Hey Steampunk! What's With the Goggles? Victorian Automobile-Wear

Steampunk is a fiction genre that has it's origins from classic author Jules Verne who wrote future novels at the turn of the century and envisioned the future from a Victorian perspective. At the turn of the century America was in the middle of a technological revolution and many people spoke of the new era of the modern world being upon us. Just imagine Y2K but the 1900 version.

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc

Most technology at the time was powered by steam, so Victorians envisioned the future having a lot of steam powered technology. Hence Steampunk. Steampunk though is the modern take on this future so the machines are way more sci-fi inspired and everyone is wearing a much sluttier or cool looking version of Victorian garb.

So the question of the hour - what's with the goggles?

Although the Victorians weren't really worrying about the major machinery you read about in those Steampunk novels, they were trying dealing with what to them was a very advanced technology of the day - the motorized automobile.

Prior to this time, people rode around in the very slow horse-drawn carriage. They weren't used to going very fast. The first cars were open like a buggy and usually didn't have a windshield. All of sudden, people were having to deal with getting smacked in the head with a bug! Or getting a spec of dirt in their eye and swerving off the road.

So they created their own protection-wear. Goggles, netting hats that looked like bee-keeper hats, gloves, and full coverage overcoats made of warm leather or wool were worn. Coats were usually the color of mud because they were often splattered during driving. Passengers often rode with blankets as well.

Only the wealthy could afford an auto-mobile at this time and many of the lower classes enjoyed the fact that the wealthy looked mighty silly driving around in their bee-keeper outfits!

photo credit: How I See Life via photopin cc

I tried really hard to find an image online of some Victorians wearing their protective gear, and I was only able to find one illustration. There probably isn't much out there because Victorians would remove the gear for photos or paintings. Since they looked quite silly, they may have also avoided wearing it when in the city where they would be driving slow anyways, but on a long country drive, they'd want to be warm and bug-free.

Here is the best I could find to show you guys what I am talking about. Image of Victorian woman wearing automobile protective-wear. The original photo is on the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum Webpage.

If you guys find any photos, please feel free to share in the comments.

So this is why Steampunk has all these people with goggles. Victorians wore them with their newest technology - the automobile. I guess the bee-keeper veil hats were too silly to incorporate into Steampunk. =)

Female Victorian Serial Killers - Plus a Posting Update for The Unhinged Historian

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Starting this week I will be posting every other week so this week is sort of a meh post but next week I'll be back in full creepy historian mode. As many of you know I am publishing my debut novel A White Room, and it's coming out in June, so things are getting pretty hectic, and it's difficult for me to write quality content for you guys every week, so I will be alternating between The Unhinged Historian and Unhinged & Empowered Navy Wives because I don't want to make you read dribble just so it can be on a weekly basis. =)

I greatly appreciate all of my regular readers and subscribers, and I hope this reduction in posts isn't too upsetting anyone. ; ) 

Thank you all for reading!

To make up for this unexpected non-post, below you will find two articles about Female Victorian Serial Killers. I know you are all going "Ooooo Goodie!" Can't get more unhinged than that!

The Angel Maker and Her 400 Infant Corpses!

Mary Ann Cotton - Another British Female Serial Killer!

Hysterical Men! The History of Mental Illness in Men and Why People Think Only Women Are Crazy

Today I want to redirect you guys to an awesome article I found on the Smithsonian website called History of the Hysterical Man. The article is about the book Hysterical Men: The Hidden History of Male Nervous Illness by Mark Micale out of Harvard University Press.

As some of you may already know, I've written a novel called A White Room which plays off of the history of hysteria, a popular disease women were diagnosed with during the Gilded Age.

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I personally believe that the impact of hysteria and the Victorian beliefs that women were naturally weaker than men both physically and mentally still impact our society today. How many times have you heard someone say "women are crazy." People say it idly or for humor, but a lot of people say it very seriously and accept it as being based on a level of truth. Here is an article in "Midlife Bachelor" that promotes this idea among men.

However, this isn't just an accepted generlization among men. WOMEN accept this too!

How many times have you heard a woman say, "I don't have female friends. Women are crazy." Or when a woman gets upset, she might say, "Just ignore me. I'm losing it." If you are a woman, how many times have you honestly wondered if you were going nuts?

Women accept that showing emotion is not rational or reasonable, especially when in public or at work. Women are ashamed of their tears, and women often criticize themselves for not handling things better and often feel like they are really, honestly on the road to eventual insanity.

Victorians didn't just diagnose one fourth of the female population with hysteria. Victorians believed that women were naturally more susceptible to mental illness and not capable of handling the stress of the modern world, which is why they were supposed to stay in the home and why it was so easy to diagnose so many with mental illness.

photo credit: “Caveman Chuck” Coker via photopin cc

Many Victorian and turn of the century values still linger in our society today, letf over from belief structures that are hidden deep within the core of certain values that are passed down from generatioin to generation. At the time women were expected to be the epedimy of morality, virgins, domestic angels, and submissive to their husbands.What woman hasn't been judged just a little harsher for making an immoral decesion? What woman hasn't been criticized for losing her virginity? What woman hasn't felt guilty for leaving her children to work outside the home? What woman hasn't been called crazy while fighting with a man?

Even modern science still thinks women are more susceptible to mental illness. Studies have shown that women are more prone to anxiety and depression, but what those studies haven't shown is that for over a hundred years, it's been acceptable for women to seek help for these problems but not so much for men.

This is also the main argument in the book I don't Want to Talk About It: The Secret Legacy of Male Depression by Terrance Real.

Mark Micale's awesome book is specifically about the history of nervous disorders in men and how our history impacted their ability or lack thereof to deal with it openly. This of course has also helped women reign as the craziest sex.

The Gilded Invalids: Living with Illness in the late 19th and Turn of the Century

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“People didn’t do that a hundred years ago. They were just fine without it.”

I hear people say a version of this a lot like when referring to their reasoning behind not wearing sunscreen or going to the doctors or taking precautions against heart disease.

It’s funny how people don’t think about what really happened to people who got sick one hundred years ago. This was a time period when the word “invalid” was a common word. One of two things happened to people who fell victim to a serious health condition during the Gilded Age. Either they died or they kept on living as a sick person.

The definition of an invalid is someone who has been rendered incapacitated by an illness and there were thousands of invalids during this time period: people with depression, scoliosis, hepatitis, and a variety of other afflictions that don’t leave people incapacitated today.

Invalids were common and a variety of families had to support a sick person who couldn't care for themselves, marry, or seek a profession.There was an entire subculture for invalids and people who cared for them. I find invalids a subject of extreme interest and plan to have an invalid main character in my third novel because I am a person who would have been an invalid if I lived at the turn of the century. 

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I have scoliosis and myofascial pain syndrome, which I manage with physical therapy, dance exercise and pain medication. However, if I lived one hundred years ago I would be forced to spend much of my time in bed trying to reduce the pain and fighting off depression.

So if you ever here someone say "People didn't do that a hundred years ago," you can enjoy watching their faces when you reply “Sure, but the average age of death was 50."

Here is some research on invalids from the Victorian time period and The Gilded Age:

Some popular invalids from turn of the century fiction include Beth from Little Women and the cousin and uncle from The Secret Garden.

An invalid cup with a spout so it could drank while lying down. 

Invalid Cookery - special recipes specifically for the ill and incapacitated. 

A variety of images and different invalid situations on The Victorian Times Blog.

Scoliosis Treatment at the Turn of the Century - this is a PDF article you will have to download but I highly recommend you do because it's quite a find from a medical journal.

Invalid Women Figuring Feminie Illness into American Fiction and Culture 1840-1940. By Diane P. Herndl.  This is a book but this link is for Google Books which lets you read sections.\

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Invalidism and Identity in 19th Century Britain.  I know this is a blog about American history but this book about how being an invalid effects the identity is a really interesting perspective. Again on Google Books so you can read sections.

Primary Sources about Invalids  Ok there are two primary sources from an invalid's perspective on this site but I couldn't provide direct links because they are downloads so easiest way to find them is to use your "find" feature on your browser and search for "invalid." Anyone unclear how to do that, press "Ctrl F" and that will bring up the search bar. Then search "invalid."

Book Review: A White Room

So as some of you know and some maybe not, I'm publishing my debut novel A White Room this Summer, and I'm getting into review time and the first review has been published on the awesome blog Bookfari, so for today's blog I'm going to send you guys that way so you can check out what Kate Martin thought of my book and maybe see what other great fiction is reviewed on their site. Comment!

If anyone is interested in signing up for notifications of when A White Room comes out this summer, sign up for my email list, and don't worry, I'll only email notifications of when the book is coming out and any relevant events. I won't blow up your email. =)

Find my author page on Facebook or on Twitter for notifications and some extra tidbits!

A White Room will be available this summer in paperback on Amazon and eBook on Amazon, Kindle, Barns & Noble eBook store, iTunes, and all the major outlets!

Thanks for reading!

What Creepy Victorian Advertisements You Have!

Advertisements are a fabulous way to learn about a time period and a culture. What do people want? What do people buy? What are people thinking? It's all in the ads. Get into the minds of Victorians by checking out what they looked at regularly. Ah, but alas, this is no normal blog and the below links are not for normal Victorian advertisements. We are focusing on bizarre! So click and become fascinated with the strange things on Victorian minds.

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19th Century Drug Laden Medicinal Advertisements

Victorian Advertisements in Charles' Dicken's Novels including Invisible Hair Breathers and Spine Supports

Male Corsets, Big Booty Enhancers, Yeah It's Victorian!


Deformity Advertisements for False Limbs.
 
I Can't Vouch for Everything on This Pinterest Page but I want You Guys to See the Feminine Massage Ad at the Top. It's Real. I actually reference it in my novel.


Bonus: If You are Looking for Normal Victorian Ads. This site is about Victorian Ads in general and is Searchable. Nice!

Let's Take A Trip to the Museum: Bizarre 19th Century and Turn of the Century History Resource!

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I found this awesome website called The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things. It's not all Turn of the Century but it's got a lot of that stuff and it's all so creepy and twisted, I've got to share.

• Hidden Mothers in Victorian Photography -  I never knew this until I visited this sight. There are hundreds of photos out there of children at the turn of the century with their mother's hidden in the background. Yeah, seriously! The still photography at the time required people to sit still for long periods of time so you can imagine, photographing children was hard! So mother's would disguise themselves as furniture or something else so they could sit with the child and keep them from moving.

• Hidden Mothers and Postmortem Photography or Not?- Now here is where things get really creepy. Are any of the hidden mother photos actually postmortem photography? Victorians were known for taking photos of the dead and after the original hidden mother's post, a debate arose whether or not the children in those photos were alive.

• Those Backward Victorians  Photographs of women . . . but from behind? Got to click to find out why.

photo credit: JoshNV via photopin cc

• The Bone Mother: Arresting Images from Russian Folklore A guest post by about historian and writer Claire Atwater about Ivan Bilibin, a late 19th and early 20th century illustrator and stage designer who created some very disturbing and interesting art inspired from early Russian architecture and Japanese prints.

• A Strange Humanoid creature: Charles Waterton's "Nondescript" - This has got to be my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE! It's the Victorian Big Foot!

• Rare 19th Century Eight-Legged Walking Doll - What? This is literal.

• 19th Century Paper-Mache Anatomical Bee and Beetle Models

• 19th Century Mug Shots from New Zealand

• Hoaks Medieval Torture Device Used By Robbers in the 19th Century  I was so happy when I read this torture device was never used, but then I read it was . . . by the Victorians!!!!

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This Ridiculously Interesting Website is written by "Chelsea Nichols, Head Curator of Ridiculously Interesting Things. Chelsea is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, where she is writing a thesis on human curiosities in contemporary art and their relationship with the history of exhibiting monstrous bodies . . . " - Taken from her About Page.

I highly recommend you guys take a trip to the Ridiculously Interesting Things Museum and stay a while!

Has anyone else seen any ridiculously interesting history out there that you can share in the comments?