A Very British Romance: Episode Two Highlights

By | February 25th, 2020|Categories: Valentine's Day, Victorian Era, Women's History|Tags: , , , , |

Episode two of A Very British Romance covers love in the Victorian era and it did not disappoint! It was so full of great information and charming stories about coupling in the 19th century that I was disappointed when I realized the end credits were rolling! The docuseries’ premise is that all of the courtship [...]

At the 2020 Rose Parade with Ellen Snortland

By | February 18th, 2020|Categories: Customer's Fashions, Edwardian Era, Edwardian Fashion, Fashion, Recollections, Women's History|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Ellen is a writer, journalist, and self-proclaimed women’s history geek. Ellen was one of the 100 walkers who were part of the Pasadena Celebrates 2020 in this year’s 2020 Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. The entry celebrates the 100th anniversary of the enactment of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution. It was a [...]

Pioneer Clothing: Accessories Women Wore on the Frontier

By | February 18th, 2020|Categories: Accessories, American West, Old West, Pioneer Dress, Victorian Era|Tags: , , , |

I recently wrote a post on how women in the American frontier dressed as they settled into new lives in the West. I looked at how they adapted their clothing to accommodate their new household responsibilities, how they clung to the fashions of the day and those they were used to and considered feminine, and [...]

A Very British Romance: Episode One Highlights

By | February 12th, 2020|Categories: Valentine's Day, Women's History|Tags: , , , , , |

There are few areas of modern life that our society obsesses over more than that of romantic love, but it wasn’t always that way. PBS’s A Very British Romance takes a whimsical and academic look at the evolution of coupling and the invention of romantic rituals and customs still in use today. Episode one aired [...]

Pioneer Clothing: What Women Wore in the Western Frontier

By | February 4th, 2020|Categories: American West, Fashion, Old West, Pioneer Dress, Victorian Era, Victorian Fashions, Women's History|Tags: , , |

As many of our readers, I enjoy spending my free time dreaming about owning Victorian gowns and wishing that I could spend more time in the layers, colors, ribbons, and elegance that come to mind when I think of the era. I am also a true woman of the Southwest - an Arizona native and [...]

Victorian Dress Reform: Who, What, When, and Why

By | January 31st, 2020|Categories: Underpinnings, Victorian culture, Victorian Era, Women's History|Tags: , , , , , , |

Many of us know about the women’s suffrage movement, abolition, and temperance societies, but what about the dress reform movement?  Many of the most radical and audacious women involved in progressive movements of the Victorian Era could see the way that women were physically prevented from fully participating in society. Such limitations, they argued, took [...]

The 1920s, the Decade that Changes Everything!

By | January 31st, 2020|Categories: 1920s fashion, Entertainment, Fashion, Roaring 20s|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

In part one of our look back on the 1920s we explored the top five events that kicked off the Decade of Change, the years we know as the Jazz Age and the Roaring ‘20s. Most are aware of how that decade exploded in 1929 with the crash of the stock market and the start [...]

Colleen Moore: The torch of Flaming Youth

By | January 16th, 2020|Categories: 1920s fashion, Recollections, Roaring 20s, Women's History|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

“I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch. What little things we are to have caused all that trouble” F. Scott Fitzgerald in Motion Picture Magazine Flaming Youth was not only the title of a Colleen Moore silent film, but also the name bestowed upon those young people who [...]

5 facts about Margaret Tobin Brown (aka The Unsinkable Molly Brown)

By | January 14th, 2020|Categories: American West, Edwardian Era, Edwardian Fashion, Women's History|Tags: , , , , , |

I am a Denver transplant. Having always dreamt about becoming a docent at a house museum (yes, my goals are that specific), one of the first things I did when I moved to the city was to sign up to volunteer at the Molly Brown House Museum, located, luckily, a few blocks away from my [...]