#19th c mens fashion

[elijah-loyal]

y'all i just found my 1830s waistcoat drafting sheets and mock-up pattern in the moving boxes from MONTHS ago

[daguerreotyping]

Ambrotype of a Union soldier with a manly chin dimple and a missing button, c. 1860s

[realmoftheacornking]

[resplendentoutfit]

The Carrick Coat

James Tissot (French, 1836-1902) • On the Ferry Waiting • c.1878 • Private collection

A Carrick or Garrick (in Great Britain) is an overcoat with three to five cape collars, worn by both men and women primarily for travel and riding, in the 19th century.

Artist unknown. Costume Parisien. Chapeau de Velours. Carrick et Guêtres de Drap., 1816. Hand-coloured engraving. London: Victoria and Albert Museum

Sources:

Fashion History Timeline

Metropolitan Museum of Art

[absolutebl]

thai language question! what do tongthap and atom call each other in MLMU TH? it sounds like ‘nai’ or maybe ‘ngai’? it’s translated to both of their names several times on the YT subs. i’ve tried to look it up but i’m not sure i’m hearing it right 🙈

Thai pronoun: Nai

They are indeed using nai. Hold on I know I posted about that one at some point... AH HA here it is:

you want this section: (but I'll c&p it over here add to it at the bottom)

Nai & the Mafia 

So in 2022 Thai BLs seriously started moving setting outside of the school systems and thus added new pronouns (for us watchers) into the mix. KinnPorsche, Even Sun, and Unforgotten Night all use the pronoun nai (นาย) for you between men. Like many honorifics & pronouns, it’s derived from a minor title of nobility. In the 19th century it was declared the official courtesy title for adult males - regarded as a direct translation of “Mr”. 

It has several different uses today. 

As a title, it only appears before the real given name (not surname), in official/formal contexts, e.g. when writing down one’s name on an exam paper, job application, or government form. If used with a nickname, it implies a bit of irony (like a teacher calling out a misbehaving student). 

As a pronoun, it’s usually an informal second-person pronoun used with males of equal status. It’s a decidedly non-rude word, so it’ll be used among friends/classmates if they don’t feel close enough to use gu/mueng (or if a person just doesn’t use rude pronouns, like swear words there are people who don’t feel comfortable ever saying guu/mueng). 

Rao/nai as pronouns used to be the default mode of address on TV before gu/mueng became acceptable to broadcast in the 2010s. 

When used by females, nai is pretty much equivalent to males using ter with females - so an old fashioned but intimate and sweet, loving. 

On TV, the use of ter/nai is probably most often associated with straight dramas in the acquaintance phase of courting. 

Nai also has the meaning “boss” (similarly to the combined form เจ้านาย (jao nai/chao nai). If it’s being used as a pronoun in a more formal or deferential context (like organized crime), it is used in this sense. 

Usage number 2 & 6 are the ones we see in Thai BL. All that said I understand as a tourist in Thailand, you will hear nai but not all that often. It’s fine to use khun instead/back, but good to know to identify nai. 

Nai & My Love Mix Up

So My Love Mix Up is using #2.

With adult males, nai is actually often paired with chan. (I know, right, but it's what they use. See any of the mafia shows.)

But in this high school setting, Atom & Kongthap seem to be using pom or sometimes even tan. (I haven't touched on tan at all because I find it the most confusing pronoun.)

Atom & Half use guu/mueng. Atom use rao/name with Mudmee, and she does they same with him. Although I think she shifts to chan with Half when they get closer.

Kongthap doesn't seem to ever use informal. Even Half uses nai with him.

So I think the use of polite nai in this relationship is being dictated by Kongthap's character's reserved gentlemanly stiffness (much as in the original show). In other words, were it not for Kongthap's personality, this show in this setting (and with this pair) would be using guu/mueng. But because of the original IP and the extreme reserve of Ida in Kieta Hatsukoi (who also uses quite formal Japanese) we are seeing a linguistic characterization of one half of a couple carry through to the tenor of the whole relationship.

In other words, the use of nai was dictated by Kongthap's personality.

Frankly put, Kongthap would simply not use guu/mueng so they had to find some other way for these two to communicate. Rao/ter is too sweet and cute and old fashioned out the gate (these boys could graduate to it, I suppose, like in college or after).

Now they might have used khun instead of nai. If this were set in uni or the office that would have worked fine. Or even if this were a high school in Bangkok. But I'm not surprised they reached for nai.

In fact, since the announcement of the adaptation I was curious about how they were going to approach Kongthap's pronouns. I thought they might make Kongthap older to solve the issue with phi but they wanted to do the "going away to college together?" part of the plot, so yeah... nai is the solution.

This couple sounds a bit stiff and distanced from each other when speaking together as a result, but I understand why the script chose it.

Hope that explains.

(source)

[is-the-19thcentury-man-okay]

hello! i’m looking into adopted yet another 19th century man. i’ve owned several others, and am looking for something unique. are there any unique and peculiar breeds you recommend?

Sure! These heritage and unique 19th century men may not be for everyone, but I want them to get more love.

French soldier left behind on the field of battle during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Poor sweetheart!! True story: the model for this 1872 painting, real French soldier Théodore Larran, met the artist Émile Betsellère many times because Betsellère was so touched by his story. Absolutely the type of 19th century man you want to rescue and love.

A jolly flatboatman.

From The Jolly Flatboatmen by artist George Caleb Bingham, 1846.

A good 19th century man doesn't have to be wealthy or formal, as these charming working class fellows attest. Perfect for the aficionado of lively, active 19th century men.

British Army 41st Regiment of Foot Soldier, c. 1800-1815.

Who doesn't have "a passion for a scarlet coat," as Jonathan Swift phrased it! Your soldier needs a lot of exercise and structure, but he's not picky about his food or bedding. Comes with his own blanket and water bottle! He's a lover, he's a fighter, I recommend delousing him before you bring him into your home.

Cossack Trowsers King.

Strutting his stuff in 1827, he has an insouciant attitude and a bold, fashion-forward look. You may want to address the fact that he's also a major source of air pollution.

[titleleaf]

so many words about historical men's corsetry

(This got way too long to send via Discord -- Dangimace in the Renegade Bindery server asked about men's corset sewing/resource recs so here is my half-assed and non-exhaustive rundown. Most of my historical sewing is focused on fashions of the UK, US, and Europe for the second half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century, so that bias is reflected here; also disclaimer overall that "menswear"/"womenswear" are socially constructed categories and real people's bodies have always looked a wider variety of ways than fashion and other social forces would dictate. I sew historical garments with enthusiastic disregard for the historical gender binary and I'm barrel-chested, thick-waisted, and narrow-hipped no matter what I'm wearing.)

Onward, lads!

Ok wrt men's corsetry: there's a whole lot of fogginess around how historical men's corsets were constructed for a bunch of annoying reasons but that means there's lots of possibilities to explore in pattern drafting and project planning. Stays and other stiffened body-shaping garments have a whole complex conceptual relationship to the body basically as soon as they start appearing. 16th and 17th century garments do a whole lot of shaping (both compressing and building up) for men and women alike, but things really kick off in the 18th century in terms of the symbolic weight placed on stays and (later) corsets. Whole lot of stuff about gender, social class, race, fatness, morality, etc. getting projected onto these garments. So I'm a little leery about people taking obviously satirical illustrations of fashion-victim dandies or Gross Corpulent Libertines getting laced into corsets as truthful and indicative of the way men were really dressing -- scurrilous gossip and exaggeration are both a pain to sift through if we want to know which men wore corsets, what kind, and why.

In the very late 18th/early 19th century corsets were part of the repertoire for achieving highly fashionable shapes in menswear. (Along with a whole lot of padding.) They weren't mandatory for all dudes, but for fashion-forward dandies and equally fashion-forward military men, male corsets/stays were definitely a thing. The whole Romantic-era pigeon-breasted, narrow-waisted silhouette can be emulated by shapewear worn beneath the clothes, pads in the garments themselves, or both; in addition to waist reduction it helped to maintain smooth visual lines underneath close-fitting garments.

(look at these minxy 1830s dudes and their tiny waists)

As the century goes on the desired menswear silhouette becomes boxier and less fitted, and male corsetry recedes into the background; we start to see patents and advertisements for men's corsetry, so they still seem to have been worn, but there's a lot more language around vigorous manly athleticism and supporting the structures of the body. It can be hard to tell whether a particular piece is intended to be worn primarily for some medical purpose or for its perceived aesthetic benefits. This is giving me such flashbacks to trying to find post-surgical compression garments.

(Side note: there's also a vigorous tradition of fetishist writing about corsetry all through the 19th century, in fairly mainstream channels, which is fascinating. Due to the relatively private and deeply horny nature of fetish tightlacing we don't necessarily know as much about what those same letter-writers may have "really" worn at home, but I hope they were having fun.)

I've seen very few specifically men's corsetry patterns from historical pattern-makers-- not even really big names like Redthreaded. I sewed my 19thc menswear corsets from the men's underbust pattern in Laughing Moon Mercantile #113 which afaik is speculative rather than reproducing a specific historical garment, but it's not too different from the women's late-19th-century underbust patterns in the same pattern pack.

(image credit: LMM)

However, a lot of underbust and waist-cincher patterns from more general historical patternmakers could be made suitable with some minor alterations. Here I'd also rec books like Jill Salen's Corsets: Historical Patterns And Techniques and Norah Waugh's Corsets & Crinolines, though their focus is definitely on womenswear and you need to be relatively comfortable scaling up or drafting from pattern diagrams.

The structural features and desired results for a man's corset are pretty much the same as any other corset (back support, compression in some areas, etc.) even when the desired silhouette is different; commercially-created patterns are drafted with the expectation of certain bodily proportions so like with all corset-sewing it's important to make a mockup for fitting purposes. (I ended up liking one of my mockups so much I finished the process and made it a whole separate corset.) I don't know much about this area but I seem to see a lot more belt-and-buckle closures and criss-crossing straps in corsets designated as being for men -- this might be a byproduct of gendered differences in how people got dressed, but it might be nothing.

There's some weird and wonderful historical examples, both extant and in images -- I appreciated this post at Matsuzake Sewing, "A Brief Discussion Of Men's Stays", and its accompanying roundup of images on Pinterest though the tone wrt historical fetishwear corsets in the blog post is a little snippy. I really want to make a replica of Thomas Chew's 1810s corset (which you can read more about here at the USS Constitution Museum) but it incorporates stretch panels made with a shitload of metal springs and I'm not ready for all the trial and error trying to replicate that.

(image credit: USS Constitution Museum Collections)

There's a pretty rich vein of modern men's corset patterns which seem like they could be easily pattern-hacked for historical costuming purposes, like these with shoulder straps from Corsets By Caroline or DrobeStoreUpcycling's waist cincher which also looks like it could be altered pretty easily to cinch with straps and buckles like some 19thc men's corsetry does. This pattern for a boned chest binder in vest form by KennaSewLastCentury is also really cool but I didn't get a chance to sew it pre-top-surgery. (I think I've also seen someone who made a chest-compressing variation on Regency short stays, but I can't find it now.) 

In general a lot of underbust and waist-cincher patterns should work just fine for silhouette-shaping without much bust/hip emphasis -- my usual resource for free corset patterns (Aranea Black) recently took down all her free patterns but they're definitely still circulating out there. For general fashion purposes the sky is the limit and there are a lot of enthusiastic dudes in corsets out there. This Lucy Corsetry round-up shows a variety of modern corsetiers'  styles designated as being for men or more masculine silhouettes (including a SUPER aspirational brocaded corset with matching waistcoat made by Heavenly Corsets that I'd love to sew a historical spin on) and you can see some commonalities and possibilities for body-shaping.

I can also give some more general corset-sewing resources but I'm very much in the learning process here and I'd love any recs or input from people more experienced in pattern-drafting and corset-sewing.

[lalalaugenbrot]

Attempt at a Comprehensive List of

Alexander von Humboldtʼs Potential Boyfriends

When if not now that Alex came 2nd in the @napoleonic-sexyman-tournament (what a time to be alive) would be the perfect time to finally thoroughly pick his private life apart. Strangely it has always been a mystery even to me (and of course overall it will remain a mystery until the end of times), but I still thought it was about time to at least get some order in the few things that we do know – mainly for myself but also, I dare say, for the public. You (the public!) will find a short text for every friend under the cut ￬.

disclaimers:

a) I tried to pick the most appropriate picture of everyone but please imagine especially the first ones a lot younger than they are in the pictures

b) it’s a potential boyfriends list, meaning: I’m not saying Alex definitely had romantic and/or sexual relationships with any let alone all of these men, it’s just a list of men where it seems at least possible; but ultimately, of course, we do not know and will never know

c) Alex lived for almost 90 years, and even though his textual remains can seem infinite, there is a lot we don’t know about him, especially his private life, not least because he habitually destroyed almost all of his private letters (which is also why for all of his correspondences we only know the letters he wrote but almost never the ones he received) − so I don’t think there’s any way this list is exhaustive (let me know if you think anyone is missing?)

d) Bonpland is not in this because Alex went out of his way to specifically state that his relationship with Bonpland was purely scientific

e) the point of this post isn’t to determine his sexuality, but since it has already come up, just a couple of words on him being on the asexual spectrum: that is perfectly possible and maybe not even unlikely, he said things about himself that could be interpreted as such (not wanting to marry, not having sensual needs); but I think it’s good to keep two things in mind about that: 1. not wanting to get married was a big thing in 1800, something you had to explain yourself for and not wanting to get married as a man also obviously meant not wanting a wife, it was by no means a question on whether or not wanting a significant other and/or sex; 2. the narrative of his sex-less life at least partly derives from the (mainly 19th/20th century) wish for him not to have been (actively) homosexual

f) I hate to be that person, but it has to be said: language and culture back then were much more emotional and expressive than we are used to today, so not everything that sounds super intimate or even romantic to us (language-wise) has to actually have been meant that way; of course this doesn’t rule out anything either but it’s a thing to keep in mind

g) if anyone is interested in sources or further reading on anything particular, do not hesitate to hit me up! But i’m not adding any of that to this post because 1. it’s already 2 km long and 2. this is tumblr dot com

Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener (1767-1837)

18-year-old Alex met Wilhelm in 1787 during the one semester he studied at the University of Frankfurt (Oder). Wilhelm was a (protestant) theology student and on 13 February 1788 they made a “holy” oath to “eternal brotherly love”. They wrote each other very cheesy letters, very much in the Empfindsamkeit fashion of the time, proclaiming their eternal and ever-growing love for each other. There was no one on earth, Alex wrote to him once (and in Italian no less), whom he loved as ardently as him (“Non vi è uomo sopra la terra ch'io amì così ardammente che lei…”). He also told him that, ever since he had met him, it seemed to him that God had created people only in pairs, because no one else could ever compare to what he meant to him. In his letters Alex also repeatedly refers to the many hours spent together (“chatting”) in a certain armchair in Frankfurt and proclaims that he has never been happier than in that very chair.

They kept contact for a couple of years after their time in Frankfurt, but at some point their friendship faded out.

Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812)

Willdenow (a published botanist) and Alex met in 1788 in Berlin, when Alex had one day decided to just call at his house to ask him to teach him botany. Willdenow agreed and they became friends quickly, spent a lot of time together, and when Alex wandered through Berlin on his own to collect plants, he would afterwards bring them to Willdenow who would then identify them for him.

We do not know a lot about their friendship during that time (and maybe I only included him in this because I needed 9 tiles) but at least one phrase in Alex’s autobiography fragment calls our attention, not least because it’s highlighted by what I like to call a Streisand strike-through: “I became enthusiastically fond of him” or “I grew to love him enthusiastically” (“Ich gewann ihn enthusiatisch lieb”, written in 1801 and crossed out roughly 50 years later).

They stayed in contact even after Alex had left Berlin a couple of months later: in 1795 Alex became godfather of Willdenow’s son and in 1810 he convinced him to come to Paris to work on his botanical collections from the South America trip. Sadly, Willdenow fell ill in 1811 and died in 1812 in Berlin.

Karl Freiesleben (1774-1846)

Alex met Karl in 1791 in Freiberg, where both studied geology and mining at the renowned Bergakademie. Karl was the son of a local mining family and Alex learnt a lot from him about his new profession. They both were nerdy about stones and minerals in ways you couldn’t even begin to imagine. They gifted each other minerals, went down into the mines together, and in August 1791 they made a 200 km long geological expedition through the mountains of Bohemia on foot. But aside from pages-long enthusiastic rants about geology, Alex’s letters to Karl are also full of sentimental love declarations. He called him Herzens-Freisesleben, Herzens-Karl or Herzensjunge (roughly “my heart’s Freiesleben/Karl/boy”) and once finished a letter with: “going to bed now and I’ll be happy when I dream of you” — a passage Karl thoroughly struck through later, probably so no one else could read it, but someone deciphered almost all the struck through passages anyway (not all heroes wear capes!).

Karl and Alex stayed (sporadic and long-distance) friends for the rest of Karl’s life.

Reinhard von Haeften (1772-1803)

The above picture shows a snippet from one of Alex’s travel journals where he noted Reinhard’s birthday (“14 Mai R.”) because sadly we don’t have a picture of Reinhard. But let’s hear how Alex described him:

“This Reinhard v. Haeften has been my only and hourly company for a year now. I live with him, he visits me in the mountains. [...] I have already ridden 8 miles [60 km] just to see him for a couple of hours. He is very tall, taller than most men and he’s only 22 years old but looks more mature than me [at 25]. He has a very remarkable face and everyone finds him to be one of the most beautiful men, and I too think he’s beautiful, but most importantly I have never seen purity of the soul, kindness and courtesy being reflected in anyone’s features as much as in his.”

Alex and Reinhard met in 1793 in Bayreuth (where Alex now worked as a mining official) and they quickly moved in together. However, shortly before meeting Alex, Reinhard had also managed to make a baby with a married woman 4 years older than him. Alex was friendly with Christiane, the child’s mother and helped to keep the birth a secret. The boy (named Friedrich Gustav Alexander, Alex’s godson and surely named after him) had to spend the first years away from his parents. In the meantime, Reinhard continued to live with Alex, accompanied him on business trips and mineralogical expeditions and in 1795 they went on a two-month trip through Northern Italy and Switzerland. It was only with and through him, Alex wrote to Reinhard once, that he could live, only close to him that he could be fully happy.

Later, after Reinhard and Christiane had finally gotten married (and reunited with their son), Alex wrote him a very long letter, proposing for the three of them to (continue to?) live together with Reinhard as head of the family and to settle for quiet life in Switzerland, Italy, or some small town in the west of Germany. That plan never worked out, but “Rein” (as Alex called him), Christiane, their by now two children and Alex lived and travelled together for another two years while Alex was already preparing for his big journey.

After he had sailed for the Americas in 1799, he tried his best to stay in contact with them. In his letters, he called them his “Herzensmenschen” (again, roughly: “his heart’s humans”), wrote them that he was dreaming about them day and night and how much he wished that his – their – Rein could be with him to see all the marvels, too. But cross-atlantic communication was bad during that time and in both directions most letters never arrived.

Sadly, Reinhard unexpectedly died in 1803 while Alex was still in America, meaning they never got to meet again. Alex stayed in contact with Christiane and the children − the only survivors of the shipwreck, as he put it − and wrote Christiane how he still remembered their time together, along with all the hopes and dreams that they had had and that despite the “all-robbing fate”, there was something unalterable in the depth of their love, that could only die with them. When Christiane remarried and had another son in 1806, she named him Gustave Louis Reinhard Alexandre. Alex continued to financially support Christiane and the children and in 1813, Reinhard’s son Fritz (Alex’s godson) visited Alex in Paris for three months.

Carlos Montúfar (1780-1816)

Alex met Carlos in 1802 in Quito and despite him having no scientific qualifications whatsoever, Alex chose Carlos to accompany him on his further journey. This decision offended botanist, geographer and astronomer Francisco José de Caldas (who himself had hoped to join the expedition) so much that he, in a letter to botanist José Celestino Mutis, famously called Carlos “[señor Barón de Humboldt’s] Adonis”, probably insinuating that Alex had picked Carlos purely for his looks, or even more.

Together with the rest of the party, Alex and his supposed “Adonis” travelled what today is Ecuador (where they climbed the Chimborazo), Peru, Mexico, Cuba and the USA. At least once during that journey (but perhaps regularly?) they shared a bed (as in some kind of temporary/mobile  accomodation) which we know because Alex explicitly says so in his travel journal when he describes a night in which Carlos had very bad stomach cramps which Alex tried to ease by heating handkerchiefs over the fire for him in the middle of the night.

Carlos accompanied Alex back to Europe in 1804 and stayed with him in Paris for a couple of months (where they most likely both attended Napoleon’s coronation) until he ultimately left to go to Madrid. But since Carlos had trouble getting money from South America, he still had to rely on Alex’s support. However, over time his contact to Alex seems to have broken off, because in a letter from 1806, Carlos complained about Alex not answering him anymore (“¡Qué largo silencio!”) and then told him, quite dramatically, that he was running out of money, and that he, Alex, was his only friend, his only hope, and the only person he knew in Europe who could tell him what to do. Whether all of Alex’s letters had gotten lost in the mail and whether Alex ended up helping him out or not, I think we don’t know. (But knowing him as I do and since he after all kept that letter, I’m sure that he did.)

Later, Carlos went back to South America, where he (alongside Símon Bolívar) fought to liberate the continent from the Spanish Crown − a fight he unfortunately didn’t survive: he was captured and executed by the Spanish in 1816.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)

Alex and Gay (that’s what Alex called him, no pun intended) first met in 1804 in Paris, just after Alex’s return from America. Before, Gay had done two things: 1. contributed to a harsh critique on one of Alex’s papers, 2. ascended 7016 m in a hot-air balloon to investigate the air up there − a world record at the time and more than 1000 m higher than Alex had been on the Chimborazo, which had then also been a world record (in recorded European history).

Evidently, these were the best conditions for them to totally hit it off: they almost immediately started to work on the evaluation of Gay’s balloon ascent and often spent entire days working together in Gay’s room, from 9 am until after midnight. In a letter to his father, Gay wrote that Alex was the man with the best heart he had ever known, that their tastes and sentiments were absolutely the same − and that their hearts felt a great need to see each other very often.

After the publication of their paper (in which they, without fully realising it, also first identified the chemical composition of water: H2O), they (and another friend) went on a six-month field trip through Switzerland and Italy − where they were lucky enough to witness both an earthquake and a resulting Vesuvius eruption. They ended their journey in Berlin where Gay stayed at Alex’s for a couple of months and even started to learn German until he unexpectedly had to leave for Paris. His absence, Alex wrote after Gay had left, pained him a lot.

When Alex finally returned to Paris as well, they shared a single room at the École Polytechnique and even after Gay became a father in 1808 and married in 1809, Alex continued to (at least occasionaly) live with his family for many years. Gay’s first son (born in 1810) was named Jules Alexandre and while I have no proof that he was named after Alex, I think it’s safe to assume. Alex seems to have also been very intimately integrated into the family life, because he once wrote to Willdenow (with a humorous undertone of course): “We are always pregnant and just had a girl again. Right now we’re not feeling anything though.” Alex was also there to help when an explosion in a laboratory accident injured Gay’s eyes so badly that Alex and another friend had to take him home in a blindfold.

No letters between the two have survived (that we know of), but we do know that in the years after they first met, Alex considered Gay his best friend and “one of the kindest beings in the world”, that he named an American plant genus after him (Gaylussacia), and that they used “tu” with each other (which was very uncommon in France at the time except for childhood friends and family). They stayed friends for the rest of their lives and formed a kind of trio with Arago (see below).

Karl von Steuben (1788-1856)

We don’t know when exactly they first met but according to Alex they started to see each other daily in 1812 at the studio of painter François Gérard, where Alex had then started to take drawing lessons. Steuben, a young aspiring artist, lived and worked at Gérard’s studio. According to Alex, they “drew and painted” together “daily” for at least one or two years. Withdrawn from all other society, he wrote, this was now his “only joy” (interestingly almost the exact same wording he had used to describe his relationship with Reinhard 20 years earlier). However, it had perhaps been one of Alex’s exaggerations because he at least seems to have attended the famous salons Gérard held at his studio, where all the cool Paris people came to hang out. Alex reportedly talked incessantly, stayed late into the night (the main thing usually didn’t get going until midnight) and was found there again, freshly dressed and shaved, already at 7 in the morning.

In the meantime, Alex had started to torment basically everyone around him to commission Steuben to paint them, their sons, daughters, fiancés etc. to help Steuben support his poor mother in St. Petersburg. In 1814, even Alex’s brother noted that Alex had suddenly become strangely interested in art. In the same year, Alex became godfather to Steuben’s newborn son Alexander.

However, the biggest commission Alex got Steuben was a life-sized full-body painting of himself, which he intended to gift to his sister-in-law. It took 7 years to finish and in the end Alex’s brother had to pay for transport and framing because Alex had run out of money. Neither his brother nor his sister-in-law were overly enthusiastic about the likeness of the painting or Steuben’s talent in general but they still put it up in their home because after all, as his brother put it, they loved Alex and always liked a picture of him around.

Alex and Steuben stayed in at least loose contact for many years and Alex occasionally even still tried to get him commissions. Steuben’s painting of Alex hung in the Humboldt residence in Tegel for over a century before it was ultimately destroyed in WWII. Apparently though, another Alex portrait by Steuben from 1815 still exists in a private collection somewhere.

François Arago (1786-1853)

Arago, a young astronomer, was on a scientific expedition through Spain when he got entangled in the Peninsular War: mistaken for a French spy, he got arrested and incarcerated, managed to flee, was captured again, transferred, released, drifted off at sea to Algeria, all the while managing to hold on to his most valuable possession: his scientific records, which he kept hidden under his shirt at all times. When Alex heard about this (the two had never met before), he was so impressed by his courage and determination that he sent a letter to congratulate him — and to offer him his friendship. And in fact, one of the first things Arago did when he finally returned to Paris in 1809 was to go and meet Alex. It was the beginning of a 44-year-long friendship. They saw each other almost daily, worked together at the observatory, planned an expedition to Tibet (which never happened), and actually travelled at least to London in 1817 to visit Alex’s brother, who commented to his wife: “Alexander has arrived yesterday. But he isn't staying with me, even though his room had already been prepared. You know his passion to always be with one person who is his favourite at that time. Now he has the astronomer Arago who he doesn't want to part with (...) So they're staying at a nearby inn.” Just as with Gay, Alex and Arago used “tu” with each other and after Arago had gotten married in 1811, Alex was close with his wife and children as well as with his siblings, nieces and nephews — in some letters he even considered himself part of the Arago family.

When Alex was forced to move back to Berlin in 1827 to work for the king, he wrote Arago desperate letters on how much their separation pained him, how much he missed him every hour of every day. In the following 26 years, Alex’s letters to him were full of yearning pleas for just a couple of lines of his hand, which, as he wrote, always made his heart flutter. However, Arago often didn’t respond for months, but when he did, he at least knew to reassure Alex, writing things like: “Outside my family, you are, without any comparison, the person I love most tenderly in this world.” Alex kept a portrait and a large Arago bust in his study in Berlin, and until his late seventies, he travelled to Paris regularly (that is, every few years), first and foremost to see Arago. (Actual quote from 78-year-old Alex in a letter to his niece: “Every morning at half past eight without interruption, I’ve been at Arago’s in the observatory, today for the 62nd time.”) According to Arago, he and Alex have only been angry with each other one single time in all those decades and even that went over in an instant.

They saw each other for the last time in January 1848, on the last night of Alex’s last stay in Paris. When Arago fell ill five years later, his family informed Alex of his worsening condition — but Alex couldn’t travel to Paris to see him one last time. Even over a year after Arago’s death, Alex wrote that the memory of those last moments in January 1848 vividly came back to him during the night at least once a week. He outlived his friend by 6 years.

[clove-pinks]

I’m obsessed with John Leech’s illustrations of swells and other ridiculous fashionable men. Do you have any sources of images or further information you can point me to?

Do I ever!

I love to recommend the collection of John Leech's cartoons that I have used heavily for @is-the-19thcentury-man-okay: John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character, Volume 1 on Google Books. At this time it looks like the John Leech Archive web site is down. That's really a shame because it was searchable by year and (limited) keywords/subjects. It's still on the Internet Wayback Machine although I'm not sure how much is preserved.

The Victorian writer and entertainer Albert Smith (sadly forgotten today) is another great source for 1840s and 1850s fashions and foibles. I highly recommend The Natural History of the Gent and The Natural History of the Idler Upon Town.

For fashion history references to go with the cartoons, you can't go wrong with A History of Men's Fashion by Farid Chenoune, and the classic Handbook of English Costume in the 19th Century by Phillis Cunnington and C. Willett Cunnington.

Thanks for the question, this subject is dear to my heart.

[ltwilliammowett]

Thomas John Chew the fashion victim of  USS Constitution and USS Chesapeake

Portrait of Thomas John Chew, by unknown c. 1820 (x)

Thomas John Chew sailed as purser on the USS Constitution from 1 June 1812 to 26 September 1812. He was on board when the ship captured HMS Guerriere on 19 August 1812 and was awarded a Congressional Silver Medal for his actions and service and shared with the crew $50,000 in prize money. After acting as purser of the Boston Navy Yard for a time, he transferred to USS Chesapeake. He was on board that vessel during the battle against the HMS Shannon on June 1, 1813. According to some accounts, Chew supported the mortally wounded Captain James Lawrence as he uttered his famous last command: "Don't give up the ship." Chew was taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia as a Prisoner of War after the battle, but was quickly exchanged. We went on to serve as purser on board several other US Navy ships as well as for the New York Navy Yard. He resigned from the Navy on March 12, 1821. He died in 1846.

Chew’s shirt, 19th century (x)

The purser was the ship's commercial agent, purser, grocer and storekeeper all in one. His duties, which required a high degree of organisation and business acumen, included keeping the ship's pay and muster rolls and paying the officers and crews.

His trousers, 19th century (x)

He was responsible for procuring and issuing provisions to the crew. In addition, the purser ran a ship's shop where the men could buy clothing, hygiene articles, utensils, knives, ribbons, needles, thread, mustard, chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar and tobacco. In order to keep track of everything, the purser had to keep detailed accounts in accordance with naval regulations. During a battle, the purser was stationed in the cockpit to help the surgeon dress the wounded. He received $40.00 per month and two rations per day.

The red suspenders, 19th century (x)

But it was not only the pay of the purser that was enticing, but also the opportunity to make large profits by selling clothing and supplies to the crew at sea. Since there was no competition and the 450 men and boys aboard a frigate represented a steady market, there was room for extraordinary profits.

His stays, c. 1810-1820 (x)

Because he earned so well, he could of course dress in the latest and best fashions from Europe. Underneath he wore the finest trousers, red suspenders and shirts and even a man's corset or stay. Men's stays were also used in the army, for hunting, and for strenuous exercise. In the opinion of the fashion magazine of the time, this gave him an aristocratic look, and that was what he was after. Even though he continued to serve in the Navy, he was still a wealthy gentleman and he wanted to show that through his appearance.

[paganimagevault]

The Battle of Bánhida by Feszty Árpád 19th-20th C. CE

"Whatever may have happened in 901, Hungarians definitely returned to Italy in 904 as allies and auxiliaries of Berengar. Earlier in this year, Louis of Provence had entered Lombardy once again, had taken Pavia, and was in the process of occupying Verona when swarms of Hungarians attacked the territory under his control. As those forces wasted the upper Po, Berengar retook Verona and captured his rival, whom he blinded. The hapless Louis was then allowed to return with his men to Provence. Even in this miserable state, we are told, his forces were harassed by Magyars until he disappeared on the other side of the Alps never to return to the peninsula again. As for Louis's supporters in Lombard cities, many of which were unfortified and, therefore, extremely vulnerable to steppe nomads, Berengar allowed his Hungarian allies to loot them without mercy.

According to Magyar traditions, it was in 904 or 905 when Arpad, who was now emerging as the sole leader of the Hungarian confederation, arranged for his son Zolta to marry a Moravian princess. If this was indeed the case, then it was at this time that the 'old' Moravian regnum, the megale Moravia of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, came under Hungarian rule. For some time there had been certain elements among the Moravians who wanted to throw their lot with the Magyars rather than with the Bavarians. Evidence of this is found in a letter that Theotmar of Salzburg (Dietmar I, also Theotmar I, was archbishop of Salzburg from 874 to 907. He died fighting against the Hungarians at Brezalauspurc on July 4, 907.) and the other Bavarian bishops sent to Rome around 900. This epistle complains that Moravians were relapsing into heathen practices, shaving their heads in the Hungarian fashion, and conspiring with the Pagans, 'so that in all of Pannonia, our largest province, almost no church is to be seen.'"

-Charles R. Bowlus. Franks, Moravians, and Magyars: The struggle for the Middle Danube

...

I couldn't find more details about what this "Hungarian fashion" haircut was since I couldn't find a full account of Theotmar's letter. However, Mark of Kalt in the 14th century gives more possible details in his description of the Vata Pagan Uprising:

"...Vata was the name of who first offered himself to the devil, shaved off his head, and left three pigtails according to the Pagan custom..."

— Márk Kálti: Illuminated Chronicle

[irish-dress-history]

Figures from John Speed's map 'The Kingdome of Irland' [sic], created circa 1610. The various color versions published of these images were probably colorized by someone who had never been to Ireland and are not necessarily accurate.

Note: ‘Civil’ and ‘Wilde’ ARE NOT descriptions of socioeconomic status or social class. This is a modern misunderstanding I have seen repeated a lot. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they were indicators of acculturation level. The ‘Civil’ Irish were Anglicized. They spoke English; they wore English clothing styles; they followed British laws. The ‘Wilde’ Irish still kept Gaelic Irish customs. They spoke Irish; they wore Gaelic Irish clothing; they followed Brehon law. Of course, as these prints show, the ‘Civil’ Irish and even the Anglo-Irish gentry wore some Gaelic Irish clothing in the early 17th century.

The gentleman, the gentlewoman, and the ‘civill’ man are all wearing elements of early 17th c English fashion including their doublets, their standing collars (the men) or ruff (the woman), and their felt hats (the men). The men have English-style beards and haircuts. The gentlewoman has her hair done up and decorated in English style. The men are probably wearing English-style breeches, but these are hidden by their mantles.

The gentleman, the ‘civill’ man, and the ‘civill’ woman are all probably wearing a kind of bróg or Irish shoe now know as a Lucas type 5. These bróga differed from similar English styles in that they had flat soles and were held together with a leather thong rather than thread or nails. This kind of bróg was worn in Ireland into the 19th century.

The ‘civill’ woman wears a linen wimple on her head. During the 16th century, coifs and hoods replaced wimples in English fashion, but Irish women continued to wear them.

The ‘wilde’ man and woman are both bareheaded with free-flowing hair. A 17th century English woman would never leave her house this way, but it was common in parts of Ireland. The man has long bangs known as gilbs. This hairstyle was popular in 16th century Ireland and banned under British colonial rule. The ‘wilde’ man’s lack of beard is also Irish fashion.

The ‘wilde’ man is wearing tight-fitting trúis on his legs. The groin piece being made of a different fabric is something seen on extant trúis of the Killery bog outfit. He is possibly wearing knee-high leather boots. Similar boots are shown in some 16th century costume book illustrations. The shagginess at the top might indicate that they are made of rawhide with the hair still on.

Finally, all 6 of them wear an Irish brat. These illustrations show that the brat came in a variety of lengths and materials. The thick shaggy border on the bratanna of the gentry, the ‘wilde’ woman and the ‘civill’ man is probably pile-woven wool. The ‘civill’ woman and the ‘wilde’ man have fringed edges on their bratanna.

Bibliography:

Arnold, Janet, Tiramani, J., & Levey, S. (2008). Patterns of Fashion 4. Macmillan, London.  

Arnold, Janet (1985). Patterns of Fashion 3. Macmillan, London.

Dunlevy, Mairead (1989). Dress in Ireland. B. T. Batsford LTD, London.

Lucas, A. T. (1956). Footwear in Ireland. Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, 13(4), 309-394. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27728900

McClintock, H. F. (1943). Old Irish and Highland Dress. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk.

[daguerreotyping]

Carte de visite of a stylish gent wearing four-lensed tinted spectacles (like this museum example), also known as eye protectors, railroad glasses, or Double-D lenses, c. 1860s

[spectre-ship]

What is it about the Victorian era that interests you the most? Specific decades, and also things like technology, social and intellectual movements, fashion history, etc. What do you wish was more well-known about the Victorians?

This is such a fun question! I've made two passes at this and they both turn out essay length, so apologies in advance for the beast of a post here, haha.

The overarching thing that I'd say fascinates me is that to study the Victorian era is to ingest a heady blend of modernity and antiquity--in so many ways the people of the 19th century were the architects of the modern day, and I'm continually surprised by the tiny ways in which the Victorian era feels so much closer than ~150ish years ago. And yet it's also so distant in so many ways, and particularly early in the period or in rural areas, the rhythms of life are quite alien to us. Madame Bovary is a novel about the wife of a doctor who mounts his horse to make house calls; the pharmacist in it keeps a jar of arsenic on his shelf; yet it's also a book where I thought "I know someone exactly like this" about pretty much every character. That to me is the fascinating thing about history generally, but especially about the 19th century, so far and yet so close.

I think this extends to pretty much everything. The books of the 19th century use mostly familiar words and the same punctuation as today, but across genres and authors there's such a distinct 19th century tone and style and word choice. Technologically the century is full of so many interesting first passes and middle chapters; the steel pen superseded the quill but is generally obsoleted today by the ballpoint, as an archetypal example. The list goes on.

In more specific terms: one thing I love is Victorian print culture. I'm a printing and typography nerd; I love the neat hairline strokes of 19th century body text typefaces, the wild maximalism of the era's display fonts. I love the seven column broadsheets that jam as much news as possible into four pages with zero pictures; I love the magazines and periodicals lavishly illustrated with steel and copper engravings. I love to imagine what they would have felt like to read when they were first printed, try to put myself in the shoes of the people of the past, get in their heads. (As my writing style probably indicates I have read far too many old books and newspapers, and as a result Victorian sentence structure and phraseology has irreversibly seeped into my brain.)

Fashion history is another big interest of mine. My big interest is in men's clothing, particularly around midcentury—the pinched waists and long hair, the puffy shirts and narrow pants. I like 19th century clothing generally, of course, and I like the Regency tailcoats and breeches, and the boxy sack coats of century's end, as much as the next guy; but something about that midcentury style is just my favorite. I don't have too much philosophy or deeper meaning on this one, if I'm being perfectly honest; I mostly just like the look, here. But I think fashion and textiles history is a pretty interesting field and well worth study in its own right. Learning what exactly broadcloth is, for instance, helped me understand much more intimately why one of the underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution was the textiles industry.

There's a lot of artistic and literary movements that I'm interested in; Victorian medievalism is always fascinating, I'm fond of Romanticism, and, well, maybe not quite so much Gothic proper, per se, but the post-Gothic echoes of Victorian literature, The Signalman and In A Glass Darkly and The Picture of Dorian Grey and Dracula, anything by Poe, the 'golden age' of ghost stories c. 1890-1920.

I could list off a great many other things that interest me—I'm fascinated by the early history of socialism (now and then lately I've been reading Karl Marx's correspondence and his old New York Herald articles,) I'm of course always interested in that historian's holy grail of Trying To Better Understand Everyday Life, I like architectural and art history, maritime history is a perennial favorite—but to write down every last thing would be to make this absurdly long post even longer, so I'll have to make this highlights reel suffice.

Things I wish were more well-known... I think this is maybe one of those topics where I know enough that my idea of what the "average person" knows is skewed, so I might have to sit on that one for a while before I can think up something interesting; I encounter a lot of odd and interesting misconceptions at work, but none of them are fresh in my mind. I suppose a classic go-to would be that 19th century clothing (and, honestly, historical clothing more generally) is way more comfortable than it looks.

[resplendentoutfit]

It's getting chilly, so let's crank up the Fashion History Time Machine and savor a few lovely jackets and a cape from the Victorian era.

Silk velvet jacket with jet beads • c. 1895 • Cohasset Historical Society, Cohasset, Massachusetts, U.S.

House of Worth • silk, jet beads, linen • c. 1890 • Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is an excellent example of late 19th-century dress imitating men's wear of the late 18th century. This Worth jacket eloquently imitates the silhouette and the ostentatious quality of court costume of the previous century. The extraordinary jet beadwork embroidery is stylized to represent the elaborate silk floss embroidery of the past to great effect. – Metropolitan Museum of Art

[pbaintthetb]

Some other TB information because, International TB day,

TB is the second deadliest infectious disease globally

TB is in the top ten leading causes of death globally

TB is thought to be responsible for the deaths of 1/3 of the people with HIV/AIDS

MDR-TB rose for the first time since record keeping on MDR-TB began (c. 2004) in 2022

Covid-19 overtaking TB as most deadly diseasse is recent (as in months as I understand it)

TB cases rose during the pandemic

TB can occur pretty much anywhere, not just your lungs but it is pulmonary in something like 80%? maybe more, stats vary depending on source and if you’re talking adults, children or everyone, of cases, making the focus on pulmonary instead of extra-pulmonary reasonable but possibly a problem

US has never done routine vaccination for TB (there is a whole logic to this)

The BCG Vaccine ( Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) is not entirely perfect, unfortunately. Can also be used for Leprosy though. It was also some what discovered by accident, I belive. Calmette and Guérin were trying to do something else, and it involved potatoes and then realised they could potentially be onto something with a TB vaccine. Can’t precisely remember all the details but fun fact there.

There is written evidence thought to be referring to TB that is as old as 3,300 years in India

The age of TB’s ancestor is in the millions, TB itself is thought to be around 70,000 years old, but the term wasn’t coined until the mid-19th century- pushing out Phthisis. (Kind of, ‘Tubercles’ as a term is at least c18, but it’s not really being used specificially for TB as we know it)

There was a some thought that corsets contributed to a higher death rate from TB of women in late c19/early c20 Italy. (They also used that English women didn’t die at a significantly higher rate than English men and had mostly stopped wearing corsets at this point. Not to start up a corset debate though it’s just interesting.)

We all knew this, but mask wearing is not new. And we weren’t being told to wear them while in bed this time.

In New York in 1907 11.2% of all deaths were from TB (all forms). The highest cause of death was “all other causes” at 21.0% and the third highest was Pneumonia (all forms) at 9.8%. (I have another stat I like more but I can’t remember where I found it so have this less impressive one)

The big one we all know, TB impacted fashion trends, at least in Western Europe and the US, was thought to make you more creatively talented, and gave you a bigger libido. Or so they thought.

Anyway TB isn’t gone