The Wunderkammer of the Mild Colonial Boy, Esq., a Reactionary Tory Gentleman, who armed only with a Steampowered Babbage Engine and Pure Intentions, wanders the Time Streams and Aetheric Plane gathering an Eccentric Hodgepodge of Curiousities, Frivolities, Whimsicalities and Nonsense.
Q. Why is your Tumblelog called "My Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck by Lightning"?
A. Because "My Grandmother's Ear-Trumpet Has Been Struck by Lightning" wouldn't fit in the available space.
Victorian beauty
REALLY? This “caption” would totally be submitted to shit my students write if I got this in a student exam or paper. Try, “her puffy sleeves indicate that it is 1897 and she is in the pink of fashion”! The mourning (if indeed it is, which I am not convinced of, because people on Tumblr seem determined to identify every lady photographed in B+W as wearing mourning) comes from her bodice being trimmed with crepe.
by Melville Henry Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval, and Cranstoun Metcalfe
This article appeared in the September 1897 issue of The Nineteenth Century Review.
In France and in Spain the Legitimist is at any rate taken seriously. In England, according to the man in the street, and according to others in other places, the Legitimist is simply an idiot who is not worth further consideration. Yet among English Legitimists are many men of whose sanity there can be no question, whose integrity is beyond dispute, and whose loyalty to Queen Victoria is unimpeachable. What they are doing in this gallery it is the object of this short article to show.
Mohair plus water plus a hot summer day, what could be more comfortable than that?~ Jordan, Marsh & Co., Spring and Summer, 1897
Catalogue of the Inaugural Bench Show of the San Francisco Kennel Club
Mechanics’ Pavilion, San Francisco, Cal. May 19, 20, 21, 22, 1897With 4 inserted plates with photographs of trophies awarded; numerous illustrated advertisements. 23x14.7 cm. (9¼x5¾”), original color lithographed pictorial wrappers.
Rare and fascinating catalogue listing the many participants in the first dog show of the San Francisco Kennel Club, with hundreds of categories, from Mastiffs and St. Bernards to Dachsundes and Yorkshire Terriers. The lineage of each of the participating pooches is given, and other details, including whether they were for sale, and if for sale, the price. A quick perusal reveals prices as high as $10,000, that for a St. Bernard named Tammany. The advertisements are equally entertaining, many relating to dog-related products, breeding fees, etc. No copies are listed in OCLC/WorldCat.
Abbott Handerson Thayer
My Children (Mary, Gerald, and Gladys Thayer)
1897
Oil on canvas
86 1/4 x 61 1/8 in.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
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Abbott Handerson Thayer, known for his paintings of angels, often used his children as models. Referring to My Children, Thayer wrote of his aim to show “three blissfully exalted children” in a way that “puts beauty to the eye first, and the idea last.”
Americanart.si.edu
nypl:
The A. G. Spalding Baseball Collection is just full of men with mustaches. Seems like the rise of professional baseball corresponded with a fashion for facial hair.
A little research determines that this fellow, Mr. A.M. Wood, actually played cricket. You can read stats from several 1897 matches his team (the Philadelphians) played versus various teams in England if you are the type of person who likes reading old cricket scores.
We say, that’s a cracking good mustache, sir!
Happy Mustache Monday!
