19th century research Masterpost
For all your writing projects set in the 19th century or inspired by it, to add detail and accuracy to your setting: my ever-expanding list of research. Keep in mind that not everything that’s on the internet is accurate, there are different opinions throughout the world of historical academics and the best research still is and always will be to go through the sources, but that’s hard, difficult and not everyone is a history student with access to archives and a massive library. So, here we go.
The Ultimate Fashion History Show by US-american Professor Amanda Halley, teaches culture, history and fashion. General recommendtion, she’s got the terms and background history to it all wonderfully explained, plus Make-Up and popular hairdos.
UFH 1830s-1860s
UFH 1870s-1890s
UFH Oscar Wilde and the Victorian dress reform
Karolina Żebrowska is a Polish fashion history YouTuber who sews her own dresses and really knows her fashion history.
19th century women’s silhouettes
A Regency ballroom outfit
Victorian Fashion is not what you think it is
Victorian photo editing for tinier waists in photography
Disgusting and creepy Victorian Fashion trends
Karolina’s corset collection
1851 women’s pants: Bloomer pants
This History-of-fashion tumblr blog as a ton of images from the Victoria-and-Albert museum in London and other sources for fashion history. If you need inspiration for clothes of various periods, here you go.
https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ courtcases from a court in London 1674-1913. This is basically just sources with additional articles to explain London culture through the centuries, including minorities. The article on homosexuality in the 18th and 19th century especially is spot-on.
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/ old maps from around the world! This enables you to put them on top of Google Maps to see how the area changed and fits into modern day urban and rural landscapes.
Townsends is a massive treasure chest of (mostly north-american) 18th entury lifestyle and cookery. They do have a load of 19th century receipes too, so go search for “19th century” on their channel and enjoy getting progressively hungrier while watching.
https://www.loc.gov/ is a site for American and British newspapers over the centuries digitalized. Don’t get me started on how important digitalization is for modern day historical academics, people.
Dancing: YouTube channel Dancetime Publication
group ballroom dances
couple ballroom dances
Ballet:
the Royal Opera House on YouTube:
Ballet evolved, lots of 19th century ballet in this playlist. Also, this channel is a rabbit hole of beauty and grace.
Theater: Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of being earnest, played by the Vaudeville theatre in London. I cried tears of laughter through this, it’s absolute perfection, spot-on and so gaycoded (”Bunburying” = “burying the bun” = euphemism for anal sex in late Victorian London), it’s actually amazing.
Act I, Act II, Act III.
Health and hygiene in the 19th century from the British Library
article by the BBC on germ theory
YouTube documentary channel Absolute History
three videos on deadly aspects of Victorian life:
Cleanliness
Food processing
Hidden killers in the victorian home
POLITICS, WAR, PEACE: EVENT HISTORY
YouTube Channel CrashCourse is generally one of the most extensive sources of education on the internet, they’ve got John and Hank Green, yes, THE John Green, and he’s teaching History and Literature while his brother does Biology and Chemistry. To link every possible aspect of the 19th century they’ve ever done would be way too much, so just click through their playlists, especially World History one and two, US History, European History and Literature to get started. There’s more on Chemistry, Theater, Movies, Sociology; you name it, they probably have it.
https://www.britishbattles.com/ has every goddamn British battle since the bloody Roman times up until Wolrd War 1. Yup. Including weaponry, armory and uniforms of every war party involved, so there’s fashion history here too, plus strategy maps of the individuals battles, context, battle descriptions, famous monarchs amd military men involved…
I could go on and on and on even without digging into Jstor.org and academia.edu, which are academic paper publication sites recognized by my university at least, so if any of y’all has as much energy and time as me to spend on historical research, these are really good points to start on any topic.
19th century politics had loads to do with rising nationalism and the begin of the idea of a national identity, for Germany especially; the industrialization brought communism and liberalism on the way, the Regency period (which I don’t have nearly as many research sources on as the Victorian period, which I’m aware of and working on), was dominated by the Napoleonic wars and thus Europe once again being re-organised. India was the far-away exotic pet-project of the British Empire, which is a whole nother history to dive into, tied to colonial history and imperialism. The list is endless, and I encourage you wholeheartedly to do your own individual research for whatever needs you have, or just the fun of it. Happy learning to you all while digging through the past!
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