A Trip To The Seaside

Mother and the girls have gone to Scarborough, one of the many seaside resorts of the day. As I have posted before, Britain's coast was not a Club Med location, but the Regency concept of beach activity was very different from ours. It was more about the supposed health-giving properties of brisk sea air and a firm saltwater dip than tanning on the beach and sipping tropical drinks. 

Ackermann's print series of Thomas Rowlandson's Poetical Sketches of Scarborough showed a place for the hardy traveler. Despite its rugged coastline and inclement weather, Anne Brontë, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, often visited Scarborough to escape the worse terrain and weather of her home in Haworth. It was in Scarborough that she died in 1849, during a visit which she hoped would benefit her health. It was decided that she should be buried in St. Mary's churchyard rather than have her body returned the 70 miles to her home.

A Party At The Cruikshank's

Isaac Cruikshank was a popular and prolific caricature artist of the late 1700s, and his sons, Isaac Robert and George followed in his trade. George began as a satirical print artist, but soon devoted himself to book illustrations. His most notable works are the illustrations for some of Charles Dickens' books, including Oliver Twist, and the first English translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1823.

Dolly and Minerva, in their efforts to broaden their horizons by visiting other publications, are attending a party made up of people from Cruikshank's Comic Alphabet. Perhaps they are a little too comic.

Mother's Old School Friends' Annual Gathering

Every year, Mother hosts a reunion of her school friends, a cheerful group of ladies who are extra cheerful when they get together. Dolly, Minerva, and Cousin Geneviève are expected to hover around but not mingle, lest they hear disturbing gossip about the husbands of these ladies, or mildly shocking information about the ladies themselves. Of course, they are anxious to hear the latter, as it might give them some clues about their paradoxical mother.

The girls are rolling their eyes at the so-outdated gowns of the ladies. Do they still dress as they did as girls, or is it all part of the reunion ritual?  Their fashion plates are from the French periodical Journal des Dames et des Modes, also known as Costume Parisien, which ran from 1797-1839. Geneviève is on edge. Never did she imagine that one of her aunt's school friends was the mother of her secret love, Louis.

The Lady's Monthly

Dolly and Minerva are visiting some women from another publication, The Lady's Monthly Museum; Or, Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction. Needless to say, they are not as pretty as the Ackermann women, but Mother assures them that beauty is only print-deep.

Waistlines and Bustlines

I particularly like Regency fashions because I've never had much of a waistline. I was quite skinny most of my adult life, until the last decade, and no matter how thin I was, I was pretty much of a straight tube from the bust down. How nice to have a clothing silhouette that completely ignored what was in that region! Let those women with hour-glass figures complain. And let later-decade reenactors complain about corsets! 

Dolly and Minerva are at the dressmaker's, having a final fitting on new gowns for 1811. Emphasis on the bustline is the word of the day.

La Belle Assemblée

There were many competing fashion magazines in Ackermann's day, although none approached the quality of Ackermann's fine fashion plates. It is easy to see how some of them attempted to copy the images, but the result was always crude and poorly colored. La Belle Assemblée was owned by John Bell, a mover and shaker in the publishing industry. The magazine ran from 1806-1839. Early fashion prints were quite amateurish, but improved as time (and technology) advanced. Early in its run, La Belle Assemblée focused on informative and literary articles for women, as was the trend in the Enlightenment era, but by the 1820s, the so-called Romantic movement had shifted the role of women to more domestic and fashion topics.

Life in a Doll's House

I've always been fascinated by dollhouses. As a child, I read stories in which pixies or fairies would take up residence in a dollhouse, usually being frustrated by the clunky, out-of-proportion furnishings. The only dollhouse I had was one of those metal jobs that held together with bendable tabs, and I couldn't imagine a pixie being too happy in a tin box, with a molded plastic bed to sleep on. At any rate, I never saw signs of any pixie habitation.

Dollhouses were popular in Regency times, but were a hobby for grown women rather than toys for children. We see that trend today, with the intricate models available, with very expensive furnishings that I wouldn't let a child touch. Miniature things are so intriguing. Some years ago, I found a book about the famous Thorne Collection of Miniature Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. The wealthy Mrs. James Ward Thorne spent many years and much money building 68 historically-correct room boxes that are just stunning.

In 1935, the actress Colleen Moore finished a fantastic fairy-tale castle and it soon went on the road for the public to see. My mother recalled her mother taking her into New York City to see it, but Mom was less than impressed. Sure it was incredibly intricate and amazingly furnished, but it wasn't to play with and you couldn't get near enough to touch it or peek closely into the rooms. Since 1949, it has been housed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where it has been undergoing restoration. Wouldn't that be a fun job?