The time has come! I have been wanting to dive into the history of the chatelaine and this week I got the chance. And you know what? I often get excited about the posts I write for Recollections, and this one had me clapping my hands in joy a few times. Not only are the [...]
Last summer I had quite a fun time exploring how the straw hat went from an accessory used mostly by laborers to a shabby chic accessory still enjoyed today. I discovered that bonnets have a similar history, although they started out being used to protect hair while working, were extremely chic for a century or [...]
Did you know that Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum wrote an entire novel on the life and times of Santa Claus? I had never heard this before and came across a reference to it while doing some online research on the history of Mother Goose. The novel, The Life and Adventures of Santa [...]
I am still quite a fan of snail mail and look forward to using the holidays as excuses to send cards and letters to people in my life. And I do so with quite a bit of freedom. I choose my own paper, my own color of ink, and allow my personality to come through. [...]
Last week I wrote about the Victorian home workout and the various attitudes about female exercise of the time. I included illustrations from exercise 19th century fitness manuals which showed women performing various exercises in their full proper dress of the time; corsets, petticoats, and all. Clothing had not yet evolved to a point where [...]
It may seem highly modern, but did you know that Victorians enjoyed home workouts? Women especially were encouraged to exercise at home, petticoats and all. I have gone digging and have uncovered several early exercise manuals for women. They reveal a lot about 19th-century culture, and attitudes on health and women. Plus, they are quite [...]
Summer is here and it is sure to be the best many of us have ever had. It will certainly be a lot more carefree than last year, and that means a lot of time outdoors with loved ones. Last summer I did a fun series on the history of beach culture in America and [...]
You might think that you can purchase any and all things you might be able to think of through your Amazon Prime app. A hundred a fifty years ago this is what people were thinking as they turned the pages of the recent Sears catalog. But instead of a few taps, sought-after items were requested [...]
How useful is a painting for deciding whether or not to buy a dress? Or to describe today’s fashion trends? I’d say, it probably wouldn’t be all that effective. For many centuries women have favored multi-dimensional images over flat paintings or drawings for viewing clothing. From the 1300s to the 1800s the elite throughout Europe [...]