#historic replica

[the-golden-vanity]

Participants in the Sloop Providence's crew exchange with the Mildred Belle swing by our ship on the way to National Harbor, Maryland, 10/14/24

[daguerreotyping]

Ambrotype of a cute militiaman next door whose hat is as wild as his hair, 1860

[goldenstarprincesses]

How often do we think nations get drunk and wonder around the streets of their modern city's wearing their museum quality historical clothing that they found in their attic

[ltwilliammowett]

Finally done - the new version of my bustle and the new skirt with a train. All handsewn after an original pattern from 1880

[uwmspeccoll]

Vintage Charm

This edition of the enchanted story Cinderella, a part of our Historical Curriculum Collection, is a 1980s replica of a Victorian original published by Merrimack Publishing in New York, offering an abbreviated version of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale. Merrimack Publishing was a children's book publisher specializing in reproductions of vintage books and paper goods, often with a nostalgic or Victorian theme.

Like Cinderella’s Prince, this book exudes charm. The top of the book is die-cut and includes a front gatefold resembling a curtained theater stage. As you open the curtains, the pages come to life, with audience members and characters performing the narrative. Like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, this book will cast a spell of enchantment upon the reader. 

-Melissa, Special Collections Graduate Intern

-View more posts from our Historical Curriculum Collection

[nebula1734]

Nothing is better than trying to look for reference material for a project and finding something with every dimension you could dream of.

I’m working on a project where I digitally model and 3D print a bunch of the ammo from the game Hunt: Showdown. The game is set in the late 1800s/early 1900s, so the rounds used by a bunch of the guns are virtually extinct. As a result, I want to do my little part to help preserve these small bits of history and recreate these obscure cartridges.

Anyways, I was looking for reference material for my model of the .41 Swiss round, used by the Vetterli carbine, and I think I managed to find THE FUCKING PATENT because it has exact measurements in millimeters (what I use in CAD), as well as tolerances (max/min dimensions of sections allowed in production under the patent), and a pattern for the paper patch that would be wrapped around the bullet before being pressed into the cartridge.

What a fucking find.

[neylo]

Come ye soft Sylphs, who fan the Paphian Groves, And bear on sportive wings the callow Loves...

A replica of "The Botanick Fan" issued by Sarah Ashton in 1792, folded and mounted by @thistlesandstories to accompany their regency outfits. You can see the comparison to the original on the first picture.

I digitalised the original fan leaf, which has been a rather challenging experience because my inattentive ass messed up with sizing. Nevertheless, it is a thing that exists due to our stubbornness and spite.

The original can be seen here - we also visited the V&A museum in London, and I wholeheartedly recommend it! However, this fan is not currently on display.

Note: I used a modernised way of spelling after discussing with @thistlesandstories who commissioned the digitalisation. I wanted to keep the educational value of the item intact. Some parts were illegible in the original as I had no chance to see the original in person, therefore I had to rely on the resident botanist's expertise.

The unmounted leaf:

[yarnnerd]

I finally got ahold of a portable Singer 99! It was a bit dusty/worn but in working condition other than the bobbin tension being too high. I didn’t want to mess with it too much, but I took off the bobbin cover, face plate, bobbin winder, and hand crank to remove lint, degrease, and oil everything accessible, and I replaced the felt pad that oils the bobbin race. Since I had made the mistake of using rubbing alcohol while cleaning and dulled the finish, and the wood was already a bit scuffed up, I put a few coats of shellac on the machine and case before reassembling, which will also protect the decals from further wear. I found that shellac is much less nasty to deal with than a lot of other finishes, though challenging to get smooth.

I really love how several of the parts are identical to my modern (ca 2001) Singer: same needle, same screw to hold the needle in place, same bobbin cover screws- stuff that there was no need to change has remained the same.

Things I have noticed while doing some test sewing so far:

-It’s so /quiet/- it’s wonderful to be able to sew while on Discord calls without muting myself

-I reflexively look for a foot pedal and power switch before realizing there aren’t any

I was waffling between this and a treadle machine, but I do really like how compact and self-contained this machine is. This one also came with several bobbins and its original screwdriver, which is neat.

[fitzrove]

Elisabeth at the Värmlandsoperan (Karlstad, Sweden), 1999

[blujayonthewing]

heartbreaking: you found exactly the kind of thing you had a vague notion about wanting but it's a rare antique and costs One Thousand Dollars

[bijoumikhawal]

RE: cultural appropriation primarily being about an economic state of affairs where white people make money off of other people, a related idea I've been contemplating but haven't been able to like. Finish writing about is the idea of cultural decontextualization, which is when a cultural majority (often but not always white people) engage with another culture in a manner that erases- and may simultaneously replicate- racist histories, and is more about creating false narratives than economics.

A personal example would be white people making clothes based off of Coptic Egyptian artifacts, especially while generically referring to them as "Roman" or arguing Coptic art does not exist, which denies Copts part of Coptic history while resurrecting the French Coptomania of the 1920s, and specifically Albert Gayet's actions of taking items from Coptic graves to the point where a model was dressed in a tunic and shown off (which is also terrible from an artifact preservation perspective- this tunic would've been at minimum, 1300 years old at the time).

[notdeadyetnatural]

Art exhibit idea. A singular house or apartment but every room is a replica of what it would have looked like in a different century. Like the kitchen is 1700s, the bedroom is 1800s, the living room is 1900s, the bathroom is 2000s.

[nocternalrandomness]

Replica of the Spirit of St. Louis flying into Arlington Airport

[uraandri]

for just 660£ you too can look like a 15th century italian

[muttball]

Union Pacific's Historical No. 119

'Jupiter' Central Pacific's No. 60

It was at Promontory Summit in Utah on May 10, 1869, that the two steam locomotives met and where the 'Golden Spike' was driven by Senator Leland Stanford of California, completing the first Trans-Continental railway. The last two rails coming from the east were laid by Irishmen. The last two rails coming from the west were laid by the Chinese.

[the-nettle-knight]

The absolute coolest thing that my team (environmental archaeologists) has found recently was a wooden ear stretcher from the Bronze Age! I don't actually think there's much research on it but there have been several wooden ear stretchers from the Bronze Age from the UK and Otzi had stretched ears, meaning that it was possibly a widespread practice in Bronze Age Europe