Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914)

Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914), a Danish-American journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark. He is known for his dedication to using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the less fortunate in New York City*, which was the subject of most of his prolific writings and photographic essays. As one of the first photographers to use flash, he is considered a pioneer in photography. [Source: Wikipedia.]

*The general consensus outside America seems to be that, while he partially wanted to help the less fortunate, quite a lot of his actions came from voyeurism and gaining a sense of control over the poor neighborhoods by taking pictures (a form of surveying.) It is generally known that he went to the neighborhoods at night, while the people were sleeping, and then fired his flash (hence all the sleeping people in pictures.) At the start of the 20th century, photography flash wasn’t as advanced as it was now, so there was quite an explosion. However, he did take some great photographs:

Wikipedia article on Riis
The full text of his main work, “How the Other Half Lives.”
Riis article from the Harvard site
Photographs.

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770 - 1844)

Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen in 1770 (according to some accounts, in 1768), the son of an Icelander who had settled in Denmark and there carried on the trade of a wood-carver. This account is disputed by some Icelanders, who claim Thorvaldsen was born in Iceland.

Young Thorvaldsen attended Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi), winning all the prizes including the large Gold Medal. As a consequence, he was granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome, where he arrived on March 8, 1797. Since the date of his birth had never been recorded, he celebrated this day as his “Roman birthday” for the rest of his life.

Thorvaldsen’s first success was the model for a statue of Jason, which was highly praised by Antonio Canova, the most popular sculptor in the city. He had worked on this statue for 25 years. In 1803 he received the commission to execute it in marble from Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art-patron. From that time Thorvaldsen’s success was assured, and he did not leave Italy for sixteen years.

In 1819 he visited his native Denmark. Here he was commissioned to make the colossal series of statues of Christ and the twelve Apostles for the rebuilding of Vor Frue Kirke (from 1922 known as the Copenhagen Cathedral) between 1817 and 1829, after its having been destroyed in the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. These were executed after his return to Rome, and were not completed till 1838, when Thorvaldsen returned to Denmark, being received as a hero.

He died suddenly in the Copenhagen Royal Theatre on March 24, 1844, and bequeathed a great part of his fortune for the building and endowment of a museum in Copenhagen, and also left to fill it all his collection of works of art and the models for all his sculptures very large collection, exhibited to the greatest possible advantage. Thorvaldsen is buried in the courtyard of this museum, under a bed of roses, by his own special wish.
(Source: Wikipedia)

The Thorvaldsen museum was started in 1839 and was designed by Danish architect H.G. Bindesbøll. Except for the regular collection, there are various exhibitions of new and young artists. Helping new talent was one of the last wishes of Thosvaldsen. Apart from Thorvaldsens work, there are also various paintings from his own collection, mostly from Danish and Norwegian painters whom he met in Rome.
Website: www.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk

Public lives: Women’s position, family life, dinner parties

Recently I read the book Public Lives (Gordon, E., Nair, G. Public lives: Women, family and society in Victorian Britain. London, 2003) which was very interesting. The writers looked at letters and diaries to learn about women and family life in the Victorian era, mostly in Ireland. Here are some things that surprised me:

There was the story of one Madeleine Smith and her lover L’Angelier who was stringed along by Madeleine, in 1852. They had a very long correspondence through letters, but in the end she moved on to a more suitable husband. From the letters it showed that the couple had intercourse, which was not so unusual for engaged couples, and in some situations, the engagement was begun in order to have sex. The story also shows the family’s pressure on girls to marry the right person, even though there are no arranged marriages anymore. A fun element I found was when Madeleine promises her lover to become a better person: “i shall practise music and drawing and shall read useful books. I shall not read Byron any more” (pp. 89)

People often comment with questions about a middle class dinner. This is a passage from the book which shows what was eaten at an upper-middle class dinner in 1840 in Edinburgh:

Two soups, two large dishes of fish, four massive entrees, one invariably curry. Roast of beef or leg of mutton, a gigantic turkey, a variety of solid viands – ducks, a ham or tongue, beefsteak pie. Then the sweet course: macaroni and cheese, more especially for masculine tastes. Spun sugar and pastry, filled with preserves. A simple pudding, white vanilla and pink raspberry cream, pale wine jelly. (pp. 118)

The book also shows that much alcohol was consumed, people had to go home because they ‘felt unwell’ or were upset because there was no booze at a party. Going home at one o’clock at night was considered early. It seems the Victorians knew how to party.

Princess Pauline

In the history of the world, little Pauline Musters is the smallest mature woman ever recorded. Pauline is currently listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having stood only 1 foot 11.2 inches in height.

Born on February 26, 1876 in Ossendrecht in the Netherlands Pauline Munster’s was almost half of her final height straight from her mother’s womb. At birth, she was just over 12 inches. At age nine, the tiny dynamo weighed only three pounds and in adulthood Pauline Munster weighed less than nine pounds. Her measurements at age 19 were 181/2 -19-17, meaning she had curvy little figure and in truth she had no shortage of male suitors.

Pauline began her profession career as an infant at which time the public simply marveled at her tiny proportions, but as she grew older Pauline took to performing as well. She was eventually known for being an adept acrobat and for skilfully dancing with partners drawn from the audience. As her performances progressed in quality, Pauline took on many unique stage names. She was perhaps best known simply as Princess Pauline and on par with her name she took to wearing remarkable elegant gowns on stage, with details and stitching so minute that the garments themselves were a wonder to behold. (Everything blatantly taken from The Human Marvels.)

Also amusing: The illustrated gentleman learns to accept failure.

Mal du Siecle and Weltschmertz

Before I start, I would like to link you to the website Curious Expeditions, which I think is very great and you might think so too.

Mal du Siecle is closely related to Weltschmertz (though the latter seems to have started a little earlier. The most famous sufferer of Weltschmertz is Goethe’s Young Werther.) Both conditions seem to generally occur in sensitive gentlemen who become very sad or passive because they do not feel at home in the current society.

“Mal du siècle, which can be roughly translated from French as “pain of the century,” is a term used to refer to the hopelessness, sadness, disillusionment, and melancholy experienced by primarily young adults of Europe’s late 19th century, when speaking in terms of the rising decadent movement. This may also simply be termed the “ennui.”" (Wikipedia)

“Mal du Siecle is a mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to typify Romanticism.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

The sufferers of Mal du Siecle felt that the world was now dominated by money and fame and older aspects, for example honor and beauty, were therefore lost.

Weltschmertz is related to Melancholism, of which Friedrich is a famous protagonist.

A very interesting article on romanticism in France, in French.
An article on Baudelaire’s degeneration theory.

In which the 19th century comes to your blogger

I was vastly surprised to find myself in the middle of a Napoleontic war. Luckily, I managed to snap some pictures. (If you’re on a feedreader, sorry for the huge amount of pictures. A cut seems not to work well in feedreader.)

My favourite links this week:

Victorian health and medicine

Some Victorian trivia

Were left-handed people repressed?

Women and literature in the Victorian era

Recently I’ve been reading Women and Literature in Britain, 1800-1900 by Joanne Shattock, and it’s an absolutely delightful book. It describes both female writers and female writers in the 19th century, through essays by various writers. And even though all contributing writers are female, it is not a feminist manifesto but seems very objective in its observations.

My favourite chapter is about women and print, and the problem of women reading. Especially at the start of the 19th century, solitary reading was deemed a dangerous activity for women, unless it was the bible or light literature. Even though female writers were already an established practice, women’s reading was monitored to make sure they would not read the wrong kind of books. It is argued that middleclass women read most, because upperclass women were busy with social resposibilities, and working class women couldl often not afford literature or did not have the time to read.
The reason that reading things was so dangerous for women was because they read in a different way then men did. While men read with their head, women read with their bodies, and where therefore more vulnerable to the effects of literature. Women were scolded for reading light, frivolous novels, but on the other hand they were banned from reading scientific books.

In addition, the book has a very interesting chapter on children’s literature (for example the genre of consolation literature, which was hugely popular because of the many child deaths. Almost 15% of all children died in the 19th century, and these books could give children some consolation.) There are also chapters on theatre, poetry, the public debate and the domestic sphere. I would definately recommend this book. (A part of it is on Google Scholar)
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Something different: I often get trackbacks of sites that cite my content, and usually they say ‘19thcentury wrote a post about … here,’ but the other day I got one that said:
Henry David Thoreau wrote an interesting post today on Coffee houses. Here’s a quick excerpt I guess it’s a mistake but wouldn’t it be interesting if Thoreau would write blogposts! (Maybe not about coffeehouses though…) It’s here

Coffee houses

Coffee appeared in Europe for the first time in the 17th century. Not long after, the example of the Ottoman Empire was followed, and coffee houses were build. The drink and new establishements soon became immensely popular.
The first coffee houses appeared in Venice, due to the trade of this city with the Ottoman Empire. The first coffee house in England was set up in Oxford in 1650 by a man named Jacob, and the first coffeehouse in London was opened in 1652. By the middle of Queen Anne’s reign the number of Coffee Houses in London and Westminster had grown to several hundreds, some imaginative estimates putting the figure at 2,000.

The coffeehouse was not just popular because you could drink coffee there, but also for the many lively debates that were held. Many media historians see the coffeehouse as an important aspect in news and information exchange during the 19th century. It is even said that the idea of the Encyclopedie originated from coffeehouse conversation. It was a place of information exchange, where many pamphlets and international newspapers were available and where you could share your opinion.
Governments weren’t always very happy with this free exchange of ideas: Charles II of England tried to suppress coffeehouses as “places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers.” Apart from conversation, a lot of business was done in the coffeehouse (in fact, the world-famous Lloyd’s insurance company of today has its roots in early transactions conducted in Lloyd’s coffee house in London,) as well as gambling. Newspapers were read aloud, and discussed afterwards.

At first coffeehouses were social levellers, open to men of any social status. In the mid-18th century the club (There’s a little on clubs in this comment) became more popular for the aristocratic clientele, and afterwards the coffeehouse was frequented more by workers and lowerclass men.

Women, however, were never allowed in coffeehouses because they were supposed to stay at home. The only exception to this rule was the “limonadière”, the lady cashier behind the counter, whose outward appearance could contribute significantly to the popularity of a coffee house. Being an explicitly ‘male’ location, and in view of the double standards by which the middle classes lived, the coffee house had also established itself, even from an early stage, as a place of prostitution. Coffee houses did not open their doors to the female public until the second half of the 19th century. (from here)

Sources & further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_houses
http://www.johann-jacobs-museum.ch/index.php?id=227&L=3
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/clubs.html

Jane Austen

To give you information about Jane Austen in general would be, I guess, a little superfluous. Instead, I’ll link you to my favourite Austen blog, my favourite Austen book, a Jane Austen action figure (!), and the beautiful portrait that was in the news a lot recently.