Helen (Hunt) Jackson was an author and an activist. Her mom died when Helen was 14, her dad 3 years later. Helen's first child died at 11 months, her second at 10 years old. In 1879 she was inspired after hearing Chief Standing Bear describe how the U.S. government took Native Americans' land. She began to publish in support of Native American rights. 1881 brought her book A Century of Dishonor [pdf], branded with the words "Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations". In 1883, she published her most famous work, Ramona, a novel about racial discrimination set in California. If that's too much to take in, and now you need some kitties, she's still got you covered. Letters from a Cat (1879) is being featured at Archive.org today. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Aug 25, 2008 - 7 comments

Women Explorers and Travellers of Asia and the Middle East - In an age where women struggled for basic human rights, these individuals were literal trailblazers. Leaving their homelands for varying motivations (but often due to dissatisfaction with their social lot in life), they devoted their lives to "explore these antique lands before they are irretrievably caught up in the cacaphonic whirl of the modern world." [more inside]
posted by ikahime on Aug 1, 2008 - 10 comments

Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs (1867).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 5, 2007 - 11 comments

Sick City - Maps and Mortality in the Time of Cholera [print version] reviews Stephen Johnson's "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic"*. Dr John Snow became the acknowledged modern father of epidemiology by identifying water as the transmission vehicle of a cholera outbreak in Victorian England. [more inside]
posted by peacay on Nov 15, 2007 - 10 comments

An excellent resource for connoisseurs of facial hair that is firmly above-the-lip. Also good for people interested in amusing blogs, vintage photography and glossaries. [more inside]
posted by MadamM on Oct 31, 2007 - 21 comments

In the 19th century, English author Favell Mortimer wrote several books describing various countries to children. Apparently she didn't travel much. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 2, 2007 - 34 comments

Photographs of the dancers, actresses, cafe-life figures and prostitutes who were the subjects of Toulouse Lautrec's paintings, including such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, "La Goulue" (Louise Weber; remember this?), and Jane Avril, who was the model for this last, iconic, Lautrec poster. View pages of the art matched up with photos, here, here, and here, and go to this page to rummage around in even more collections that include photos of Lautrec, his friends and family, street and location scenes, and lots of other tidbits. [Spanish language site; NUDITY]
posted by taz on Jul 5, 2007 - 10 comments

The Third View project is a fascinating presentation of "rephotographs" of over 100 historic landscape sites in the American West that presents original 19th-century survey photographs, photographed again in the 1970s, then once again in the '90s - from the original vantage points, under similar lighting conditions, at (roughly) the same time of day and year. [Flash, and you'll probably need to allow pop-ups; a little more info inside...]
posted by taz on Jun 15, 2007 - 13 comments

Bakumatsu - from this to this. Photographs from an exhibition at the University of Tokyo. [related]
posted by tellurian on Jun 6, 2007 - 7 comments

A wonderfully told story about a guy's exciting find. C.A. Jewett's Patternmaking Chest. (Via)
posted by growabrain on Jun 6, 2007 - 24 comments

"John Smith, Youngest, of Crutherland, was given the honorary degree of LL.D in 1840. In 1842 he announced the bequest to the University [of Glasgow] of his runs of publications from learned societies, and his volumes of ephemeral items. These came to the library on Smith’s death in 1849." Some examples: Playbill, Theatre Royal, York Street. Broadsheet account of an attempted prison break. Radical Party election ballad. See also: Glasgow Broadside Ballads: cheap print and popular song culture in nineteenth-century Scotland and Glasgow Broadside Ballads: The Murray Collection
posted by Len on Feb 3, 2007 - 7 comments

Memento Mori : both in Europe and The United States, post-mortem photography [pdf] was both reminder of and coping mechanism for death in the 19th century.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jun 8, 2006 - 11 comments

A nice collection of 19th century French and English medical caricatures, including some drawn by George Cruikshank.
posted by iconomy on Dec 29, 2005 - 8 comments

Concealed hearing devices of the 19th and 20th centuries. Great images in this delightful exhibit of wacky yet charming devices like auricle headphones, dentaphones, concealed beard receptors, barrettes, jewelry, hats, and acoustic chairs.
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 15, 2005 - 20 comments

Missouri Botanical Gardens Rare Books: The Illustrated Garden
This collection contains seventy seven 18th and 19th century botanical books and these are just a small sample of the 3000+ beautiful illustrations contained within. (via)
posted by peacay on Aug 23, 2005 - 18 comments

To witness the decline of the Enlightenment in American culture, one could do worse than to begin by examining the case of Jane C. Rider, the "Springfield Somnambulist." With the decline of the Enlightenment rose the pseudo-science of mesmerism, both as a way to cure the mentally ill and as a stage attraction. Given the submissive nature of mesmerism, it occasionally led to abuses, both real and imagined. [more inside]
posted by strikhedonia on Jul 22, 2005 - 4 comments

Mind Your Manners! Put your knowledge of excruciatingly correct behavior to the test: "Adopt the role of a late 19th century character and try to earn your place in a world where every move is governed by the rules of etiquette." Certainly antiquated but amusing nonetheless.
posted by Lush on Mar 6, 2005 - 36 comments

Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary Containing over 3000 pages the Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary was billed as A description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering; history of inventions; general technological vocabulary. Published in 1876 it is a great resource for those trying to figure out how things were done in the time of our great (great?) grand parents. Ilustrations, upwards of 5000 engravings, include a ride inside monocycle, trestle bridges, compound microscope, clod crushers, washing machines, spoke driver, hydraulic wagon-tipper, and a farmers tool-house. Warning: the book has been scanned in and all the item links are to 100-150K images.
posted by Mitheral on Jan 12, 2005 - 10 comments

Arctic Blue Books Online - 'a searchable, World-Wide Web version of Andrew Taylor's unique index to the 19th Century British Parliamentary Papers concerned with the Canadian Arctic. '
posted by plep on Dec 28, 2004 - 2 comments