” Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square.) This book has a name and date “Nellie F. Bates March 1887” in the light, more frilly andornate feminine looking penmanship. This book also included many markings within the body text pages but it seems to be much more modern and probably done by students using the books for projects etc. I’m including a picture of these markings anyway because I still think they’re interesting.

It is my inference that both of these old signatures are just the names of the people who owned the books wanting to mark them as their property.

The third and most interesting marginalia I found went beyond just a name within the first few pages. This book, by Mark Twain, entitled Happy Tales (1892, New York: Charles L. Webster & Co.) has a note indicating that the book was a gift from one person to another as they were leaving. The note reads, (though I’m not sure I’m transcribing the names 100 percent accurately) “For Ada B. Richardiore from her friend Annie M. Amred. ‘Bon Voyage’ — April 30. 1892.” What I’m putting together is that this was a woman giving this book of short stories to her leaving friend, that they may not see each other for a long time or even ever again, and finally that she wants her friend to have “Happy Tales” of her own.

*Here is the link to my entry on Book Traces!

Ancient Classical Drama – 19th century book found at SUNY NP

February 18, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

I have found some marginalia traces in the book Ancient Classical Drama from Richard G. Moulton. It was printed in 1898 by the Oxford Publisher at the Clarendon Press especially to the University of Oxford. The author was a English Literature professor at the University of Chicago, that also worked at the Cambridge University. The book talks about the origins and evolutions of the greek drama, well known as classical drama. The book analyzes both the Tragedy and Comedy styles, as well as the Modern Romantic Drama. There are a lot of fragments of greek plays along the book.

The traces are comments about the text, sometimes about the authors of the greek plays or even a reference to a previous page or another artwork. It seems that the same reader wrote most of the notes. We can recognize the same black pen, the same cursive handwriting and the Spencerian style. Some traces of this style that can be found in this book are the darker and lighter letters and the clear distinction between capital and lowercase letters, especially on the annotation “Songs of Solomon 2.11-13”.

Other marginalia notes were made by pencil. Though, it seems like the same reader has written them. It is suggested because those pencil traces usually are used to circle informations or to indicate examples. Moreover, they are usually together with traces made by the characteristic black pen. Therefore, it seems like that the pencil was used to highlight minor informations, such as complements to the pen highlights.

The project Book Traces encourages everyone to contribute uploading 19th century books that we find in a library and contains notes written in that period. So that, everybody can contribute to enlarge this digital archive, that can preserve the endangered books and help scholars and interested people. The platform just allows to upload five photos, so I will use the blogpost to show also the ones that I can’t include in the archive.

1 and 2) ll.36 + 37. / P. 82 (page 150, 151)

(It means: line number 36 +37 / the reader relates the fragment to another on page 82)

3) Act V. Sc I. Doct[or] (page 229)

(“Sc” means scene)

4) ____ I took from this page PLUS page 97! (pages 96, 97)

5) Aesch. Ag. (page 87)

(It means: The reader thought that the fragment of Alcestis sounded like a play from Agamemnon, a play from Aeschylus. Indeed, Moulton compares the two plays on the next page.)

6) highlight and circle around information (page 69) (related to photo 9)

7) ___aigh says [th]ere no [e]vidence for [su]ch recitations? (page 14)

8) Song of Solomon 2.11-13 (page 7)

9) give ex. / give ex. (Page 68) (related to photo 5)

Extra Credit: Victorian London Dictionary – “Ladies Shopping”

January 29, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

While browsing through the Victorian London Dictionary trying to look for an article that would intrigue and catch my interest, I finally found the one! SHOPPING – Something that I know how to do best….

While perusing through the article called “Ladies Shopping” I came across a quite accurate definition of shopping, if I do say so myself. As defined by The London Victorian Dictionary, “Shopping is the amusement of spending money at shops.” Women love shopping as much as men love to play sports. Unlike shopping, sport involves the payment of one’s own shot, however shopping may be maintained by getting it paid for.

During Victorian London, the best places for shopping were fashionable streets and bazaars. Street-shopping essentially is directed toward hosiery, drapery, and jewelry of the richer sort. Bazaar and Arcade-shopping, to fancy articles, nick nacks, and perfumery. I learned that women had to act differently depending on the type of shopping they are doing. “In street-shopping walk leisurely along, keeping a sharp look-out on the windows. In bazaar-shopping, beat each stall separately.” They also advised women to finish street-shopping before she takes on the bazaars and arcades because the last two refer to mostly articles of no manner of use.

I chose this article because I really enjoy going shopping and I found it fascinating how the diversion and entertainment of shopping has evolved over the years.

Emily DeFranco_Tuesday Jan 27th Assignment (extra credit)

January 27, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

From Lee Jackson’s “The Victorian Dictionary:”

Entry: For my entry first I went to the “Publications” tab and then chose “Journals, Magazines and Newspapers” (to make my research more interesting and relevant to my major) and finally selected ‘The Times.’ There were many articles about The Times but I read the first one (Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850).

times

What I learned: What I found interesting right away in this article was how the first daily paper in London actually began with one man, John Bill, who, “at the King’s Printing House in Black Friars, printed the proclamations of the reign of Charles II. [The] first London Gazette, [was] established in that reign.” In 1770 the location of the publication moved to its current location where it transformed into the daily it is today in 1788. “The Times of Tuesday, Nov. 29th, 1814, was the first work ever printed by a mechanical apparatus, and the first newspaper printed by steam.” The article also breaks down the starting and current advertising rates, though I didn’t completely understand some of the symbols used. It was cool to see how the paper evolved from its very beginning to a paper that it distributed worldwide.

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