As Syria continues to burn and its citizens fight doggedly to rid themselves of Bashar Assad, here’s a look back at the country from the turn of the 20th Century. During this time, Syria was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and was part of the Levant, an area which made up what is modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, [...]
From John Wilson Croker’s 1853 manuscript, The History of the Guillotine: The Guillotine was not originally designed with any view to what turned out to be its most important characteristic – the great numbers of victims that it could dispose of in a short space of time: it is curious, and ought to be to [...]
Maurice Pillard Verneuil was born in St. Quentin in the Aisne in 1869. His early art training was reflective of the dominant academic tradition which stressed draughtsmanship and held life drawing to be the highest form of art. Other branches of design were viewed with much less favor. As the century wore on however, the [...]
![1900 [Women's fashion in nineteenth century Paris] (1902)](http://thiscircularparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1a118326.jpg)
A collection of drypoint relief prints, handcolored with watercolor from the monograph, Les modes féminines du XIXe siècle, interprétées en cent pointes sèches aquarellées au pinceau, 1801-1900 by Henri Boutet. Henri Boutet, while following one by one the changes of fashion, is a fine and exquisite artist. It is recognized in its Ioli dividers, costumes reminiscent of a century and the loyalty of women’s fashions is both original and delicious. – from the Catalogue de livres modernes composant la bibliothèque [...]
Nineteenth-century London was a city of bustling crowds and dirty streets, shrouded in a thick later of fog and smoke. Yet it was against this backdrop that Charles Dickens chose to set his novels and from which he drew his inspiration. Indeed, at times London took on a role of its own, dominating the narrative [...]
Also known as ‘The X-Ray Fiend’, this comedy by G.A. Smith combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès’ accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896. The central couple is played by the Brighton comedian Tom Green and Smith’s wife Laura Bayley, and we [...]
The striking appearance adopted by performers to distinguish themselves in the competitive world of music hall provided film-makers with an immediate centre of attention for their brief productions. There was no mistaking G.H. Chirgwin when he appeared in two of Robert Paul‘s earliest films. Billed as ‘The White Eyed Kaffir,’ Chirgwin had appeared as a black [...]
From Maguire & Baucus catalogue: Representing the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. A realistic reproduction of an historic scene. Filmed August 28, 1895, at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. The 18-second-long film was produced by Thomas Edison and may have been the first film in history to use trained actors, as [...]
This is volume 1 out of 46 albums created by William Vaughn Tupper. It contains albumen print photographs and photomechanical prints that were taken or purchased during the Tupper family’s travels through Algeria, then annotated. Dates: April 14, 1892- May 8, 1892. (Photographs courtesy of the Boston Public Library/Tehrkot Media)
Frank A. Rinehart, a commercial photographer in Omaha, Nebraska, was commissioned to photograph the 1898 Indian Congress, part of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. More than five hundred Native Americans from thirty-five tribes attended the conference, providing the gifted photographer and artist an opportunity to create a stunning visual document of Native American life and culture [...]
On March 14, 1896, the Sutro Baths were opened to the public as the world’s largest indoor swimming pool establishment. The baths were built on the sleepy western side of San Francisco by wealthy entrepreneur and former mayor of San Francisco (1894–1896), Adolph Sutro. The vast glass, iron, wood, and reinforced concrete structure was mostly hidden, and filled [...]
In the late 19th Century, a woman with a bit more meat on her bones was what was in. Contrast that with now, where everyone wants to be thin! This advertisement from 1895 shows a young woman with a package of Loring’s Fat-Ten-U food tablets and as well as Loring’s Corpula, a fat-producting food. From [...]
Superimposition of Cathrina Bartho dancing over footage of crashing waves from the rapids of Niagara Falls. The woman wears a frilly, perhaps feather-trimmed, white dress with a low-cut bodice, a matching feathered hat, white stockings, and white ballet slippers. She holds up her skirt through the entire dance, revealing her ankles and lower legs as [...]
This is an advertisement for Hudson’s soap. The fight against dirt and grim in the 19th century was a long and hard fought battle. “Cleanliness was next to Godliness” for the Victorians and consumption of soap increased dramatically after the abolition of the soap tax in 1853. Until the 1880s soap had been manufactured locally [...]
The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, also known as the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 10, 1898, and following days; it is considered a turning point in North Carolina politics following Reconstruction. Originally labeled a race riot, it is now also termed a [...]
![[Heap of bones in the cemetery, Necropolis Cristobal Colon, Havana]](http://thiscircularparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1a4a16662v.jpg)
The old Spanish custom of burial in Cuba is to rent a lot in a cemetery, not buy it outright, as is the procedure in America. When the rental is not paid, the body is removed, placed in quicklime to take off all the flesh, and the skeleton thrown into an enclosure. As a result [...]
