Category: History

Figures that dress and undress

Updated on August 21, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Other than your hero/heroine, that is…

Today I’m talking about paper dolls of the Regency period, but not the fashion figures that originated in France and were adopted by dressmakers and their clients, and their clients’ children in the 1790s. Paper dolls specifically for children were created and published by Samuel and Joseph Fuller in a series of paper doll booklets–figures that dress and undress–and sold at their shop The Temple of Fancy on Rathbone Place in London. Attracting an upperclass clientele, the shop also sold prints and painting materials and supplies.

In mediocre rhyme, the books told an improving story with a hand-colored paper doll, outfits only, with a moveable head at the end of the book. Hours of fun and instruction! Here’s an overview of The History of Little Fanny: Exemplified in a Series of Figures (1810) and you can play online paper dolls with Fanny here.

I have seen a reproduction copy of Little Fanny and the storyline is depressingly moral. Little Fanny is far too interested in clothes and learns the virtues of plain living and hard work. Another title, Ellen, or, The Naughty Girl Reclaimed, pretty much speaks for itself.

But the boys. Oh, did the boys have fun. How about Frank Feignwell’s Attempts to Amuse His Friends on Twelfth-Night. You can dress and undress flamboyant young Frank here.

And then there’s The History and Adventures of Little Henry.

Just by looking at this you can see that Henry has a whale of a time, and you can view the book online here. First, he’s stolen by gypsies (moral lesson on inattentive nursemaid included) and becomes a beggar, then a chimney sweep, a drummer boy, and a sailor, rising through the ranks to return to England with fame and fortune. Huzzah!

So, yes. Boys can dress up and seek material success in life, but not girls. “The textual morals against love of clothing are gendered in problematic ways, with female characters mortiﬁed for this ﬂaw more readily than male characters.” (A Story, Exempliﬁed in a Series of Figures: Paper Doll versus Moral Tale in the Nineteenth Century by Hannah Field. More) And there’s also a great deal of self-satisfaction, one suspects, on the part of the well-heeled patrons of the Fullers’ shop, buying these idealized, smug stories for their own children.

For more online fun, Williamsburg has an online paper doll game and you can find downloadable Regency paper dolls, designed by a historian, at PaperThinPersonas.com.

Did you enjoy paper dolls as a child and/or with your own children?

Posted in History, Research | Tagged children, paper dolls | 3 Replies

Give me that old-time (Regency) religion

Updated on July 25, 2014 by susanna

I’m going to be a bit daring this week and talk about religion. (But don’t worry. I won’t preach.)

My books aren’t inspirational, so faith issues aren’t in the foreground, but when I create Regency characters I always keep in mind that they do have a religious background of some kind, even if they’re an atheist or agnostic or just aren’t very observant. Even if it’s never overtly mentioned, my characters’ upbringing and beliefs are going to play a role in how they deal with issues of life and death, right and wrong, and love and sex that arise over the course of their stories.

And I also remember that my characters’ religion isn’t as similar to my own as you might think. You see, I’m an Episcopalian, a member of the American branch of the Anglican Communion. You’d think that would give me a wonderful window into writing Regency characters, so many of whom are English aristocrats and therefore good, conforming, non-boat-rocking members of the Church of England. And you’d think that if my characters found themselves flung forward two centuries, visiting Saint Andrew’s with me on a Sunday morning would be a little taste of home.

Not so much, as it turns out. Oh, the liturgy would sound familiar in many spots. And I won’t dwell on the differences that spring from broader social changes–like how my Regency characters wouldn’t have referred to their rector as “Pete,” nor how their congregation’s ordained staff wouldn’t have been 50% female.

No, to a Regency person my modern Episcopal church would be both far too Catholic and entirely too like those overly enthusiastic Methodists and dissenting Protestants. We speak well of the Pope–at least of Pope Francis–which I can’t imagine any Regency-era Anglican doing, given how fraught and bound up in national identity the Catholic-Protestant divide was then. And while I can’t find any specific citations, I don’t think Regency clergy wore ornate, brightly colored vestments or broke out the incense at Easter and Christmas.

Bishop

(That’s Katharine Jefferts Schori, the current presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, at her investiture.)

But the biggest difference between a modern Episcopal or Anglican Sunday service and its Regency antecedent would be the hymns. Prior to 1820 or so, hymn singing was frowned upon in the Church of England–insofar as congregational music existed, it ran to metrical versions of psalms. Since the psalms were taken directly from Scripture, their theology was unassailable, while hymns were viewed as too emotional and of dubious theological merit. (Which amused me to discover, since 200 years later you see similar debates in the church, only with hymns in the honored place once occupied by psalms and “contemporary praise choruses” as the newbies.)

What changed? Just after the Regency, in roughly the second quarter of the 19th century, the Church of England experienced a period of spiritual renewal. This renewal had two branches–Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic. Both movements had a significant, ongoing impact on the church and made the bright, colorful, musical Sunday mornings at Saint Andrew’s possible.

I won’t be there this Sunday, though. Instead I’ll be worshipping at the Church of Baseball, Mariners vs. Orioles. And lest you think there’s no Regency connection there, baseball is mentioned in Jane Austen. Really. I swear.

How do you feel about religion making an appearance in non-inspirational Regencies? Let me know in the comments. And bonus points to anyone who can find the Austen reference and/or say why I always refer to Sunday games as the Church of Baseball.

Posted in History, Regency | Tagged Church of England, religion, Susanna Fraser | 3 Replies

Researching Waterloo

Updated on July 7, 2014 by diane

I’m late with my blog today, but I have a good excuse. I’m just back from a trip out of town for the First Birthday of THE CUTEST GRANDSON EVER. It was wonderful.

Last week I skipped out on a regular blog because I was finishing writing my Work In Progress. I’m happy to report Work Is Done and turned in. And, I discovered in my research that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon lost.

Of course, I knew that beforehand. Who didn’t?

I’ve researched the battle several times, having used it in other books, my Three Soldiers Series, for example. Even if I don’t use the battle in the story, I need to know things like what regiments fought at Waterloo, if I am writing about a Waterloo veteran.

For writing about Brussels before Waterloo, I relied heavily on two sources:

Waterloo Days by Charlotte Ann Eaton (free on Google Books) -This book is a memoir written by a traveler to Brussels who arrived the day of the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball

New Picture of Brussels by J.B. Romberg (also free on Google Books) – a travel guide, written in 1820

For details of the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, I used two rather obvious sources:

The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball by David Miller
Dancing Into Battle by Nick Foulkes

For the battle itself:

The Battle: A New History of Waterloo by Alessandro Barbero
Waterloo: Day of Battle by David Howarth – This book tells the story of the battle from the perspective of the soldiers fighting it, which makes it ideal. It is my favorite book about Waterloo.

But even before I delved into the books, I needed to get myself in the mindset of Waterloo. I did this by watching YouTube videos, which I first found on Number One London. Look HERE for bunches of Waterloo videos, including the Waterloo movie starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Wellington.

You’ll have to wait until 2015 to find out how well I did with this research!

Hugh Westleigh, the hero of A Lady of Notoriety was a Waterloo veteran. You can get your copy of that book now.

Do you have a favorite research book? Or a favorite nonfiction history book?

Posted in History, Regency, Research | Tagged Battle of Waterloo | 2 Replies

What? No Carpets? A Visit to Stratford Hall

Updated on June 8, 2014 by diane

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing Regency Historicals for me is researching how people lived. I’m fascinated by the mundane details of life, like what flowers grew, what food would be eaten, what furniture would be in what room. On my England tours, I asked questions everywhere about the details of carpets that were on the floors.

I tend to forget that my lovely Virginia Commonwealth has a lot of history, as well, dating back to the 1600s when Jamestown was founded. (We aren’t a state, by the way; we’re a commonwealth–according to the Hornbook of Virginia History, “A commonwealth is ‘a state in which the supreme power is vested in the people.’ The term was first given to Virginia in the 1600s)

Last Monday, the dh and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a trip to Westmoreland County in Virginia’s Northern Neck, the peninsula bounded by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. See more about our trip here.

This area was filled with wealthy tobacco plantations and was the birthplace of many of our important historical figures: George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, the two Lees who signed the Declaration of Independence, and, at Stratford Hall, the place we visited, Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Stratford Hall was built in 1730 by Colonel Thomas Lee who was then acting Governor of the colony. Two of his sons were the Lees who signed the Declaration of Independence. The house was built in the Georgian style, which would have been much the fashion in England at the time–very symmetrical. The main floor of the house included a Great Hall for grand entertaining, the dining room, bedchambers, parlors and the library. In the library, books were kept under lock and key; they were considered quite precious.

We had a fabulous guide to take us through the house and explain its features and history. (that’s me in the pink. The people in hats were, coincidentally, from England!)

I saw many familiar-looking tables, chairs, bureaus, wardrobes, beds. The house was furnished much like the English country houses I’d visited on my tours.

I noticed, though, that the floors were bare. When I went on those tours of country houses in England, remember, I always asked about carpets. Almost every room had carpets of some kind. Our guide to Stratford Hall said they kept the floors bare, because the carpets would have been hard to keep clean. They might have had painted sail cloth (oil cloth) floor covering, but no carpets.

I can just imagine some wealthy gentleman from England visiting a house like Stratford Hall in the Colonies. What the Virginians would have considered quite opulent, such an English visitor must have thought very provincial. The wealthy Virginian visiting a country house in England, like Chatsworth or Burghley House, must have walked around with his mouth open.

What “great houses,” historical or otherwise, have you visited lately?

I’m still doing my Goodreads Contest!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Lady of Notoriety

by Diane Gaston

Giveaway ends June 17, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Posted in History, Research | Tagged Country House, Northern Neck, Robert E Lee, Stratford Hall | 4 Replies

Memorial Day

Updated on May 25, 2014 by diane

Today I’m revisiting a blog I wrote in 2009 about Memorial Day and it seems very appropriate to revisit it.

Memorial Day is the unofficial beginning of summer, the weekend of swimming pool openings, the Indianapolis 500, spectacular sales at the mall, picnics, clogged highways, and excursions to the beach.

Lest we forget, Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, a day to honor the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers. Although there were early accounts of memorial activities around the country, the “official” birth of Decoration Day stems from an idea by Henry C. Welles, a small town druggist in New York state, to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead. A year later, with the help of General John B. Murray, a civil war hero, the idea got off the ground and on May 5, 1966, the town not only decorated the graves, but the whole town and held a solemn march to the cemeteries.

In 1868, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic proclaimed May 30 to be a day for “decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

By 1882, the day became more widely known as Memorial Day. In 1966 that New York town was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1971 its date was changed from May 30 to the last Monday of May.

The name of that New York town where Memorial Day originated and the reason why this is relevant to Risky Regencies??

Waterloo, NY

In 2009 I was steeped in research into the battle of Waterloo and was even more acutely aware than usual of the sacrifices of soldiers. Then and now. The book I’m writing now will involve the battle of Waterloo again, and readers will notice that most of my heroes have been soldiers or former soldiers.

My father was a soldier. He luckily was not required to engage in battle as much as other soldiers in WWII, but he did devote his life to being an Army Officer. So this is a thank you to him, to the soldiers of Waterloo, to those in the Civil War, and to those fighting and dying today. Still. Like they were in 2009.

Do you know a soldier, past or present? Tell us about him or her.

I’m also doing my very first Goodreads Giveaway! Here’s the widget!