Only Connect

A collection of notes, musings, and vaguely related posts as I prepare for my dissertation. Be warned: there will be Downtown Abbey throughout.

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Illustration, Elizabeth Glenn, M.B. by Annie S. Swan

Originally published in The Woman at Home, 1894.

[itsokaytobesmart]

That time that Albert Einstein told Marie Curie to ignore the haters…

Thanks to Princeton University’s immense and entertaining collection of Einstein’s scientific and personal writings, we get to peek at a personal moment between two of history’s greatest scientists. After Curie was denied a seat in the French Academy of Sciences in 1911, embroiled in a tabloid (non-)scandal involving the widowed Curie’s romantic relationship with Paul Langevin, Einstein sent her this encouraging note.

Here’s the full (translated) letter, telling her to leave the hogwash to the reptiles. Good advice, even today!

I’d recommend spending some time digging through the Einstein papers, it’s a unique look at a unique mind. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. You might find yourself experiencing some time dilation and not getting anything done for the rest of the day…

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Yay archives!

[the-art-of-mourning]

More photos of mourning dresses, plus dresses from the MET exhibit Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire

Source

Source

[wishfulthinkment]

[vintageanchorbooks]

Good intentions are invariably ungrammatical.

Oscar Wilde (via after-the-ellipsis)

[sciencesarcasmandstuff]

Evening Post: August 12, 1899. "She immediately alighted, caught hold of the astonished youth, and gave him a sound thrashing, using her fists in a scientific fashion…” I would love to know what this means.

[fozmeadows]

I think that might be code for “punched him in the balls with devastating accuracy”.

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Lady cyclists - dangerous throughout the ages.

(also, interesting to see science invoked here. Possible resonances - precision, exactness, etc.)

[downtonabbeyhipster]

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Heck yeah. All those New Women and social reformers kicking around. What a wild time.

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Ten Days at the Mad-House: How Nellie Bly Posed as Insane in 1887 in Her Pioneering Exposé of Mental Health Care

A timeless and sobering reminder that the true measure of power is not how deftly we can assert our authority but how much kindness and comp

I have a special place in my heart for Nelly Bly and for her guts in submitting herself to the warped mental health system of the 1880s.

[the-vintage-dress]

[thefindesiecle-blog]

C. 1900’s.

[via:the-vintage-dress]

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Who was she? And why did Mrs Crossmichael hate her?

Here, again, the expressive brevity of 'the raw material' may be quoted with advantage. The instructions run as follows: 'Say the worst you can of her at starting; and condemn her unheard by means of her own visiting card.'

Here it is:

Sophia Pillico, M.D.

Is M.D. sufficiently intelligible? Let no hasty persons answer, 'Of course!' There are full-grown inhabitants of the civilised universe who have never heard of Julius Cæsar, Oliver Cromwell, or Napoleon the Great. There may be other inhabitants, who are not aware that we have invented fair physicians in these latter days. M.D. (let it be known to these benighted brethren) means that Sophia has passed her examination, and has taken her Doctor's degree. Mrs Crossmichael is further willing to admit that Miss Pillico is sufficiently young, and -- we all know there is no accounting for tastes -- passably pretty. (NOTE, attached to the instructions: 'We are not on oath, and we may be allowed our own merciful reserves. Never mind her figure -- oh dear no, never mind her figure: Men-doctors get on very well with clumsy legs and no waists. Why should women doctors not do the same? Equal justice to the two sexes, Sophia, was the subject of your last lecture -- I was present, and heard you say it!')

The second question still remains unanswered. Why did Mrs Crossmichael hate her?

For three good reasons. Because she delivered lectures on the rights of women in our Assembly Room. Because she set herself up in medical practice, and in our south-eastern suburb of London, and within five minutes walk of our house. Because she became acquainted with our next-door neighbours, and to my sister Salome. The Editor can bear witness to this. (He bears witness with pleasure.) The Editor can describe our next-door neighbours. (No: he is not sufficiently well acquainted with them. He knows a lady who can take the story, at the present stage of it, out of his hands -- and to that lady he makes his bow, and offers his pen.)

- Wilkie Collins, "Fie! Fie! Or, the Fair Physician" (The Spirit of the Times, December 1882)

[sadnessdollart]

Queen Victoria, (1847). Detail. by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873)

[speaklolita]

source: New York Magazine

read the full article in all its glory here: http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/best-punctuation-marks-literature-nabokov-eliot-dickens-levi.html

[flyartproductions]

Madame X and her ego

Madame X (1884), John Singer Sargent / Ego (remix), Beyonce feat. Kanye West

[mucholderthen]

NIKOLA TESLA Articles in “THE ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER”, a magazine like today’s Popular Science but in 1919

SOURCES:  The Electrical Experimenter Vol. 7 | Smithsonian Libraries) and Magazine Art for the cover

[itsokaytobesmart]

I would subscribe to any magazine that counted Nikola Tesla as one of its contributors.

Does this mean that The Electrical Experimenter was a *current* events magazine?

I’ll see myself out.

[beatonna]

I made some comics about Ida B. Wells, and then I talk about her for a while, because I am #1 teen fan and I wish I had a poster of her on my wall with hearts all over it.  

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Let's hear it for investigative journalist, suffragette, and all-around awesome lady Ida B. Wells.

[reapergrellsutcliff]

Fashions of the Future as Imagined in 1893

Illustrations from “Future Dictates of Fashion” by W. Cade Gall that was published in the January 1893 issue of The Strand magazine.

[beast-a-la-mode]

At first I thought this was some “fashion of witches and wizards through the ages” type thing but nah everyone is supposed to dress like this. I wish everyone dressed like this. 

[revereche-deactivated20140508]

nailed it

[jollypeaches]

we’ve disappointed our ancestors :(

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

This was at the beginning of The Strand's third year of publication, when they were still making innovations in the periodicals by trying to revamp the sagging form. I really adore seeing these experiments.

[cat-eye-nebula]

Foggy Britain, from 1928 to 1952. (x)

Click on the pictures for location information.

[onlyconnect1900-blog]

Anachronistic for the purposes of this Tumblr but sooo pretty.