Les Fleurs Animees (1847)

I was thumbing through some antique prints in a shop a few weeks ago and came across a unique colored plate from a 1847 book called Les Fleurs Animees, illustrated by J. J. Grandville. I'm not French scholar, but I believe it translates to The Animated Flowers, animated in that the difference between this book and other botanical pictorials is that these flowers have human faces and characteristics.



Many of the illustrations are based on the flower or plant's namesake, such as the Narcissus.



Some of them are cheeky or amusing, like these Hawthorn (Aubepine in French) which are about to be trimmed.






I've found the book and its individual prints for sale online in various places, but it does seem to be somewhat rare. A framed print from Les Fleurs Animees would make for a lovely decoration of any room.

Brooklyn Bridge 1899

I thought this video was really cool, especially for people who are familiar with New York. This footage of the Brooklyn Bridge was filmed by Thomas Edison in 1899.

The Princess and the Goblin

When I was a kid, the 1992 film The Princess and the Goblin was one of my favorite movies. I was surprised to find out that it is actually based on a children's novel by George MacDonald. The novel was published in 1872 by by Strahan & Co, and its sequel published in 1883. Critic Jeffrey Holdaway describes both books as initially "normal fairytales" that "slowly become stranger," and they contain layers of symbolism similar to Lewis Carroll's work. George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister who influenced other authors like W.H. Auden, J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Mark Twain, and Madeleine L'Engle. I've heard of MacDonald before but I had no idea of his work in fantasy and children's literature or that he, a simple minister, impacted so many famous authors.

Absinthe

Absinthe is an anise-flavored spirit and is usually green in color but can also be clear or milky. In literature, absinthe is commonly referred to as le fee verte, the green fairy. Absinthe contains the chemical thujone and was banned in many countries because it was thought to contain an addictive psychoactive drug, but there is no evidence that absinthe is more harmful than any other spirit.



Absinthe was traditionally poured over a sugar cube, as seen here.

Grande wormwood, one of the three main herbs used to produce absinthe.

Absinthe has been around since the mid-1500s but reached its popularity in the 1840s when it was given to French troops as a malaria treatment. Absinthe then became popular in bars and cabarets, and by the 1860s, 5 p.m. in Paris was called l'heure verte, the green hour. Mass production caused the price of absinthe to drop and the French were drinking 36 million litres of absinthe a year by 1910. Absinthe also enjoyed popularity in Spain, the Czech Republic, and New Orleans. The Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street was frequented by Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Franklin Roosevelt, and Frank Sinatra. Absinthe was banned in many countries due to its high alcoholic content and supposed hallucinogenic effects, but one can purchase it in the States today, as the ban on absinthe was lifted in 2007.



Poster by Henri Privat-Livemont, 1896.



The Absinthe Drinker, by Viktor Oliva (1861-1928)

Nikola Tesla, Inventor

My grandfather was full-blooded Croatian, so I always enjoy discovering new things about his cultural heritage. I recently found out that Edison's fiercest competitor was Nikola Tesla, a Serb from modern day Croatia. Tesla's father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church, which may help explain Tesla's later pledge of abstinence. Tesla studied electrical engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic, where he memorized complete books with the help of a photographic memory. He worked for the National Telephone Company in Budapest and the Continental Edison Company in Paris. Along the way, he conceived many inventions and adaptations of electrical devices related to his field. In 1884, Tesla came to the US to work for Edison himself, and, in 1886, Tesla formed his own company, where he continued to develop advancements in electric engineering (that I couldn't begin to explain, thus the vagueness). Tesla and Edison butted heads in the late 1880s partly due to Edison's promotion of the less efficient DC (direct current) and Tesla's advocation of AC (alternating current). During his life, Tesla contributed research to radiation, remote control devices, radio, commercial electricity, wireless telegraphy, and energy conversion. After his death in 1943, Tesla was cremated and his papers confiscated and declared top secret, as officials like J. Edgar Hoover feared that Tesla's work on such hypothetical weapons as "the death ray" would fall into the wrong hands.



Tesla, circa 1890.

Interesting facts about Nikola Tesla: predicted his mother's death after a dream; was influenced by Hinduism and named devices after Sanskrit words; displayed obsessive-compulsive tendencies; was obsessed with pigeons; spoke eight languages; never married; openly expressed disgust for overweight people; was a close friend of Mark Twain; famously ripped up a contract that would have made him a billionaire; lived the last ten years of his life on the 33rd floor of the Hotel New Yorker; believed women would become the dominant sex in the future; was a vegetarian.



Publicity picture of Tesla's magnifying transmitter.

Victorian Inventions

Click here for antique illustrations of bizarre Victorian inventions, like this multipurpose cane, perfect for catching butterflies, smoking a pipe, playing the flute, and measuring horses:

Freak Shows and Joseph Merrick

Freak show exhibitions became popular in the States and in the UK during the 1840s. Freak shows often exhibited medical anomalies and people who were considered "freaks of nature," like albinos, hermaphrodites, midgets, fire-eaters, sword-swallowers, etc. Freak shows were associated with traveling carnivals and circuses, and so they are still today, in some form or other. Still, their popularity began to wane in the 1970s, as awareness for the degradation of handicapped persons increased. Interestingly, a Michigan law forbids the exhibition of "any deformed human being or human monstrosity, except as used for scientific purposes."







In 1884, Joseph Merrick was billed as the Elephant Man in London's East End. Merrick was born a healthy child and only showed signs of skin deformation at the age of five. Though Merrick got his nickname from the belief that he had elephantiasis, modern scientists have speculated that he suffered from a combination of neurofibromatosis type I and Proteus syndrome. Unable to keep a job, Merrick accepted his fate as a human novelty and allowed himself to be exhibited as such. Merrick spent the last few years of his life in the hospital, as his condition worsened. Throughout his life, Merrick believed the cause of his affliction was due to maternal impression, the antiquated idea that the emotional experiences of pregnant women could have a lasting physical effect on their unborn children.



Click here for more antique images of tattooed people.

Quagga

The quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra. They were found in South Africa and hunted to extinction for meat and hide. The last wild quagga was probably shot in the late 1870s. The last captive specimen died in 1883 at a zoo in Amsterdam.  The quagga was the first extinct creature to have its DNA studied. After it was discovered that surviving zebra and quagga share a close relationship, a selective breeding process was began by the Quagga Project to "breed back" the quagga. The first foal, named Henry, was born in 2005. It is a matter of controversy among scientists whether or not the Quagga Project has truly accomplished its mission.



1793 illustration of a quagga mare belonging to Louis XVI.



Quagga in London zoo, circa 1870.

Antoni Gaudi's Architecture

Antoni Placid Guillem Gaudi i Cornet was born in 1852 to a family of coppersmiths in Catalonia, Spain. Gaudi worked as an architect in a unique Art Nouveau style. In the last years of his life, Gaudi suffered a number of personal tragedies and became a recluse, living in the crypt of La Sagrada Familia, his unfinished masterpiece.





Casa Mila or La Pedrera.



La Sagrada Familia.

The Corset

Some historians attribute the corset to Catherine de Medici but others claim it was in use in early Crete. By reinforcing a bodice with bone or metal, the corset was used to maintain a firm shape, emphasize the waist, and bring back the shoulders. By the 18th century, most women wore a form of corset and the tight-lacing was only common with the very fashionable. At this time, men, dandies usually, began wearing corsets to slim their figures.





1908.

Tight-lacing became popular among all classes in the Victorian era. Corsets became more heavily boned in the 1840s, and steel was a popular reinforcement by 1850. Corsets evolved over the years to fit popular fashion. During the Edwardian period, the corset had an S-shape with a straight front and pushed out derriere. By World War I, the corset was beginning to fall out of style and was later replaced by girdles and elastic brassieres. Today, corsets are popular in fetish and BDSM culture.



1886 Advertisement.



S-Shaped Corset.


"The corset is, in economic theory, substantially a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work." -Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899).

Victorian and Edwardian Currency

Now for a short lesson in Victorian and Edwardian currency... There were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pennies in 1 shilling. A farthing (fourth-thing) was a fourth of a penny, and a halfpenny (hay-p'ny) was half a penny. A pound coin was called a Sovereign, as it was stamped with the image of the queen, and was made of gold. A paper pound was called a quid. Other coins included the crown, guinea, sixpence, and groat.



A sovereign.



Pound notes.

Anna Leonowens

Anna Leonowens, the inspiration for The King and I, was born Anna Harriette Edwards in India in 1831. Her father, Sergeant Thomas Edwards, was a London cabinetmaker and her mother, Mary Anne Glasscott, an Anglo-Indian and daughter of a lieutenant in the Bombay Army. Anna later fabricated her heritage so to distance herself from a mixed-race past and to afford herself and her children greater opportunities. In 1849, Anna married her childhood sweetheart Thomas Leon Owens, a clerk. A few years later, the couple embarked on a journey to Australia; Anna gave birth to a son, Thomas, on board the ship Alibi. Anna would give birth to three more children, but only two of the four survived. After moving to Singapore, her husband died of apoplexy and Anna became a teacher and established a school for the children of British officers.



In 1862, Anna accepted the position as teacher to the 39 wives/concubines and 82 children of the king of Siam in Bangkok. She served six years until the king's death. Afterwards, she wrote articles for the Atlantic Monthly and eventually penned a two-volume memoir The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870) and the sequel Romance of the Harem (1873). In her books, Anna, a feminist, focused on the subjugation of Siamese women but may have exaggerated some facts. Regardless, Anna enjoyed a lauded literary status and rubbed elbows with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In addition to traveling as a lecturer, Anna taught at a prep school in Manhattan, continued to publish articles, and helped establish the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After leading a full life, Anna died at the age of 83 in Montreal.



The King of Siam and his favorite wife.

Moulin Rouge

The cabaret known as the Moulin Rouge, or Red Mill, was built in 1889 by Jospeh Oller, owner of the Paris Olympia. Noted for its red windmill, the Moulin Rouge is known as the birthplace for the modern can-can. Originally a respected working class dance, the can-can was provocatively performed by the Moulin Rouge's courtesans and is the foundation for burlesque strip-tease. The Moulin Rouge still functions as a cabaret, and the current revue includes more than 100 artists, consisting of showgirls, dancers, acrobats, magicians, and clowns.





Painting by patron Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Great Exhibition of 1851

The "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations" took place in Hyde Park, London May 1st-October 15th, 1851. Organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, it was the very first World's Fair. Charles Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Lewis Carroll, and George Eliot were among the six million in attendance. Made of a cast-iron frame and glass, a greenhouse-like "Crystal Palace" was built to house the exhibition. The architectural triumph was later moved to south London but destroyed in 1936 by a fire.



The Crystal Palace

An attendee of the Great Exhibition observed, "Large, piled-up ‘trophy’ exhibits in the central avenue revealed the organizers’ priorities; they generally put art or colonial raw materials in the most prestigious place. Technology and moving machinery were popular, especially working exhibits. [...] Visitors could watch the entire process of cotton production from spinning to finished cloth. Scientific instruments were found in class X, and included electric telegraphs, microscopes, air pumps and barometers, as well as musical, horological and surgical instruments."


Exhibits included: the Kon-i-noor, the world's largest known diamond at the time; the inadequacy of well-respected locks, as demonstrated by Alfred Charles Hobbs; a precursor to the fax machine, invented by Frederick Bakewell; Matthew Brady's daguerrotypes; an early automatic voting machine, invented by William Chamberlin, Jr. of Sussex; and the Tempest Prognosticator, a leech-powered barometer.



The Tempest Prognosticator

Some feared the attendees might become a mob; Karl Marx thought the Great Exhibition was emblematic of capitalism. Regardless, the Great Exhibition of 1851 identified Great Britain as a superpower and made modern discoveries accessible to the masses.

Spirit Photography and Ectoplasm

Modern photography was invented in the early 1800s. Before photographers had perfected the craft, experimentation was a must. While developing a photograph, William H. Mumler stumbled on a technique for double exposure in the 1860s. This manipulation allowed him to create photographs with ghostlike figures, a fact he took full advantage of. Mumler began working successfully as a spirit medium, creating doctored photographs for Abraham Lincoln's widow and P.T. Barnum, but was later exposed as a fraud and prosecuted in court.





A feature in early spirit photography was a substance called ectoplasm, first coined by French physiologist and Noble prize winner Charles Richet. Ectoplasm is defined as a spiritual energy exteriorized by physical mediums in a trance state. The gauze-like ectoplasm is secreted from the physical medium's orifices and draped over a nonphysical body, enabling the spirit to interact in the physical world. Obviously, modern science has not recognized the existence of ectoplasm, though it was widely accepted as truth in Victorian times.