In the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century, paper toys were very popular. They were cheap to make (thanks to advances in the automation of the paper-making industry) and they were plentiful.
Merchants often used paper toys as giveaways, while other paper toys could be purchased for pennies.
But in 1905 something unusual happened in the paper toy industry. In November of that year, Tuck & Sons, the famous London-based printing house, released a new paper toy in America.
A winning jockey
The new toy was a paper half-mask children could wear. The masks were issued in a series format, with each series based on a theme, such as literary figures, historical people, or costumes from foreign lands.
A Dutch girl.
The masks were wildly popular for two reasons. First, the artwork was exceptional.
Napoleon
There were no cartoonish drawings here; each mask was beautifully detailed and life-like.
A woman motorist.
The second reason the masks were popular: Adults liked to wear them, too. In fact, adults bought and wore the masks more often than children did.
Carmen, from the opera series.
By the summer of 1906 Tuck was producing the masks in adult sizes, and they were selling like hotcakes.
Granny in her cap.
Hostesses handed them out at parties, and some adults fashioned new games to play in the evening while wearing the masks.
An old tramp.
Here’s an idea for a masked party for young adults that appeared in a 1908 issue of The Woman’s Home Companion:
Adults all across America had fun pretending to be someone other than who they really were!
Cousin Kate, the focus of the popular poem of the same name, by Christina Georgina Rosetti.
Isabella probably did not participate in the fun. In her 1902 novel Unto the End Isabella acknowledges the popularity of masked parties and full-costume masquerades, to the misfortune of one her characters, Grace Landis.
Several times in the story Grace has to find the balance between her father’s more worldly ways and her mother’s religious convictions (that, incidentally, align with Isabella’s). In one scene Grace tells her mother:
“Has [father] told you of the party which is to be at Mr. McAllison’s in a few weeks, where the people are all to dress in character, and wear masks? Some of the characters are what I am sure you would call ‘questionable,’ and as for masks, I did not know that refined society approved of them, but my father wants me to wear one.”
Amazingly, some of those one-hundred-year-old paper Tuck masks have survived, and they’re popular collectors’ items. You can find them for sale on retail websites like Etsy, as well as new masks that are fashioned along the same style as the Tuck originals.
Every author dreams of earning good reviews for his or her books. Isabella’s niece Grace Livingston Hill wrote stories that always seemed to win critics’ praises.
Eighty-nine years ago, Grace’s novel Ladybird was released, and became an instant favorite. Critics described it as “charming,” “wholesome,” and “adventuresome.”
On April 6, 1930 this review of Ladybird appeared in newspapers across the country.
That’s a nice review that Grace certainly would have appreciated!
And the interesting thing is that Ladybird is still widely read today. Reader sites like Goodreads.com give Ladybird 4 stars out of 5—Not bad for a book written almost 90 years ago!
Have you read Grace Livingston Hill’s novel Ladybird? What did you think of it? Do you agree with the reviewer?
Fashion during Isabella’s lifetime changed dramatically; but for the majority of her years, ladies’ gowns consisted of high-necked collars, long sleeves, and floor-length skirts.
An 1891 fashion plate.
For the most part, women’s clothes were modest and conservative, especially when viewed by today’s standards.
Ladies’ fashions in 1915.
But underneath the “brown alpaca” or “black bombazine” gowns she mentioned in her novels (as well as layers of petticoats, corsets, drawers, and bustles), women found ways to express themselves in—oddly enough—stockings!
Black silk stockings (about 1890 to 1910).
In those days, women’s hosiery was manufactured in different weights of silks, cottons, wools, and merinos. The most common color was black, followed by the color white.
White cotton stockings (1835 to 1875).
But some women expressed their personalities and preferences by eschewing those common colors for something bright and vibrant.
Embroidered silk stockings (1875 to 1900).
Embroidered stockings were expensive and didn’t last long, considering that stockings were easily ripped, torn, or worn through from wear. These black silk stockings, embroidered with silk and metallic threads, were luxurious and costly:
Black embroidered stockings (1875-1900).
But cost didn’t have to be a factor. These sensible cotton stockings were fun and playful . . .
Blue plaid cotton stockings (1830 to 1860).
. . . while these cotton stockings were bold and striking:
Cotton stockings (1875 to 1895).
Some designs were more complex. These lovely stockings combined geometric stripes with beautifully detailed embroidery.
Blue cotton and silk stockings (1830 to 1835).
When worn, a typical lady’s boot would have covered the lower embroidered portion of the stocking, leaving only the horizontal band and stripes visible (if she lifted her skirt).
By contrast, the embroidery on these beauties was visible from knee to toe.
Silk stockings with floral design (1875 to 1899).
Which stocking design is your favorite? Which pair would you like to wear?
All the stockings shown in this post were found on the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising website, which documents over 200 years of fashion history. You can explore the FIDM Museum website by clicking here.
In 1868 printmakers Currier and Ives published a set of illustrations titled, “The Four Seasons of Life.” And since today marks the first day of Spring, sharing the old-time prints seem like a fitting way to mark the change of season.
Spring: Childhood
Known as the “Printmakers to the American People,” Currier and Ives produced prints on a wide range of subjects: comics and reproductions of great paintings, illustrations of disasters and wrecks, scenes of farm and city life, and political lampoons.
Summer: Youth
When “The Four Seasons of Life” series was published, Isabella Alden was a married twenty-seven-year-old woman and a popular best-selling author of Christian fiction.
Autumn: Middle Age
It may have happened that Isabella had Currier and Ives’ prints in mind when she wrote Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant, a story that featured little Daisy Bryant who longed for colorful illustrations to adorn the bare walls of her “study.”
Winter: Old Age
For over fifty years Currier and Ives produced prints that documented almost every phase of life in America—a country that was rapidly growing from adolescence to maturity.
And for over sixty years Isabella Alden wrote inspiring stories about American men, women and children who chose Jesus as their savior, friend, and guide.
“Nurse” was a word that figured often in Isabella Alden’s novels, but not all her nurses were created equal.
In some of her stories, “nurse” was another term for a nanny—a woman who took care of young children.
Nurse and baby, about 1910.
That was the case for Miss Rebecca Meredith in Wanted, who hired herself out as a “nurse-girl” after she applied for the job listed in this newspaper ad:
Wanted—A young woman who has had experience with children, to take the entire care of a child three years of age. Call between the hours of four and six, at No. 1200 Carroll Avenue.”
In other novels, like The Older Brother, nurses were everyday people who knew what to do whenever illness struck, like Aunt Sarah:
Aunt Sarah proved herself a veritable angel of mercy. She was able to lay aside her brusqueness and her sarcasms, and become the skillful practical nurse, taking her turn and indeed more than her turn with the others, and compelling the anxious mother to take such rest as she needed.
Aunt Sarah and Rebecca Meredith developed their nursing skills through practical experience, and a history of caring for neighbors and family members who were ill.
But when Helen Betson’s father fell ill in Echoing and Re-echoing, the doctor insisted on securing the services of a “professional nurse,” which threw Helen into days of anxious waiting:
If she could have done a share of the nursing—but they had been forced to employ a professional nurse who shared the task with her mother, so that it was only now and then a little service that Helen was permitted to do; and she grew weary of the long waiting that seemed so purposeless.
In Isabella’s lifetime, it was common for physicians to train their own nurses, but they often found it difficult to find candidates who already possessed basic knowledge of human anatomy, nursing science, and mixing medicines.
A young nurse in the 1890s.
The best candidates were trained in a hospital setting, but hospital training programs had drawbracks:
Most programs had age limits that disqualified women who were middle-aged and older.
The coursework took years, and tuition was expensive at a time when there was no such thing as tuition assistance or student financial aid.
Portrait of a graduating class circa 1890.
The programs tended to attract only local students because the best teaching hospitals were in large American cities where the high cost of living proved a barrier to outsiders.
Fees charged by graduates of hospital programs meant their services were unaffordable for the majority of Americans, especially those in rural areas of the country, so nursing school graduates tended to live and practice in larger cities.
Four nurses at Samaritan Hospital, Sioux City, Iowa, about 1910.
The result: America had a great shortage of competent, trained registered nurses. Dr. Everett mentioned the problem in Isabella’s novel, Workers Together:
Professional nurses are good when you can get them. It is unfortunate that they are especially scarce just now. I have been on the look-out for one all the morning without success.
Graduates of Roots Memorial Hospital nursing program, Arkansas, about 1908.
A New Yorker named Cyrus Jones decided to do something about it. Because he lived very close to Chautauqua Institution, he was familiar with the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. The CLSC conducted first-class four-year college degree courses via correspondence. He was certain nurses could be trained using the same methods. He said:
There must be many thousands of bright, earnest women, young and old, who would be nurses if they could learn the profession without going to a hospital. Other branches of knowledge are taught by mail and learned at home. . . . Why not nursing?
An advertisement in Christian Nation magazine, 1915.
Mr. Jones launched the Chautauqua School of Nursing in 1900, and it was immediately successful. Over 200 students enrolled the first year.
Unlike other schools, Chautauqua School of Nursing did not have age limits, welcoming many women who were denied admission to other schools because of their age.
The administrative offices for the Chautauqua School of Nursing in Jamestown, New York.
Since the enrollment fee was only $75.00, women who intended to work as professional nurses knew they would soon earn back that cost because they would earn between $10.00 and $35.00 a week as a registered nurse after graduation.
A young woman’s nursing school graduation photo, undated.
But the highest enrollment came from students who lived in rural and isolated areas where conventional hospital training schools didn’t exist.
A 1913 newspaper ad.
Like the hospital-based schools, the Chautauqua School of Nursing bestowed upon its graduates its own pins, caps, and certificates.
A 1913 diploma (from Flickr).
In every respect, its graduates appeared to have the same training and cachet as graduates of hospital programs. The public couldn’t tell the difference.
From the Columbus Weekly Advocate (Columbus, Kansas), November 27, 1913.
They also employed a very unique marketing tactic: They advertised their students.
The school used their real students as models in their print ads in magazines and newspapers.
Print ad for Chautauqua School of Nursing, 1915.
And if a prospective student was unsure whether or not she should enroll in the course, she had only to write the school.
Three Chautauqua nursing graduates, 1910.
In return, the school would provide the prospective student with the name and address of the graduates closest to her, with an invitation to contact any one of them to get more information about the school, the teaching curriculum, and what graduates’ lives were like as professional nurses.
Chautauqua school advertisement, 1909.
By 1910 the school had bestowed diplomas upon 12,000 nursing students; the class of 1911 alone exceeded 3,000 enrollees.
In all respects, the school was a success. Because of the Chautauqua School of Nursing, hundreds of communities had a trained, reliable nurse for the first time . . .
. . . and thousands of women entered into a respected profession that helped their communities, and produced a steady income for themselves.
Click on a book cover to learn more about Isabella Alden’s novels mentioned in this post.
One day, when Isabella was a single young woman in her early twenties, she was chatting with three friends about a recent wedding they had all attended.
Their talk soon turned to the contrasts between what Isabella called “old times” and the present. She said:
“Weddings are among the few social events that do not change their customs much with the passing years; there is a sort of regular program that gets carried out as a matter of course. Don’t you think so?”
Isabella Alden later conceded that when she made that statement, she was rather ignorant about life and the havoc it can wreak upon a simple wedding ceremony.
Signing the Marriage Register, by James Charles (undated)
Her friends soon set her straight, telling her stories of their own weddings that did not go off as planned. One friend—whom Isabella identified only as Mrs. H.—told how she had orchestrated “a very swell wedding” with “all the flowers and furbelows planned in their fullness.”
The Wedding Morning, by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1892)
But all Mrs. H.’s plans were for naught. Instead of a grand church wedding with a reception after, she was married in a rush with as many members of the family as could be found at a moment’s notice. Instead of her wedding gown, she was married in the gingham dress she had put on in the afternoon, because there had been no time to change it.
Why the sudden rush? Because her intended husband, a soldier in the Union Army, “had appeared unexpectedly on the eight o’clock train, and he had to be back at the station again two miles away, for the midnight train, in order to join his regiment, for a hurry call to the front.”
A hand-colored photo of a Civil War soldier and his sweetheart.
Isabella never forgot Mrs. H.’s story. As a minister’s wife, Isabella must have attended hundreds of weddings over her lifetime, and observed for herself that there really was no “regular program” to follow when it came to weddings.
The Wedding, by Johann Hamza (undated)
Isabella’s own wedding was relatively simple. She married Gustavus “Ross” Alden in her home town. She spent the night before her wedding in her old bed in her family home. Her mother woke her on her wedding day with a tender kiss.
The Wedding Morning by John Henry Frederick Bacon (1892)
Isabella and Ross were married in the Presbyterian church she and her family had attended for decades. Afterward, the bridal party and guests returned to the house to celebrate the day with food and well wishes.
The Wedding Breakfast, by Frederick Daniel Hardy (1871)
As Isabella matured and gained more life experience, she did indeed learn that not all weddings were similar to her own. While many couples were married in a church as she was, quite a few were married by a justice of the peace in a civil ceremony.
The Civil Wedding, by Albert Anker (1887)
And while Isabella and Ross held their reception in her parents’ home, other couples chose more formal settings that could accommodate hundreds of invited guests.
A wedding party seated at the head table in the banquet hall at the Hotel Belleclaire, New York City, 1908.
In fact, Isabella probably read newspaper accounts of the most spectacular wedding America had ever seen when Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, married Nicholas Longworth III in Washington, D.C. Their wedding, which took place in February 1906, was the social event of the season. More than a thousand guests attended, while many thousands of spectators gathered outside the church, hoping for a glimpse of the bride. Alice wore a soft blue wedding dress instead of the traditional white. Later, she dramatically cut the wedding cake with a sword, borrowed from a military aide attending the reception, thereby sparking a tradition many military couples still follow today.
Alice Roosevelt in her wedding gown, 1906.
Much has changed since that day in the early 1860s when Isabella uttered those innocent words about weddings always staying the same. Do you wonder what she would think about the creative ceremonies that are so popular with couples today?
What’s the most unusual wedding you ever attended?
Have you ever attended a wedding where everything went wrong, like the wedding Mrs. H. described?
The following illustration appeared in a women’s magazine in the early 1920s.
To our 21st Century eyes, the ad is pleasing enough, but in the 1920s, it was ground-breaking.
For centuries women wore their hair long, and considered it, as I Corinthians tells us, their glory.
In the late 1800s the Sullivan sisters were famous for their long hair and marketed a successful line of hair care products for women.
That was true in Isabella’s lifetime. Women grew their hair long, which they “dressed” by wearing it up in arrangements on their head. Isabella chose to arrange her hair parted in the middle, and braided into a bun pinned low at the back of her head.
For young girls who reached maturity, making the change from wearing their hair down to wearing it pinned up was something of a rite of passage.
From a 1902 magazine article illustrating hairstyles suitable for girls.
Ladies who needed assistance in washing or dressing their hair visited a salon, where a hair-dresser (usually a woman) was skilled in arranging the latest styles for long hair.
But all that changed in 1915.
In that year, one of the most popular entertainers in America was a woman named Irene Castle.
Irene Castle in costume for one of her stage appearances.
She and her husband Vernon were ballroom dancers who appeared in films and on Broadway stages. They gained an entirely new generation of fans when they created a popular dance called The Castle Walk.
Vernon and Irene Castle, demonstrating their famous dance, The Castle Walk, about 1914.
Legions of American women copied the gowns Irene Castle wore in films and on stage, as well as her accessories and hair styles. She was an early 20th century fashion icon.
Sheet music for The Castle Walk.
When Irene Castle was forced to take a break from dancing to have her appendix removed, she knew she wouldn’t want to have to worry about her clothes and hairstyle during her hospital confinement and recuperation. Being a practical woman, she decided to cut off her hair before the surgery.
Irene Castle, sporting bobbed hair about 1920.
Later, when Irene began making public appearances again, she initially hid her short hair under a turban; but one night, she went out to dinner with her husband with her hair uncovered.
Her short bobbed hairstyle caused an immediate sensation. Within days women were flooding hair salons, asking for the Castle Bob—only to be turned away. No respectable ladies’ hair-dresser would dream of complying with such a shocking request.
Undeterred, women who were determined to look like their idol Irene turned to their local barbershops and found plenty of men—who were used to styling short hair—willing to give them what they wanted.
Movie star Claudette Colbert wore her bobbed hair styled close her her head in finger waves.
The trend shocked many, and some newspapers wrote articles decrying the new fashion. Here are the opening lines in an article in the Omaha Daily Bee:
And this from a newspaper editor in Bisbee, Arizona:
America’s scandalized reaction to women with short hair didn’t last long, as more and more women recognized the advantages and the ease of short hair. Professional hair-dressers soon realized they had to get on board with the trend if they wanted to remain in business, and began publishing advertisements like this:
Those beauty salons needed tools and supplies designed to work with short hair, and that need opened up an entirely new market of products designed just for women with bobbed hair
Part of a promotional campaign for the “Invisitex” hair net and combs designed for short hair.
Despite its scandalous beginnings, bobbed hair was here to stay, and by the time America entered World War I, bobbed hair wasn’t just for the fashionably young; women of all ages—mothers and daughters, grandmothers and girls—wore their hair short in a variety of styles, that all started with the Castle Bob.
Isabella was born on November 3, 1841 in Rochester, New York.
When she celebrated her 87th birthday in 1928 she was living in Palo Alto, California. A few days later, on November 6, a San Francisco newspaper ran a short article, describing Isabella’s birthday celebrations.
Mrs. Alden is confined to her room, which was filled today with flowers, gifts and birthday messages.
It’s nice to know Isabella received so many expressions of love on her special day!
Amazingly, Isabella was still writing, and the article mentions the last three books she worked on: Memories of Yesterday, The Fortunate Calamity, and An Interrupted Night.
You can read the entire news article below. Just click on this headline to see a large version.
Isabella Alden was a great traveler. In her young adult years, she traveled all over the eastern part of the United States—from New York to Ohio, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C.—as her husband took charge of different Presbyterian churches.
When her writing career took off, so did Isabella’s travel schedule. From California to Florida and everyplace in between, Isabella spoke at churches, taught Sunday-school classes, and delivered lectures on a variety of topics before women’s groups.
Train station in a Boston suburb, 1903
At the time, train travel was the only transportation option available to her for traveling long distances.
But there was a problem with train travel: it was a dirty business.
An 1864 print.
Soot and smoke and dust from the steam engine’s exhaust permeated everything it touched; train stations, passengers, and luggage were all tainted.
A steam locomotive fills a valley with soot and smoke (from Wikipedia)
But all of that changed when the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (a Pennsylvania-based rail company) introduced a new power source for their train engines: Anthracite.
A Lackawanna Railroad ad from 1912.
While Anthracite is a coal, it has fewer impurities than common soft coal, and it burns cleaner. The Lackawanna Railroad company had almost exclusive access to America’s Anthracite source.
Realizing their clean-burning Anthracite-powered engines were an advantage for travelers, the Lackawanna Railroad came up with an ingenious marketing plan to highlight Anthracite’s advantages.
They launched an advertising campaign that featured a fictional character named Phoebe Snow.
Gowned in white, and wearing only a corsage of purple lilacs for a touch of color, Miss Phoebe Snow confidently traveled “The Road of Anthracite” and arrived at her destination as fresh and clean as when she first set out.
In addition to Phoebe’s image, each advertisement contained a short poem, written to mimic the cadence of a moving train.
The ad campaign was a hit. Soon Phoebe Snow’s image and the catchy railroad jingles began appeared in newspapers and magazines, and on postcards and posters.
As her popularity grew, so did Phoebe’s adventures.
She was spotted camping in the Rocky Mountains, and strolling along Broadway in New York City.
She even counseled mothers on the pleasures of traveling with children on “The Road of Anthracite.”
In 1903 Thomas Edison’s newly-formed motion picture company jumped on the Phoebe Snow band-wagon, and produced a short silent film about Phoebe and her railroad-riding adventures.
In the film, Phoebe’s travels include finding love and getting married to a fellow train rider dressed in (what else?) white.
Phoebe Snow’s adventures might have gone on forever, were it not for World War I. In 1917 the Lackawanna Railroad’s source of Anthracite was rerouted to help with the war effort, and Miss Phoebe Snow’s traveling days came to an end.
In her almost twenty-year career, fictional Phoebe inspired a generation of young women to travel. She was also the inspiration behind an entirely new genre of American advertising: the character-driven ad campaign, which we still see used in advertising today.
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Isabella Alden 