Opera singers were the world’s first pop stars, and the nineteenth century saw the apex of diva and divo worship, with hundreds of thousands left spellbound by the heavenly voices of Jenny Lind, Nelli Melba, Enrico Caruso, and Jean de Rezke, to name a few stars. Since this was before radio, and definitely before television [...]
Smoking in the nineteenth century underwent many amusing changes, per the advice of etiquette books. Where once guides to modern behavior stressed how vulgar it was to smoke, when ladies took up the habit, it behooved these arbiters of social instruction to catch up with the times.
From 1844’s Hints on etiquette and the usages of [...]
1900 winter costume
1902 winter walking costume
1903 furs
1905 winter costume
1909 winter walking costume
1913 winter fashion
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, meals could be obtained at chop houses, coaching inns, hotels, and coffee houses, yet all these ways of eating were deemed unsuitable for respectable women, who generally ate at home. This situation changed in the 1860s with the arrival of better railway hotels, who welcomed women in the [...]
In the summer of 1885, Karl Pearson founded The Men and Women’s Club with the aim to discuss “all matters…connected with the mutual position and relation of men and women.” Pearson drew his members from middle-class liberals, socialists, and feminists, and over the lifespan of the club (1885-1889), discussions ranged from sexual relations in Periclean [...]
