The Getty Center in Los Angeles opens the first survey of Thomas Annan, who photographed Glasgow during industrialization.
Victorian
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Library of Congress Digitizes 19th-Century Photos of Black Women Activists
The Library of Congress recently digitized rare 19th-century photographs of African American women active in suffrage, civil rights, temperance, education, reform, and journalism.
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Why Victorian Men Had Glorious Beards
The Age of the Beard at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London examines through photographs the Victorian mania for elaborate facial hair.
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Watch the UK’s Oldest Known Erotic Film, a Victorian-Era Striptease
The British Film Institute’s newly digitized “The Pleasure Principle” collection gathers examples of erotic cinema from the 19th to 21st centuries.
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Why Frederick Douglass Was the Most Photographed 19th-Century American
In a lifelong battle against racist imagery, Frederick Douglass had over 160 portraits taken, which he hoped would create a public acknowledgment of his humanity.
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Celebrate New Year’s with Vintage Cards of Lucky Pigs and Drunken Butterflies
Celebrate the New Year with these 19th and early 20th-century postcards, featuring lucky pigs, pensive pansies, and menacing snowmen.
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Why Are There Dead Birds on Victorian Christmas Cards?
One of the more curious recurring images on 19th-century Christmas cards is the dead bird, which may symbolize mortality or something more ritualistic.
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How a Magician Preserved the Ephemera of Victorian Entertainment
The British Library exhibits selections from its archive on Victorian entertainment, all collected by the 19th-century magician Evanion.
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Death by Wallpaper: The Alluring Arsenic Colors that Poisoned the Victorian Age
Lucinda Hawksley’s book Bitten by Witch Fever chronicles the rise of poisonous pigments in the 19th century through the burgeoning British wallpaper trade.
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Victorian Scrapbooks of Flowers from the Holy Land
In the 19th century, tourists who traveled through the Holy Land may have picked up scrapbooks of pressed flowers as souvenirs.
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The First Woman Photographer Captured the Elegance of Algae
Algae is graceful and light in the ocean, swaying with the waves like hair in the wind.
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Digging Through Victorian Trash for Bone Toothbrushes and Broken Dolls
“Rubbish doesn’t lie,” explained Tom Licence, a senior lecturer in history at England’s University of East Anglia who is behind What the Victorians Threw Away.