September 1, 1878: Emma N. Nutt and her sister Stella become the world's first two women telephone operators. In a very short time women would completely dominate the field: by the end of the 1880's, almost all telephone operators were women. Females were preferred for the job because they were considered to have better communications skills than their male counterparts. Image courtesy <www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/emma-nutt-worlds-1st-woman-telephone-operator/>
September 1, 1897: Boston runs a test on its subway, the first in America. <http://historyofmassachusetts.org/boston-first-subway-america/>
September 2, 1880: The official first night-time game of baseball is played, illuminated by electric arc lights. <http://www.19cbaseball.com/field-10.html>
September 8, 1883: Northern Pacific Railroad completed and a spike-driving ceremony is held near Gold Creek, Montana. Source: Haines, Aubrey, L. Mountain Fever: Historic Conquests of Rainier. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999 ed., p. 69.
September 8, 1892: The pledge of allegiance is first published in The Youth's Companion. Francis Bellamy, who wrote the lines, hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country <http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm>
September 11 & 12, 1879: "A Wheel Around the Hub" club run. An account of America's first group cycling ride ever opened the very first issue of the Victorian Cycling Magazine, "The Wheelman". A digital copy of this publication is available here: <http://tinyurl.com/jj4uqmb>
"Wheel Around the Hub" merchandise:
Bags: <https://www.zazzle.com/cycling_map_from_1879_tote_bag-149303393529318406>
Mugs: <https://www.zazzle.com/cycling_map_from_1879_tote_bag_coffee_mug-168249170830292276>
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More Victorian cycling merchandise: <https://www.zazzle.com/collections/victorian_cycling_collection-119545230449177268>
September 13, 1857: Milton Hershey born.
Milton and his wife Katherine, who couldn't have children of their own, established a school for orphans that has continued to help underprivileged children ever since. To this day, the Milton Hershey School remains the controlling stockholder and main beneficiary of the Hershey Chocolate company. Read about the school's history: http://www.mhskids.org/about/school-history/
Before he made his fortune in chocolate, Milton got his start manufacturing caramels. The Hershey company recently reinstated his original caramels as a regular product: Lancaster caramels (named for the city where Milton started his business.) If anyone out there hasn't tried Lancaster caramels yet, I highly recommend them! They're delicious—and remember, more than half the profits go to help underprivileged kids!
The Lancaster Caramel website: http://www.lancastercandy.com/home
More info: https://hersheystory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Milton-Hershey-The-Man-Behind-The-Chocolate.pdf
Hershey Community archives: http://blog.hersheyarchives.org
September 17, 1838: The 112-mile London-Birmingham railway opens. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/timeline/victorianbritain_timeline_noflash.shtml>
September 20, 1853: Elisha Otis sold his first elevator Source: Farmer's Almanac, 2016, p. 145.
September 26, 1848: Happy birthday, Helen Allingham, British watercolor painter! <http://www.helenallingham.com/Helen_Biography.htm>
September 26, 1865: Vassar College opens its doors to its first class of students. <http://info.vassar.edu/about/vassar/history.html>
September 29, 1888: Mohandas Gandhi arrives in Britain for the first time. <http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/mohandas-karamchand-gandhi>
September 30, 1847: A meeting is held at Northwood Villa, Ramsgate, in Britain which will lead to the formation of the first vegetarian society in the modern western world. Source: <https://ivu.org/history/thesis/early19-intro.html> More info on the Vegetarian Society: <https://ivu.org/history/societies/vs.html>
__________
Special Days in September:
September 9—11th, 2018: Rosh Hashana
Rosh Hashana pictures: http://brasspaperclip.typepad.com/brass_paperclip/2011/09/vintage-rosh-hashanah-e-cards-opensource.html
September 17, 2018: Citizenship Day / Constitution Day
Get this on a card
Our Banner
Our banner bright it flies aloft; its bunting is unfurled
We give to all a welcome—each nation in the world.
Its stood for more than a century o'er mountain, plain, and sea.
Come welcome, all come when we call to the dear land of the free.
Chorus
Come to our banner, thus welcome you shall be;
Come from every nation, over land and sea.
We will grasp you by the hand; forgotten be the past.
We'll welcome you as brothers true, in friendship sure to last.
Let England send her hardy sons; to them we'll give the hand.
We can't forget that Washington sprung from the mother land.
Brave France, her sons we'll welcome, she gave us Lafayette;
And Ireland, sweet, her sons we'll greet; Patrick Henry we'll ne'er forget
Come to our, etc.
Let Russia send her furclad sons from each ice-covered plain;
Remember that Columbus he came from sunny Spain;
Each bold Swiss leave his mountain, each rocky vale and fell;
We'll welcome great, as brothers meet the sons of William Tell.
Come to our, etc.
From Greenland's icy mountains bleak, Germany's sunny Rhine,
The tropic lands of bright Brazil, where fierce the sun doth shine;
From the dear land of Kossuth, and Denmark, in the north--
China, India, and Japan—let their manly sons come forth.
Come to our, etc.
—Source: "Home Songster: A Collection of the Most Patriotic and Popular Songs and Marching Choruses." Milwaukee: George Brumder, 1883, p. 54.
September 18-19, 2018: Yom Kippur
September 22, 2018: Autumnal Equinox
September 22: Dear Diary Day <https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/dear-diary-day/>
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Treat yourself to a beautiful new diary:
Notebooks & journals featuring images from our private archive
Read a historical diary:
If Ever Two Were One: A Private Diary of a Love Eternal
Francis Ellingwood Abbot
No Place for a Nervous Lady: Voices from the Australian Bush
Kilvert's Diary: 1870-1879: Life in the English Countryside in Mid-Victorian Times
Published by David R. Godine
Maud: The Illustrated Diary of a Victorian Woman (Maud Berkeley)
Published by Chronicle Books
This is the actual diary of a real woman, Maud Berkley, from 1888—1901. (The early years are more detailed than the later ones.) Maud loved to draw and paint, so her diary is filled with her own portraits of her daily routines and adventures with her friends: everything from housecleaning, to playing the guitar for her cat (who didn't appreciate it), to working in an apothecary shop, to dropping a doormat on someone's head at a party, to getting scared by a moth late at night and chasing it out of her room with an umbrella. Maud's diary is a wonderfully sweet window into the time, and is one of our favorite books. It's a must-read for anyone who loves the late Victorian era, and really should be required reading for any author who wants to write about the time! —S.C.
In the Days of Bicycles and Bustles
R.D. Blumfeld
A Boy at Fort Mackinac: The Diary of Harold Dunbar Corbusier, 1883-4, 1892.
Edited by Phil Porter
Corbusier Archives
Happy As A Big Sunflower: Adventures in the West 1876-1880
Rolf Johnson
A Child of Toil: The Life of Charles Snow, 1831-1889
Syracuse University Press
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
Edited by Helena Whitbread
September 22, 2018: Happy Autumnal Equinox!
Autumn poems:
"The Autumn Woods" (1888) http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/the-autumn-woods.html
September 23—30th, 2018: Sukkot
Last full week of September: Deaf awareness week
<https://www.signingsavvy.com/deafawarenessweek>
Links to Wilkie Collins' 1854 novel, Hide and Seek, in which a kind-hearted man takes in a small, deaf girl and raises her as his own. Where did she come from? What secrets are hidden in the mysterious hair bracelet left behind by her dying mother?
Hide and Seek (print version)
Librivox (free audiobook) version.
Of interest in September:
Happy back-to-school days, everyone!
The Port Townsend ("Chetzemoka") schoolhouse in the late 19th-century when the real Miss Lizzie Bray taught there.
A few of the books which provided background research for Delivery Delayed, my novel about a Victorian schoolteacher.
Buy the book on Amazon:
Delivery Delayed by Sarah A. Chrisman
An essay I wrote for an educational website:
"Everyday Life As A Learning Experience":
https://www.commonlit.org/texts/everyday-life-as-a-learning-experience
Classroom etiquette from 1891: http://tinyurl.com/y6wss4hs
Educational activities for K—12 and beyond: http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/worksheets-for-k-12-students.html
"PROVISIONS IN SEASON IN SEPTEMBER
From Isabella Beeton's The Book of Household Management, 1893 edition, pages 123-126:
Vegetables.- Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbage sprouts, carrots, celery, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, peas, potatoes, salading, sea-kale, sprouts, tomatoes, turnips, vegetable marrows - various herbs.
Fruit.- Damsons, figs, filberts, grapes, melons, morella-cherries, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, quinces, walnuts.
—And blackberries!
An excerpt from This Victorian Life on the blackberries of Washington:
"Strolling along trails in the Washington woods where paths cleared by feet have allowed light to angle into the undergrowth, a small trailing vine drapes itself over the evergreen bushes like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Rubus ursinus is the only blackberry native to the Northwest; its fruits are sweet and potently flavorful but modest in size, being only about as large as the nail on a woman’s pinky finger. Northwestern tribes have long gathered these berries for food, either eating them immediately after harvesting or drying them for winter storage. They also used the leaves and roots to treat diarrhea, menstrual problems, and a variety of other medical issues. The Stl’atl’imx and the Coast Salish tribes told a story about the plant’s origins that might have something to do with the way the thorny vines seem to chase the plants’ flowers and fruit, or with the resemblance of the berries’ juice to fresh blood. The traditional myth holds that a woman with a cruel husband fled up a tree to escape him. Her blood fell upon the earth and the blackberry sprang up.
Rubus discolor or Himalayan blackberry has no such myth about its origins; its introduction is a matter of historical record. The huge, arching brambles that appear anywhere with the barest scratch of earth (from abandoned lots to cracks in sidewalks) were introduced to North America in 1885 by Luther Burbank—the botanical wizard who invented rainbow corn, elephant garlic, Russet Burbank potatoes, Shasta daisies, crimson California poppies, and a wide array of other plants that have become ubiquitous throughout America. The blackberries descended from Burbank’s seeds have gone feral in a big way. Every year in late summer, crowds of people swarm around bramble patches, gorging themselves on the huge, juicy berries and bringing home gallons more, yet there hardly ever seems to be a dent in the bounty. No matter how many humans and animals devour them, by early autumn the air turns heady with the wine-scent of thousands of remaining berries fermenting under their own thorns.
..." --This Victorian Life, Skyhorse Publishing: 2015, p. 165—166.
***
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First Wheel in Town:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
In the summer of 1881, a Pacific Northwest town is buzzing with curiosity over a mysterious package received by handsome young Dr. Brown. Kitty Butler, the town dressmaker, is as curious as anyone else. She only knows one thing about that crate in the post office: everyone else's guesses about its contents are all wrong. When Dr. Brown unpacks the crate and reveals the first bicycle the town has ever seen, he wants to share his enthusiasm for this revolutionary new piece of technology —but encounters overwhelming hostility instead of the excitement he'd expected. The only one who seems positively interested is the pretty young widow Kitty Butler, and Dr. Brown soon realizes how much he needs her support…
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Love Will Find A Wheel:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
"I'm sure he'll be glad you're here —once he gets used to it." When Jacob Simmons arrives in Washington Territory in the summer of 1882 and receives a glacial reception from his uncle Silas, he appreciates Dr. Brown's encouraging prediction but doesn't have much faith in it. Jacob's not even sure Silas will have time to get used to his presence, let alone consider him welcome. If the young man can't meet the draconian requirements of a contract with his business investors, he'll face exile and financial ruin, thus fulfilling old Silas' prediction that he would be just as dismal a failure as his father. His whole future rests on finding a market for a remarkable new machine —and he'll need help selling them. ***
Addie Kellam is an incredibly lonely young woman. She's more comfortable with books than with other people, yet she longs for the sort of romance she reads about in stories. It's something she fears she'll never experience herself, since even friendship seems elusive. She envies the cameraderie her brother finds in his cycling club, but the only bicycles in the town of Chetzemoka are specifically designed for men. There aren't any wheels for women anywhere —are there?
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A Rapping At The Door:
A Victorian Cycling Club Suspense Story
When the delivery of a mysterious letter to Silas Hayes' mansion is followed by the arrival of a beautiful young woman who claims she can communicate with the dead, Nurse McCoy sniffs trouble in the wind. It's obvious to her that the newcomer is after Silas' fortune, but he is helplessly in awe of the medium's eerily intimate knowledge of his past and her seemingly supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, Kitty Brown's yearning to reach out to the departed spirit of her first love is making her push away her new husband, just when she needs him the most. The whole situation is a dreadful mess, and McCoy's got to straighten it all out before Silas' nephew and his bride come back from their honeymoon. Honestly, she doesn't know how any of the fools in this world would get along without her…
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Delivery Delayed:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
It's obvious to everyone in the Chetzemoka cycling club that Lizzie and Isaac could make each other very happy —but really, does anyone follow their friends' hints when it comes to affairs of the heart? A prim schoolmarm and a stoic steamship captain are hardly the people to discuss their sentiments, in spite of all that everyone else does to bring them together. Love seems so easy for other couples, yet for these two the smallest challenges loom as huge obstacles. Just when progress finally seems possible, a well-intentioned little girl steps in with the kind of help they'd be better off without. Will the situation be resolved before it's too late, or will Isaac ship out for good?
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A Trip and a Tumble:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
Time for a vacation —step right up! When Felix's newspaper sends him up to Victoria, B.C. to report on a visiting circus Ken inevitably tags along, "like a dutiful puppy", as Addie says. Meanwhile, Jacob's sent north to Victoria as well, as an ambassador for the cycling company he represents. Addie tells him to keep an eye on the chums, but no one ever could keep Ken and Felix from stumbling into scrapes. When a vivacious high-society belle and a surprisingly timid circus bicyclist enter the picture, things heat up quickly. Be prepared for a grand circus pageant —let the show begin!
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