JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Three generation's worth of Victorian women although they'll try ( and do ) confuse you. By 1890 or so ' Edwardian ' fashion appears and he wouldn't be king for another decade. Time's blip second from left is 1861.
Our Civil War took place inside what we've come to refer to as The Victorian Era, ' inside ' the operative word. It's important because the war took place on the backdrop of a specific time period. 1861-1865, a blink in a nearly 60 year span we've managed to lump into one handy ( albeit romantic ) designation, " Victorian ". With Queen Victoria looming large over her reign, six decades elapsed. That's an awfully long time- three generations worth! The queen who imprinted so much on our society reigned from 1837, at barely 18, to 1901. I've heard ' early Victorian ', etc., may be the best way when being more precise although it takes math. 1861-1865, early/mid-Victorian.
We tend to be most familiar with Alexandrina Victoria's images as the elderly woman, gray and maybe a little grim. It's better remembering the 18 year old girl who woke up one day as Queen. And thus began an era.
It's not an infallible method of marking time BUT pretty effective. Want to witness history and figure out who goes where in Time? Go see what we girls were wearing. Men aren't as illustrative- you hear a lot of stories where they'd be buried in the same suit worn for their wedding 40 years previously.
What Queen Victoria would have recognized when she got up that morning in 1837 to begin the longest reign in British history.
Here's how important that is. It's 2020. Sixty years ago, 1960. The intervening years have registered changes and marked so many world and society altering events you simply cannot list all of them. Let's see, 1960. That's twelve Presidents and several wars ago. Born in 2020, your grandmother wore plastic go-go boots and her mother winced when she walked out of the house in her mini-skirt. Point being, the era would have to be called The EisenhowerKennedyJohnsonNixonFordCarterReaganBushClintonBushObamaTrump era, by comparison to how very, very long was the ' Victorian ' era and we'd be EisenhowerKennedyJohnsonNixonFordCarterReaganBushClintonBushObamaTrumpians. When we're someone's ancestor that's going to be tough pinning down.
1852. We hadn't invented those iconic hoops as yet, layers of petticoats. Queen Victoria actually hated hoops anyway, issued a strong condemnation of the fashion as dangerous and absurd.
AND here they are! An absurd, extreme fashion fortunately encompasses the war years- this is 1859, earliest I can find is 1858 and the last image of hoops I found was in an 1866 issue of Le Mode.
We miss an awful lot and really, add to some fairly rampant, frequently hilarious pieces of fractured history- check out Pinterest for a few.
1865, we'd lost our minds. It could have been the ever-increasing size that doomed this genuinely iconic, war time fad. With increased size fatal accidents increased, too. Public outrage can be found in nearly every newspaper along with horrific stories of death-by-crinoline.
Personally getting fairly familiar with being able to ascertain who was when through what on earth we wore. If I did it for EisenhowerKennedyJohnsonNixonFordCarterReaganBushClintonBushObamaTrumpians it'd be a chore- common decency would require the entire '80's to be omitted, the 90's were not much improved.
SO we glued it all onto the back, a decision I've always questioned. I mean really? Draw attention to the ONE area most women would rather not be a focal point? We became a addicted to a pretty grandiose amount of bows, frills, feathers 'n lace 'n fuss, too.
1880, our Civil War vets' children streamlined, finally. Notice we weren't ready to let go of all the fuss.
THEN that darn bustle came BACK, why do we never learn from bitter experience? 1886. And added around a foot of hair.
Victoria's reign and era ended just a few weeks into 1901, January 22nd. In 6 days she'll celebrate her 201st birthday. It's actually an important event. For one person to have imprinted so MUCH history she's an actual era spanning three generations, with such massive changes? Remarkable.