Victorian Era

In the 1800s, taking a photo of a dead body wasn’t creepy—it was comforting. In an era when photos were expensive and many people didn’t have any pictures of themselves when they were alive, post-mortem photography was a way for families to remember their deceased loved ones. ...read more

If you had a toothache in Melbourne, Australia, between 1898 and the 1930s, Australian dentist J.J. Forster had a quick solution: Rip it out, and chuck it away. That, it seems, was the technique he used for around 1,000 rotting molars found by archaeologists working on two ...read more

Oscar Wilde was a playwright, novelist, poet and celebrity in late nineteenth century London. His flamboyant dress, cutting wit and eccentric lifestyle often put him at odds with the social norms of Victorian England. Wilde, a homosexual, was put on trial for gross indecency in ...read more

The newspaper item is only 87 characters long, but it bristles with disaster. “A social cut,” reads the headline. “Mrs. Abdul Hamid has not invited Mrs. William Hohenzollern to a pink tea.” Cutting was the Victorian version of “throwing shade,” and it could be socially ...read more

Liquid nitrogen. High-end machines. Savory ice cream. Complex molds and intricate toppings. These might sound like things you might find in a fancy restaurant, but they were also the tools of a 19th-century woman who revolutionized home cooking. Long before Martha Stewart, Agnes ...read more

1. They didn’t die young. People lived to an average age of just 40 in 19th-century England, but that number is deceiving. Certainly, infants and children died of disease, malnutrition and mishaps at much higher rates than they do today. But if a girl managed to survive to ...read more