Risky Regencies

Recent discoveries online

Updated on March 24, 2011 by Janet Mullany

I’ve found a couple/few websites that I find fascinating and I want to share today.

First, an amazing if heartbreaking online exhibit, Threads of Feeling, from the Foundling Museum in London. Four thousand babies were left anonymously at the hospital between 1741 and 1760 and sometimes a note, and a small token, usually a piece of fabric or ribbon (but sometimes a key) was left with each infant and kept as part of the admission record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital’s nurses. If, as occasionally happened, a mother returned, she could identify the scrap of fabric to claim her child. These fragments represent the largest collection of eighteenth fabrics in Britain.

You can find more examples of the fabrics and the ledger entries in a review at The Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center Blog or at the exhibit’s Facebook page.

The museum tells the story of the 27,000 children who were left at the Foundling Hospital between 1739 and 1954, in art, interiors, and social history, and the museum is close to the site of the original building which was demolished in the early twentieth century. The founders of the original Foundling Hospital were philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel, and the museum also houses the Gerald Coke Handel Collection.

The Handel House Museum in Mayfair, London was one of the many projects restored with the expertise of Patrick Baty, a specialist in historical paint and color. His blog, News from Colourman, is fascinating. His interest in architecture led to speculation and then research in authentic historical decoration and color, and if the idea of peering into a microscope to view pigments makes you go all tingly, well…

Talking of going all tingly, you’ve got to check out the hilarious Bangable Dudes in History, “Dead man porn for your still-beating heart.” I love this site. Not only do you get pics of the dudes but pie charts of their attributes. For instance, Robert Cornelius, American chemist and pioneer in photography, Joined father’s lamp company…must’ve been fighting off the chicks; Nicolai Tesla, Was besties with Mark Twain–another potential hot threesome. Find out why Shostakovich was one hot brooding bitch or Sherman was red-ginger hot. Byron is coming soon!

Have you found anything good online recently?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bangable Dudes in History, Foundling Museum, Patrick Baty, Threads of Feeling | 10 Replies

Hey, winners

Updated on March 24, 2011 by Janet Mullany

We need to hear from you–yes, you, cyn209, who has won a signed copy of The Scandal of Lady Elinor by Regina Jeffers and Barbara E who has won a copy of The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason.

Email us at riskies AT yahoo.com.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Winners | 2 Replies

Oooh, pictures!

Updated on March 23, 2011 by carolyn

I am in deadline mode. Ack!!! :::arms failing::: Oh, hey, hold on while I go organize my soup cans and sort the vegetable bin.

While I do that, here’s some pictures from around Jewel Central. Also, this post is Regency related because I am writing a Regency. Oh, and also, I am using the exploding pencil AND the falling off doorknob in this book.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Fake Post, Look over there, pictures, The Book is Due When? | 4 Replies

Random Tuesday

Updated on March 22, 2011 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

So, today I have nothing of interest to say about anything coherent! I am:

1) Finishing the current WIP and diving into the next one, so moving from Mary Queen of Scots’s Edinburgh to Victorian London! It’s not the smoothest of transitions, and will probably require much watching of Young Victoria

2) Packing to leave for the Vampire Diaries convention this weekend! Look for an article on the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog when I get back, as well as squeal-y, fan-girl posts here and on Twitter. I am still trying to decide what to wear for the masquerade ball…

3) Gardening. Now that the temps are in the 80s here and my lilacs are blooming out, I need to clean out the vegetable beds and get them ready for lovely summer plants, yay!

So, while I do all this, let’s look at some pretty, pretty hats!

Speaking of great hats, and dresses, and cars, and music, next week I’ll be talking about my April Undone! release, The Girl in the Beaded Mask, set at a big, wild Gatsby-esque party in 1922. This is one of my favorite historical periods, and I was so excited to get to write this story! (I’ll be giving away a copy, too…)

What are you doing this week? What are some time periods you’d like to read more about? And which hat is your favorite???

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Hats | 14 Replies

A Tax on Light and Air

Updated on March 21, 2011 by Diane Gaston

Like so many others, I’m working on my taxes, which takes me hours, because I save all my record-keeping for tax time and then have to find, organize, and record all my necessary information. And all this is just to take the stuff to the accountant.

I have no complaints about paying taxes. As a former public employee, married to a public employee, I have an acute sense of what taxes pay for in our society. In Regency times, however, some of the taxes seem pretty odd to us.

Window Tax.
In 1697 Parliament passed a tax on windows. The more windows in a dwelling, the higher the tax. At the time it seemed a fair way to levy taxes without requiring citizens to divulge personal financial information as they would need to do for income tax. It was assumed that the wealthier the person, the bigger the house and the more windows. The wealthy embraced this idea and began to use windows as a way to display status and success. On the other hand, landlords who owned buildings that housed the working classes, resented the tax and bricked up windows to avoid payment. The resulting lack of ventilation simply made bad living situations worse.

Glass Excise Tax.
First levied in 1745, the Glass Excise tax was initially levied on the raw materials that produced glass, but later became a tax on the glass products and was based on weight. Again, the rich embraced the use of glass in large and numerous windows as a way of showing the world how affluent they were. Glass green houses were further proof of wealth. The tax but a burden on glass manufacturere and over the years the law was tweaked, easing the tax on production houses manufacturing small glass products or those making optical glass. In 1845 it was appealed altogether. In 1851 so was the Window tax.