Tag: The Mother’s Companion

Categories
1900-1949 2000 onwards Space

My Favourite Photographs – 1891, 1925, 1949 and 2014

Edwin Hubble

After writing my recent post about The Edge of the Universe, I was thinking about one of my heroes, Edwin Hubble. He’s (kind of) responsible for two of my all-time favourite photographs.

Firstly, the lad himself. Hubble, looking every inch the gentleman scientist, pipe in mouth, looking through the 48″ Schmidt Telescope at Palomar Observatory, 1949. This photo feels to me like the past and the future colliding.

Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble

And then there’s this, the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image, produced by the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s not exactly a photo, but an image put together from a lot of pieces of information. It was created from data gathered in 2003-04, but was released most recently in June 2014 – the new image including the full range of ultraviolet to near-infrared light for the first time. It’s as mind-bending as it’s possible for a picture to be. This is only a small area of space, and yet it contains about 10,000 galaxies. And the light from the galaxies stretches all the way back 13 billion years – some of these came into existence not that long after the Big Bang. The telescope was named after Hubble, and this image is an incredibly appropriate tribute to him, as the first man to realise that there were galaxies separate to our own and that what we thought was the whole universe was just our little Milky Way.

Hubble Ultra-Deep Field
Hubble Ultra-Deep Field

On a completely different vibe, here’s my favourite photo from my blog so far. A woman letting the darning fend for itself while she loses herself in a book – from The Mother’s Companion, 1891.

What is there to prevent a woman from enjoying a good book?

The Mother's Companion, 1891
The Mother’s Companion, 1891

And finally there’s this photo of Buster Keaton’s beautiful face, taken from Go West in 1925. What a unique talent this man had. If you haven’t seen his film Sherlock, Jnr, I would recommend it very highly. It’s hilarious, astounding and a beautiful piece of work, and it’s also my joint favourite film ever, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Back to the photo – his eyeliner, dark silent-film lips, the unsettlingly sinister look giving a slightly different take on his usual stone-face expression….it’s just perfect. We did have this picture up in the kitchen until my small son complained that it “freaked him out”.

Buster Keaton, Go West, 1925
Buster Keaton, Go West, 1925

History, comedy, space and reading – I think these pics pretty much sum me up.

Tell me or show me yours! Or send me a link and I’ll put them in a new post for you.

Categories
Victorian Women

Victorian Child-Rearing Theory, 1891

Mothers Companion, 1891

The Victorians attitude to children could be pretty strict, as seen in a rather heart-breaking little section of The Mother’s Companion of 1891. It’s written with a loving tone – these parents adored their kids. And yet how far removed from today is the idea that a parent should withhold all praise from their children, for fear of making them conceited?

The heart-breaking bit isn’t really the piece itself, which is pretty cuddly. But it’s the fact that it actually needs to tell parents to admire their children’s achievements that is shocking to a twenty-first century parent – “Of course, I do not mean too much praise, but a little now and then is good for everyone.”

And I do like this sentimental childhood bit – “Flood them with sunshine from your own hearts, and they will give it back to you with interest.”

Categories
Victorian

Legitimate Laziness, 1891

Laziness isn’t exactly a trait we associate with the Victorians. The work ethic was lauded, days off were few and sloth was, after all, one of the seven deadly sins.

Poor sloth.

Nooo! I iz not a deadly sin!
Nooo! I iz not a deadly sin!

On the other hand, I’m a big fan of laziness. I remember, in a life I had pre-kids, that I used to be a very big fan of sleeping. I wish I could do more of it now. And people banging on about how very busy they are just makes me tired on their behalf. So I rather enjoy children’s author Isabel Suart Robson’s paean to laziness in The Mother’s Companion, 1891. It’s also interesting to see that workers never fully detaching from work isn’t just a modern problem caused by email and mobile phones. In 1891, there were still those businessmen who couldn’t go on holiday without being a slave to their letters and telegraphs too.

The Mother's Companion, 1891
The Mother’s Companion, 1891
Categories
Victorian Women

Victorian Childcare, 1891

The Mother's Companion, 1891

A subject close to home for me right now – childcare and nurseries. Today it’s my first day back at work as the beautiful dream that is maternity leave has come to an end. My baby daughter and I are beginning the wrenching apart process as she starts nursery for the first time and I inevitably spend the morning phoning up to check she’s ok.

But reading this 1891 account in The Mother’s Companion by children’s author Jennie Chappell about Mrs Hilton’s crèche, a day nursery that had been running in the East End of London since 1871, rather puts things in perspective. The highly emotive descriptions of poor, neglected babies is very Victorian in its sentimentality, but I’m sure also contains a good deal of truth. The crèche was catering for infants who would otherwise be left alone in the house while their mothers had to go to work, or were unfit in some way, or else perhaps left in the care of their only slightly older siblings.

A beautiful picture of the day nursery is included, which must have seemed a wonderfully warm and safe alternative to the overcrowded living spaces a lot of working class people lived in in the East End (apart from the one kid who’s alarmingly looking half throttled by a loop of material).

Mrs Hilton inspired people in other big towns across the country to start their own day nurseries and “public cradles”. And on her top floor she kept a kind of sanitarium for sick and dying children, where their parents could visit by night. I think she deserves to be better known than she is. We’ve heard of the big shot Victorian male philanthropists but some people like Mrs Hilton were also doing work than must have added immeasurably to peoples lives. I’m all emotional right now anyway, but I think I have something in my eye…..

Categories
Victorian

The Paternoster Gang and the Case of the Victorian Clickbait, 1891

Mothers Companion, 1891

A quick aside. If you’re a fan of Doctor Who (like what I am), old books have recently become a bit more exciting, thanks to Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax – aka the Paternoster Gang.

This is because a lot of Victorian (and later) publications were printed in Paternoster Row, which was a centre of publishing up until the Second World War, when it was destroyed in the Blitz.

The Paternoster Gang lived at No. 13 so (in a very real sense) the publishers of the Mother’s Companion were next-door-but one at No. 9.

Mothers Companion, 1891
Mothers Companion, 1891

The Mother’s Companion knew what it was doing with this article – “Hints to Wives” by an anonymous husband. This is a “helpful critique” of wives and their activities, and reminds me rather of the famous Victorian phrase “Children should be seen and not heard”, except applied to women. In short, this is Victorian clickbait that probably inspired a fury of correspondence.

I’m imagining the lady readership of this magazine having a little water cooler moment with this article (equivalent – teapot moment?). Perhaps trying to guess the identity of the author, who vowed never to tell anyone that he had written it. I find this quite cheering – at least he knows he’ll be for it if his wife finds out.

Reading this with slightly amused scorn as I was, I became uncomfortably aware of how little some things have changed though. Basically – men don’t want to go shopping and aren’t too interested in domestic minutiae? Well, plus ca change….

(Please excuse the n-word here, it’s rather an occupational hazard with some of these publications)

A gently elegant riposte came in a later issue. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, it’s game, set and match to her as soon as she makes the point that women’s lives were “imperilled” by having children. So stop moaning and bloody well hold the baby for a bit, eh?