The Unemployed Christmas Ghost: 1927

The Christmas Ghost

Unemployment in One of our Oldest Industries

The other night I was sitting up late–away after nine o’clock–thinking about Christmas because it was getting near at hand.  And, like everybody else who muses on that subject, I was thinking of the great changes that have taken place in regard to Christmas.  I was contrasting Christmas in the old country house of a century ago, with the fires roaring up the chimneys, and Christmas in the modern apartment on the ninth floor with the gasoline generator turned on for the maid’s bath.

I was thinking of the old stage coach on the snowy road with its roof piled high with Christmas turkeys and a rosy-faced “guard” blowing on a key bugle and the passengers getting down every mile or so at a crooked inn to drink hot spiced ale–and I was comparing all that with the upper berth No. 6, car 220, train No. 53.

I was thinking of the Christmas landscape of long ago when night settled down upon it with the twinkle of light from the houses miles apart among the spruce trees, and contrasting the scene with the glare of motor lights upon the highways of today.  I was thinking of the lonely highwayman shivering round with his clumsy pistols, and comparing the poor fellow’s efforts with the high class bandits of today blowing up a steel express car with nitroglycerine and disappearing in a roar of gasoline explosions.

In other words I was contrasting yesterday and today.  And on the whole yesterday seemed all to the good.

Nor was it only the warmth and romance and snugness of the old Christmas that seemed superior to our days, but Christmas carried with it then a special kind of thrill with its queer terrors, its empty heaths, its lonely graveyards, and its house that stood alone in a wood, haunted.

And thinking of that it occurred to me how completely the ghost business seems to be dying out of our Christmas literature.  Not so very long ago there couldn’t be a decent Christmas story or Christmas adventure without a ghost in it, whereas nowadays—

And just at that moment I looked and saw that there was a ghost in the room.

I can’t imagine how he got in, but there he was, sitting in the other easy chair in the dark corner away from the firelight.  He had on my own dressing gown and one saw but little of his face.

“Are you a ghost?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “worse luck, I am.”

I noticed as he spoke that he seemed to wave and shiver as if he were made of smoke.  I couldn’t help but pity the poor fellow, he seemed so immaterial.

“Do you mind,” he went on, in the same dejected tone, “if I sit here and haunt you for a while?”

“By all means,” I said, “please do.”

“Thanks,” he answered, “I haven’t had anything decent to work on for years and years.  This is Christmas eve, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, “Christmas Eve.”

“Used to be my busiest night,” the ghost complained, “best night of the whole year–and now–say,” he said, “would you believe it!  I went down this evening to that dinner dance they have at the Ritz Carlton and I thought I’d haunt it–thought I’d stand behind one of the tables as a silent spectre, the way I used to in King George III’s time–“

“Well?” I said.

“They put me out!” groaned the ghost, “the head waiter came up to me and said that he didn’t allow silent spectres in the dining room.  I was put out.”  He groaned again.

“You seem,” I said, “rather down on your luck?”

“Can you wonder?” said the ghost, and another shiver rippled up and down him.  “I can’t get anything to do.  Talk of the unemployed–listen!” he went on, speaking with something like animation, “let me tell you the story of my life–“

“Can you make it short?” I said.

“I’ll try.  A hundred years ago–“

“Oh, I say!” I protested.

“I committed a terrible crime, a murder on the highway–“

“You’d get six months for that nowadays,” I said.

“I was never detected.  An innocent man was hanged.  I died but I couldn’t rest.  I haunted the house beside the highway where the murder had been done.  It had happened on Christmas Eve, and so, every year on that night–“

“I know,” I interrupted, “you were heard dragging round a chain and moaning and that sort of thing; I’ve often read about it.”

“Precisely,” said the ghost, “and for about eighty years it worked out admirably.  People became afraid, the house was deserted, trees and shrubs grew thick around it, the wind whistled through its empty chimneys and its broken windows, and at night the lonely wayfarer went shuddering past and heard with terror the sound of a cry scarce human, while a cold sweat–“

“Quite so,” I said, “a cold sweat.  And what next?”

“The days of the motor car came and they paved the highways and knocked down the house and built a big garage there, with electricity as bright as day.  You can’t haunt a garage, can you? I tried to stick on and do a little groaning, but nobody seemed to pay attention; and anyway, I got nervous about the gasoline.  I’m too immaterial to be round where there’s gasoline.  A fellow would blow up, wouldn’t he?”

“He might,” I said, “so what happened?”

“Well, one day somebody in the garage actually SAW me and he threw a monkey wrench at me and told me to get to hell out of the garage. So I went.”

“And after that?”

“I haunted round; I’ve kept on haunting round, but it’s no good, there’s nothing in it.  Houses, hotels, I’ve tried it all.  Once I thought that if I couldn’t make a hit any other way, at least I could haunt children.  You remember how little children used to live in terror of ghosts and see them in the dark corners of their bedrooms?  Well, I admit it was a low down thing to do, but I tried that.”

“And it didn’t work?”

“Work!  I should say not.  I went one night to a bedroom where a couple of little boys were sleeping and I started in with a few groans and then half materialized myself, so that I could just be seen.  One of the kids sat up in bed and nudged the other and said, ‘Say!  I do believe there’s a ghost in the room!’  And the other said, ‘Hold on; don’t scare him.  Let’s get the radio set and see if it’ll go right through him.’

“They both hopped out of bed as brisk as bees and one called downstairs, ‘Dad, we’ve got a ghost up here!  We don’t know whether he’s just an emanation or partially material.  We’re going to stick the radio into him–‘  Believe me,” continued the ghost, “that was all I waited to hear.  Electricity just knocks me edgeways.”

He shuddered.  Then he went on.

“Well it’s been like that ever since–nowhere to go and nothing to haunt.  I’ve tried all the big hotels, railway stations, everywhere.  Once I tried to haunt a Pullman car, but I had hardly started before I observed a notice, ‘Quiet is requested for those already retired,’ and I had to quit.”

“Well, then,” I said, “why don’t you just get immaterial or dematerial or whatever you call it, and keep so?  Why not go away wherever you belong and stay there?”

“That’s the worst of it,” answered the ghost, “they won’t let us. They haul us back.  These spiritualists have learned the trick of it and they just summon us up any time they like.  They get a dollar apiece for each materialization, but what do we get?”

The ghost paused and a sort of spasm went all through him.  “Gol darn it,” he exclaimed, “they’re at me now.  There’s a group of fools somewhere sitting round a table at a Christmas Eve party and they’re calling up a ghost just for fun–a darned poor notion of fun, I call it–I’d like to–like to–“

But his voice trailed off.  He seemed to collapse as he sat and my dressing gown fell on the floor.  And at that moment I heard the ringing of the bells that meant that it was Christmas midnight, and I knew that the poor fellow had been dragged off to work.

Winowed Wisdom, Stephen Leacock 1926

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Recently, the Smithsonian online magazine made a plea for the return of the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. This is a proposition Mrs Daffodil can heartily endorse. It is true that there was a decay in the quality of Christmas ghost stories, leading to amusing articles and essays totting up the cliches of the usual Christmas spectre, such as this one by Jerome K. Jerome. Mrs Daffodil previously told of how the British ghost was doomed by the introduction of the card game Bridge.

Stephen Leacock also wrote in an essay called “The Passing of the Christmas Ghost Story,” that the logistics of modern life simply were not compatible with the Christmas ghost story.

It is a nice question whether Christmas, in the good old sense of the term, is not passing away from us. One associates it somehow with the epoch of stage-coaches, of gabled inns and hospitable country homes with the flames roaring in the open fireplaces. I often think that half the charm of Christmas, in literature at least, lay in the rough weather and in the physical difficulties surmounted by the sheer force of the glad spirit of the day. Take, for example, the immortal Christmases of Mr. Pickwick and his friends at Dingley Dell and the uncounted thousands of Christmas guests of that epoch of which they were the type. The snow blustered about them. They were red and ruddy with the flush of a strenuous journey. Great fires must be lighted in the expectation of their coming. Huge tankards of spiced ale must be warmed up for them. There must be red wine basking to a ruddier glow in the firelight. There must be warm slippers and hot cordials and a hundred and one little comforts to think of as a mark of gratitude for their arrival; and behind it all, the lurking fear that some fierce highwayman might have fallen upon them as they rode in the darkness of the wood.

Take as against this a Christmas in a New York apartment with the guests arriving by the subway and the elevator, or with no greater highwayman to fear than the taxicab driver. Warm them up with spiced ale? They’re not worth it.

The Bookman, Vol. 50, 1920

Harsh, very harsh, but perhaps a fair assessment. Something of the holiday magic was certainly lost with the introduction of electricity. When ghost story writer M.R. James held his memorable Christmas ghost story readings at Cambridge College, he did not simply press a switch to plunge the room into darkness, but extinguished, one by one, all but one of the candles in the room–and a highly effective bit of stage business it was, say those who witnessed it. Even a dimmer switch could not provide such a thrill.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

New Uses for the Cashmere Shawl: 1910

Paisley shawl remade into a dress, coat and bag, 1889 Museum at FIT

The Cashmere Shawl.

A new use for the pine-patterned cashmere shawls that have been handed down from the great-grandmother to the modern woman is now found in covering handbags and the numerous variety of the vanity bag with this fascinating Indian fabric. The subdued richness of the coloring has a fascinating effect, and to bring the scheme of the contrasting hues into harmony with the rest of the dress it is modish to introduce perhaps a belt, covered with the patterned fabric or revers and cuffs of the like material on the coat.

To complete the bag very long handles or knotted silk cord are used, finished with corded fringe, and by way of variety some women are introducing here and there a touch of a glittering cabochon in barbaric colors.

The antique pine-patterned shawls that show signs of wear in one or two places can be thus used for a variety of purposes in the fashioning of accessories for the autumn toilet. The borders may be cut off and applied on the skirt of a cloth gown, or a short waistcoat may be introduced between the shawl like revers of an autumn coat of velvet.

Use for Paisley.

So popular was the old-time Paisley shawl last winter, in its various adaptations, that it seems quite impossible to conceive of any new ways of using the garment of our grandmother’s day. However, those who know predict the vogue of the Paisley muff as well as of the Paisley bag this winter.

Norwich [CT] Bulletin 13 October 1910: p. 4

House of Lanvin (French, founded 1889) Evening bag, 1925–35 French, silk, metal Silk, metallic; 14 in. (35.6 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the executors of the estate of Clara M. Blum in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Blum, 1966 (2009.300.2543) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/157382

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: The exotic patterns of the cashmere shawl have had many lives. Although Mrs Daffodil flinches at the very idea, one finds the massive shawls of the 1860s cut into mantles, visites, and even gowns, in the 1870s and 1880s.

Paisley shawl remade into a mantle, early 1870s, The John Bright Collection

1910 was a particularly good year for the paisley-revival.

Old Paisley Shawls Are Valuable.

The Paisley shawl is coming back into its own. In the old days the Paisley was one of the necessary units of every stylish outlay. After two generations the shawl’s vogue is returning. At present there is a decided fad for both cashmere and Paisley. It must be admitted, however, that it is the fabric and not the shawl itself which attracts. Paisley is now being substituted for leather in women’s handbags, card cases, belts and other novelties. The belts are especially popular. They are edged with patent leather and demand a good price at the stores which make a specialty of women’s wear. Even folding slippers are being made of Paisley. They are well adapted to travelers and very comfortable, although, as in the case of the belts, they are an expensive luxury.

Frank Leslie’s Weekly, 20 October 1910

Although Mrs Daffodil has not found an image of the historic shawl in this next article, she is grateful that Mr Thanhouser recognized its value before his mother chopped it into handbags or belts or it was sold to the rag collector.

TREASURE IN AN OLD TRUNK.

A Rare Paisley Shawl Worn at Victoria’s Coronation Found by Accident.

From the Milwaukee Sentinel.

A shawl valued at over $1,000 and worn by the great grandmother of Edwin Thanhouser, manager of the Academy theater at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, was found the other morning by Mrs. Julia Thanhouser, the manager’s mother, in one of her old trunks which she had not rummaged in years. Mr. Thanhouser happened to be in the house when the garment was brought to light and knew at once that the piece of goods was of more than ordinary value.

This prize among shawls was made in Paisley, Scotland, and bought by Mrs. Bertha Emmonds, great grandmother of Mr. Thanhouser, in London, while attending the coronation of Queen Victoria, for which purpose she came from her home in Germany. At her death the shawl passed into the possession of Mr. Thanhouser’s grandmother, and fifteen years ago while his mother, the present owner, was living in Fort Wayne, Ind., it was given to her. Mr. Thanhouser had often heard his mother speak of the shawl, but it was not until he saw it that he realized what a valuable piece of goods it was.

Threads almost as fine as it is possible to spin them are the material of which the shawl is made, and there are so many colors and shades of colors that it is almost impossible to count them. The design is exceedingly intricate and was undoubtedly the result of considerable hard study. The shawl measures about 10 by 5 feet.

The Kansas City [MO[ Star 14 June 1902: p. 5

There was also a brief vogue for the fabric in the 1920s, and again, in the psychedelic ’60s. In 1964, a Norwich shawl gave its life for this lounge suit with a fashionable Nehru jacket.

Paisley “Nehru jacket” 1964 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Parlour-maid Goes to War: 1918

A munitions worker, also sometimes popularly called a “Munitionette.”

A WOMAN OF FURNACELAND: A STORY AND ITS SEQUEL  

She had felt the strain; she was not well. To a woman unaccustomed to standing on her feet for twelve hours on end, the work had been terrific.  

She had been a parlour-maid in a good situation, with plenty of room and fresh air, where she had cleaned silver, answered the door-bell, waited at table, carried trays, turned out her pantry, gone to the door, had her regular outings, and was perfectly certain to get an hour or two for sewing or reading every afternoon; where she had never got out of her bed before half-past six and was generally back in it before ten; where she had been well fed and well paid, warmly housed and generously considered.  

Tom had joined the colours at the first roll of the drum. She would not have “walked out” with him had he not done so, and truth to tell, he was mighty keen and patriotic.  Quickly trained, hard trained, strenuously trained, he was ready amongst the first batch of the New Army who went to the front, ten or eleven months after the outbreak of war. During these ten months she had kept her situation, had knitted him socks and mufflers, had seen him when on leave, and had encouraged him to do well at the guns.  Then came the final parting. He was to sail from Southampton for “somewhere in France.” Before the momentous day, he received a final few days’ leave.  

“Tom,” she said, “you are off to do your bit, God bless you, and you will be constantly in my thoughts and my prayers;  but I do not suppose we shall meet again for many months — perhaps longer — and I am going to spring a mine upon you, not a German mine, old chap, but a truly British one.  While you are at the front firing shells, I am going into a munition factory to make shells. The job will not be as well paid as domestic service, it will not be as comfortable as domestic service; it will be much harder work, but it will be my bit, and every time you fire your gun you can remember I am helping to make the shells.” 

“Well done, my girl, it is splendid of you, but can you stand it?“ 

“I will stand it,” she replied with that determination which one knows to be the British characteristic, even when it means getting up at five o’clock every winter morning and not returning home for fourteen hours at a spell. 

« « « « «  

It was an awful night. The wind howled. Sleet blew in great blasts. Tom’s letters had been frequent from “somewhere in France,” interspersed with those quaint postcards every soldier and every home knows so well.  He had been through those awful days at Loos, when his battery had pulled out into the open and the only shelter was under the limbers. His leading horse’s driver had been killed before him, and without even waiting for the word of command he had scrambled along to that horse’s back and taken the dead man’s place. He had done his bit with a vengeance. The work of the 15th Division at Loos will never be forgotten; but very little news had travelled home, so the encouragement and inspiration that the girl might have had on that score had been sadly lacking.  

That night Tom was constantly in her thoughts. It was her week of night duty. She had made a railway Journey, to arrive at the factory wet, cold and dejected, and before her lay a twelve-hours shift. Warm food in the Y.W.C.A. Canteen at midnight cheered her. She washed her hands in warm water (which means a great deal to workers, many, thousands of whom had to wash in cold and exist all the first cruel winters without a canteen at all), and through the factory mud and slush she waded back to her workshop, picturing the mud of Flanders and Tom.   

What a scene!  

A veritable beehive of workers. Eight thousand women answered the call of the drum in that district alone. Neat khaki caps and neat khaki overalls made them both trim and smart and a veritable little soldier-women’s army.  

The glass domes of the Birmingham “shop” had been blackened overhead so that Zeppelins should no longer find their whereabouts. The great furnaces below were roaring flames. The machinery was drumming and banging and screeching. The noises were deafening; it was impossible to hear a neighbour speak. Everything was carried on by signs.  

We have all seen men at the forge of a country village putting their black horseshoes into the fire with iron tongs and pulling them out red hot. That was what this woman was doing, but her horseshoe was a part of a shell, and it must be remembered that it takes 150 operators to finish the parts of one fuse, and 21 operators to machine a 4.7 shell. In addition there are other workers who gauge, who assemble, paint and varnish them, and yet others who fill them with explosives. Yes! one hundred and fifty operators to prepare the parts of one fuse and twenty-one people to machine a single shell.

Pause and think then: the brains, the skill, the machinery, the efforts put in motion to make; that little shell before it leaves the hands of the workers and reaches those of the gunner at the front, where hundreds of shells, now that the women have made them, may be fired in a single day from one single gun to which a dozen or so were handed out before and at Loos. And this is war, a half-century planned war, undertaken by the enemy for might against right, a deadly cruel war.

 The chorus of machinery in that shed never ceases, it is incessant, it appears eternal and the amount of human effort is prodigious. Such is the exigency of war. A woman — one of hundreds — presses a lever with her foot, and instantly a big hammer falls with a heavy thud. At a single blow it fashions the-red hot metal on the anvil, and with a shriek it is snatched up again in the twinkling of an eye. The operator picks the still hot metal off the anvil with a tongs and drops it into an iron box with many others, while her mate— a young girl— pulls another piece from the furnace and places it in the die. The machine does the heavy work and yet the strain of that pressure of the foot is bad for the delicate mechanism of woman-kind. There is every class in that shed. There are well-educated ladies— enthusiasts; there are parlour-maids, like this girl— who are patriots; there are the usual factory hands, who have come from soda-water-manufactories, jam, biscuit, cocoa, toy or cheap jewellery factories, who are all doing their bit.  

As the morning draws on in that thundering noise, that roar of machines almost as deafening as the roar of the guns, the drumming lathes work on; but the want of sleep, the fatigue of work, the need of food begin to tell, and our little parlour-maid is feeling weary, well-nigh prone to drop; so she makes herself a cup of tea, that everlasting and ever- joyful cup of tea, which the men enjoy even more than the women — and she thinks of Tom.  

Renewed strength comes with the thought, and she works on.  She looks at the lathe-belts as they go round and round, and feels that every turn furthers her job, and every day brings more succour to the front and the war nearer to its end. But, still she grows weary again. The hours are long. The night shift seems unceasing, the only possible rest from her factory is on Sunday, when she is almost too worn out to leave her bed. As for an evening out, or a cinema show, such a recreation has long left her horizon, such a thing as an hour’s sewing or an hour’s reading in a cosy parlour has ceased to be.  

Two things keep her going, the thought of Tom, with a certain feeling that she is helping him, and the canteen at last provided by the Y.W.O.A. with its chairs and comforts. Had it not been for that canteen her health would have given out long before, for with all the will in the world the women Munition Workers’ hours in 1916 were too incessant for them to stand the strain.  

“What?” 

Through the din no one heard.  

“What did you say? “ 

“Zepps!“ 

Every one knew they would be thrust into darkness. Every one knew they must stop work. Every one knew they were prisoners amidst the worst of dangers — explosives on every side of them, inventive devils of cruelty above them — prisoners in a great arsenal. The chorus of machinery ceases. Belts are released and those palpitating iron and steel machines that grind the daily soul of the workers, slowly and dreamingly cease to toil. In a few minutes all is still.  

Oh, the tension of it. The anxiety, the expectancy, yet not a woman falters. The hours wear on. It grows colder. The action of the right leg on the lever has ceased. Both arms are at rest. The cold seems to penetrate their very soul; but the women say nothing. They know their men face the guns day and night. Big guns, little guns, every kind of hell fire. They know a shell or a rifle-bullet may end a man’s life any minute. They know these men at the front never shirk, why should they? The only people who shirk are the slackers at home, the “down tools,” the wasters, the scum. No soldier shirks his duty, no woman worker turns chicken-hearted. Both are out to do their bit to consolidate and hold a great nation together and build up a great people under the greatest Democracy in the world, known as the British Empire and King George. Numbed, chilled, but not nervous, she sits on a backless stool and thinks of the first months of toil without any seat, without warm water to wash those dirty, swollen, sore hands, without a food canteen, and with only paper-bag lunches of sandwiches and buns; and she remembers the new canteens outside, where a fourpenny or sixpenny dinner can be “bought out of her pay of 3d. per hour, and there is a warm fire and a cheery welcome.  

The clock strikes midnight, one, two, three. The Zepps have gone home again; but she can’t go home, she must still pull in and pull out of the re-kindled furnace her bits of red-hot metal. All she minds is the three hours’ loss in making shells for Tom.  

Was it telepathy?  Was it second sight? What was it that made her pause, as a cold shudder ran down her spine a couple of hours later and seemed to numb her senses? The night was still dull and cold and drear. Her face was deadly pale; the red glow from the furnace fire but accentuated the fact. She was just tired and nervy perhaps. And Tom’s cheery face pictured itself before her in the flames, as she worked on.  

* * * *  

An official envelope “On His Majesty’s Service” told the tale — “Killed in Action,” was all it said.  

Tom was dead.  

And she?  She turned sick and faint when the news came. She almost gave in; but no. There were others, there were other mothers, other sweethearts, and other wives, and for them she would work harder even than before. Work till the war ended.

God Bless her, the Heroine of Furnaceland. These are the women who will never falter until real victory by the Allies puts an end to war for ever.  

Surely if such a soldier-woman’s labour ends in death, she deserves as honourable a military funeral as any fighting-man in the field.  

Women and Soldiers, Mrs. Alec-Tweedie, F.R.G.S., 1918

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil would not dare trivialise the work of such a woman by calling her a “Munitionette,” and wishes that the women workers had received better from Britain than the post-war governmental admonishment to go home, be good wives and mothers, and let the men have their jobs back. The author of the piece, Mrs. Alec-Tweedie was Ethel Brilliana Harley Tweedie, a travel writer and advocate for women’s rights. One of her sons was killed in the First World War; her second son was also in the military and died in a military aircraft accident while serving with the RAF.

This post was originally published in 2014.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Enjoyment of the News: 1910

The cat had been put out, the children were in bed, and Lysander John Appleton, worn out with the terrors of another day, was prepared to spend an evening in peace.

“Dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs. Lysander John, looking up from her paper. “Isn’t it horrible?”

“What?” snorted her husband.

“Seventy-five people killed by a flood in Italy! Just think of the poor little orphans’.”

(Silence for two minutes.) “Oh, my, how can the Lord permit such terrible things. A man shot his wife and five of her sisters in Laurel, Del., last night. The rooms looked like a slaughter house when he got through. I am glad he killed himself and saved the people the expense of trying such a brute. His poor, poor wife! What she must have endured living with a man of that disposition.”

(The clock ticks about ten times.) “Oh listen to this. Oh, Lysander John, my heart aches so I can scarcely read it. Oh, my, oh my, this life is a troubled vale! Just think, five people killed in a train wreck in Georgia. The sorrow that goes into their homes to-night reaches my heart.”

Silence while Mrs. Appleton wiped the tears from her eyes, and turned the page. Then a scream, “A bride and groom killed on their wedding trip! The poor dears. Just think of the happiness with which they started out, and now the journey ends in two coffins. Maybe they will be buried In one coffin. I think that would be so sweet.”

(Silence for two minutes that was finally broken by violent sobbing.) “A girl of sixteen poisoned her own sister in Massillon, Ohio. It is too horrible to be true. Oh, Lysander John, how grateful we should be that none of our children ever did a thing like that! The poor, Poor, POOR mother!”

Mrs. Lysander John reached blindly for her apron to wipe away her tears, her handkerchief having been soaked in previous enjoyment of the news, and then she turned tearful eyes toward Lysander John, only to find his chair vacant. Upstairs there was a sound of heavy shoes being kicked off viciously to the floor.

“The men,” said Mrs. Lysander John to herself, picking up her newspaper and preparing to read some more, “are SO Unfeeling.”

The Atchison [KS] Weekly Globe 31 March 1910: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Indeed. The press in the nineteenth century, particularly in the United States, was avid for a sensation. “If it bleeds, it leads,” about sums it up. Mrs Daffodil has previously examined some of the blood-thirsty themes of the press in this post: “Poison! Arson! Death His Bride!”

It was traditionally the role of the pater familias to read the newspaper to the family gathered round the fireside, eliding or pruning judiciously, when the gore or the body count was deemed harmful to the sensibilities of his listeners. Mrs Daffodil wonders at the patience of Mr Appleton at having his newspaper snatched away by a woman so lacking in womanly delicacy. She suspects that, one day, particularly when Mr Appleton longs to read of the outcome of some sporting contest, he will snap and there will be yet another horrid murder for the unfeeling public to slaver over in the morning edition.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Paper Dress Masquerade Party: 1920

Crepe paper fancy dress costume, 1926 Fashion History Museum

Matching crepe paper fancy dress hat, 1926 Fashion History Museum

The Hallowe’en hostess says in despair, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

But what about a paper dress masquerade party? It’s loads of fun. Ask all the girls to come dressed in the prettiest paper costumes they can devise. Tell them that before they take off their masks at midnight they will pass in a grand review in front of a court of witches.

Prize for Prettiest.

A prize should be awards to the prettiest and most unusual paper dress at the ball. It might be one of those flirtatiously inclined bisque young ladies that are so popular now, gowned in an adorable paper Hallowe’en costume. Or it might be a little bit of real art, in the shape of a replica of a famous artist’s statuette of a cat. If the lucky girl is a lover of cats, she is likely to be overjoyed at such a remembrance of the spirit of Hallowe’en. Of course, there’ll be second and third prizes, perhaps a mysterious little witch concealing beneath her skirt a pin cushion or vanity box, and a miniature pumpkin filled with colored candies.

New Use for Shelf Paper.

But let’s not forget the paper frocks—they’re the real center of excitement of this party. And here are only a few of the possibilities.

Take the afternoon frock at the left, for instance. You might not guess it, but mother’s shelf paper, with a riotous border of red, yellow and blue, makes the bodice and perky short peplum. A garland of paper flowers is the girdle, and there is just one shoulder strap—another flower garland. The skirt is of plain blue heavy paper, with a tunic almost the length of the skirt.

Next is a dainty tea gown all of orange crepe paper. The skirt has three flounces. The sleeves start out to be regular kimono sleeves, but end in flowing paper ribbons, reaching to the hem of the skirt.

The girl in the center is dressed in a clown costume of white, with a white paper ruff about her neck and a high fool’s cap on her curls.

And all over costume and cap are pasted all manner of black paper cats and scary faces and witches and owls.

Sports and Bathing.

Then comes a striking sports dress of black and white checked paper. A braided paper hat, white above with black facing, makes the whole thing just right. The dress is very simple. Black paper fringe trims the mere suggestions of sleeves, black pompom decorate the wide black paper belt and white outlines the seams of the short skirt.

Last is a paper bathing suit. Its pale yellow as to background, and has great splashes of green in the shape of conventional flowers near the hem and at the waist-line. Green petals on the yellow encircle the hem and neck. Sleeves there are none, but a frilly green cap there most certainly is, trimmed with a big yellow flower in front.

The West Virginian [Fairmont, WV] 18 October 1920: p. 7

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: “Cheap and cheerful” about sums it up. “Deadly” might be a third adjective to describe Hallowe’en fancy dress made from paper when coupled with the inevitable candles and bonfires of that holiday. Stories of paper-clad revellers burnt to death were distressingly common in the press. Mrs Daffodil will forebear from quoting any of these, so as not to dampen the holiday spirit, but does urge her readers to use caution around open flames if trying any of the fashions above.  Mrs Daffodil does have one final economical hint for Hallowe’en from Mary Dawson of the Mary Dawson Game Book, 1916:

If a costume party would be too great a tax upon prospective guests, a head-dress party can be substituted, the head-dresses being nothing more expensive than colored paper.

Suggestions for head-dresses include: a Rajah’s turban, an Egyptian lady, Dutch caps, cocked hats, a chef’s cap, dunce cap, and a Mediaeval Princess’s pointed hat. It is suggested that “flame-proof” papers be used.

More crape-paper costumes from a 1920s party book.

This post was originally published in 2015.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Choose Your Fan and Then Your Flutter: 1919

American Girls Reviving the Fan, That Fit Symbol of Fluttering Femininity

Approach of Period of Coquetry Foreseen in New Popularity of Long Fashionable Appendage

By Esther Harney

Fans are coming back into vogue again. They never go out of fashion, of course, for they are as old as coquetry, as gallantry itself. But today they are appearing in full blaze of glory, a sure sign, we are told, that an age of coquetry and extreme femininity is approaching as a reaction from the stern period of the war.

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/157322?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=beads&deptids=8&pos=7&imgno=1&tabname=label

Manufacturers will tell you this news happily. Not for years have they had so many orders for fans of every description from the hand-made lace and tortoise shell varieties of the duchess to the little inexpensive chiffon spangled fan which the high school girls “perfectly adore” to flutter at school “hops.”

Manufacturers will also tell you that there could be no stronger evidence of a general return on the part of woman to her ancient arts and wiles than this reinstatement of the fan. (They are qualified to speak—of course.) During the war there was little time for fans and for femininity. Nor in that period which preceded the war did woman fancy fans; instead she preferred a riding crop or a tennis bat. It was not the fashion then, you will recall, to be delicate and feminine.

But today with all our boys returning from overseas from harsh scenes of war and from other scenes and adventures (oh, the reputed wiles of les belles Francaises), American women are beginning to realize that they must rise to the occasion. Femininity must rule supreme. (The soldiers like womanly women, they say.) and as a symbol of lovely femininity the women have taken up the fan.

International Imagination.

Then, too, American girls are looking to France these days. (They are trying to cultivate an international imagination, you know.) And among the French, fans are popular. With them, for instance, the wedding fan is an important item of the marriage trousseau. And was it not Mme. E Stael who recognized an art in the graceful handling of the fan? “What graces,” she wrote, “are placed in woman’s power if she knows how to use  a fan. In all her wardrobe there is no ornament with which she can produce so great an effect.” Verily the revival of the fan in American can be traced to the influence of France on the American doughboy…

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/156949?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=tiffany&deptids=8&pos=4

Descended from Palm Leaf.

All ages have contributed to the history of the fan. It has it pedigree like everything else. If a thorn was the first needle, no doubt a palm leaf was the first fan. Standards of rich plumage were present when the Queen of Sheba paid homage to Solomon. Queen Elizabeth gave the fan a place of distinction and was the cause of prosperity among the fan-makers of her day. She is said to have had as many as 30 fans for her use. During her reign ostrich feather fans were introduced in England. Charlotte Corday of French evolutionary fame is said to have used a fan expertly : She held a fan in one hand while she stabbed Marat with a dagger which she held in the other hand.

Great painters of all ages have tried their hands at fans. One famous artist spent nine years completing a fan for Mme. De Pompadour, which cost $30,000. Period fans arose to commemorate events, follies and fashions of the day. Besides an intermediary in the affairs of love a fan became a vehicle for satire, verse and epigram.  

Coronation of Napoleon fan, 1807 http://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/117894

In the canons of “fanology” are described “the angry flutter, the modish flutter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, the amorous flutter.” A flutter for every type, you see.

American girls should then first choose their fan and then their flutter. Perhaps they will revive the art of miniature fan painting as a new profession for women. They should, of course, remember that they can learn much of the art of the fan from Europe (except from Germany. Can you fancy a German woman flirting with a fan?) and plan to obtain their practice on the back porch some hot July evening. That will surely amuse their soldier callers. And at least we all can afford a fan of the palm leaf variety. But if we must take up the fan, the symbol of the new age that is before us, just we also take up the spirit of the age in which it was wafted victoriously? Must we be Victorian?

Boston [MA] Herald 10 May 1919: p. 15 

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  And what, Mrs Daffodil wishes to know, is wrong with being “Victorian?” Alas, the author of this piece was entirely too sanguine about a return to femininity. Far from becoming more womanly, young persons shingled their hair, abandoned proper corsetry, smoked in public, and adopted sexually ambiguous costumes and attitudes. The queenly curves of the pre-War years gave way to a flattened feminine figure that caused many physicians to despair of the continuation of the species. Still, in one detail, the author was correct: The beaded and brilliantined females who thronged the night clubs, did carry fans—immense, vampish affairs of ostrich feathers or sequined chiffon–but recognizably fans. One might suggest that these accessories lent their name to the Girl of the Period: the Flapper.

For a school of “fan-ology,” see this post.  And for more details on how to select a fan, this post.

A vampish fan of the period.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Lady in Black: c. 1911

La veuve, Anders Zorn

The Lady in Black

It was several years previous to the great war. I and my son were redecorating part of the inside of a six-roomed villa, on the outskirts of the town of B__. It had been previously tenanted by a widowed lady and her daughter. The daughter died—the lady sold everything, and gave up possession, and went away to America, so I was told, about two or three weeks before we began work. One day we were just starting work after the dinner hour when a knock came to the front door. The door was opened by a tall lady dressed in very deep black; a thick crepe veil covered her face. In a distinct voice—with a sob in it—she said to me, “Excuse me, but may I go up into the room where my dear daughter died?”

“Yes, madam, certainly,” I said. Without another word she turned to the staircase and walked up as any ordinary person would, and, on the landing, turned to the right, entered a bedroom and shut the door. I furtively watched her by going half up the stairs, saw her enter the room, and heard the door shut. We went on with our work—I at the foot of the main staircase in the front part of the little hall, my son about ten or twelve feet away at the back of the hall. We talked of the strangeness of the affair as we thought she was in America. We could hear her walking about the room, and wondered what she could be doing. She had been there three-quarters of an hour when the moving about ceased, and there was perfect quiet. And so another quarter of an hour passed and we began to get uneasy. We were just contemplating whether we should go and see if all was well when, suddenly, there was a thud as if a heavy body had fallen on the floor. We looked at one another for a second or two; my son turned pale, and I said, “She’s fainted—or perhaps it’s a case for the coroner.” We both together hurried up to the room. We listened—no sound. I spoke—no answer. Then I rapped on the door panel—no answer. Cautiously I turned the door knob and peeped in, but saw nothing. Both of us entered—the room was quite empty.

There were two windows—but neither had been opened and both the sashes were fastened. We went into all  the other rooms and hunted every corner, but found nothing. It made such an impression on us that we were very glad when the work was finished and we got away. The house became uncanny to us. We often have spoken about it since, but have never heard of the “Lady in Black,” as my son calls her. He can substantiate all I have said; it’s just a simple account of what happened and perfectly true in every detail, as God is my witness. But what I, or we, would like to know is—was it a real woman or a wraith—or what? Also, how did she leave that room? Certainly not by the windows—nor door—nor staircase.

Uncanny Stories Told by “Daily News” Readers, S. Louis Giraud, 1927: p. 55-6

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: A strange story. One wonders if, years later, when the villa was demolished, the skeleton of a woman, shrouded in the tatters of a black veil, was found beneath the floorboards.

Mrs Daffodil has also written about the Woman in Black (and her opposite number, the White Lady) as a Royal omen of death.

That subfusc person over at Haunted Ohio has frequently written about the terrifying Women in Black–are they mourners? are they malefactors prowling about in the dark? Or are they ghosts?

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

 

Beads of Cherished Flowers: 1914

Beads made of red roses. You will find complete instructions on how to make these beads at this link: https://feltmagnet.com/crafts/rose-beads

Beads Made of Fondly Cherished Memories the Latest Fad

New York, May 9.

That precious first bunch of violets and the wedding bouquet that followed it need no longer be thrown away. Not that it ever was of course. But it need no longer moulder between the leaves of the biggest wedding present book.

A little New York art student has discovered a process by which she can turn the flowers into beads. They retain their color and most of their fragrance. And they will never wear out, for they are as hard as china.

“I began experimenting during my Christmas vacation,” says Miss Louise Wood, the inventor who lives in Cranford, N. J., and attends the Cooper Union classes in design. “I had read about the orange blossoms in California but they came out black. So I began to experiment to find a substance that would harden the flowers and give them body without spoiling their color. My mother helped me and at last we found a sparkling substance that could be boiled up with the flowers, and turned them into a mass of dough. I worked this upon a bread board, kneading it like the most careful housekeeper. Then I moulded the beads in the palm of my hand, some round and some pear-shaped. They were baked on pins to make them hard and give the opening to string them.

“I combined them with real beads, crystal of the same shade as the flower beads, to heighten the artistic effect. Sometimes I used contrasting colors. It was hard to get the flowers during the winter, but I found that faded ones would do just as well, so I made arrangements with the greenhouse at home to take theirs at wholesale.

“A month ago came my first commission A little neighbor won a prize in an oratorical contest and her mother sent over the bunch of salmon pink carnations she had carried to have them turned into beads. They came out the loveliest rose pink and the child was delighted with them. She can show them to her grandchildren They were like this.”

Sighs for White Beads.

She picked up a lovely string combined with pink and cut glass beadlets, with all the fragrance of the flowers. It is amusing to identify the strings lying on their white cotton beds in their little square boxes. The purple ones were violets of course. But what were these dark red pear-shaped ones strung with silver that look as if they were made to match the new mahogany gowns? Carnations–the kind Galsworthy talks about in the “Dark Flower.” And the grays that look as if they were meant for some dear old lady? French lilacs. Lilies of the valley are corn colored.

“We haven’t been able to make a white bead,” sighs the experimenter. “I’m sorry because wedding bouquets are almost always lilies of the valley–and a wedding necklace should be white! But the chemicals give them this cream tint. I think they are pretty, though, with the little gold beads. And I am making some hand-painted boxes that will be dainty enough for any bride. I have asked Miss Wilson for a spray of her bouquet so that I can make her some beads. I won’t need it all, so the lucky bridesmaid who catches it can keep most of it. But I should love to do it for Miss Wilson, for she was an art student, too.

“What are those green beads? Ferns. Some of them came with the flowers one day and I tried them. The maidenhair makes those soft green ones and the real ferns the bright ones. I use only the tip ends of the fronds. The dark purple beads are made of heliotrope and the mottled ones are pink and white sweet peas. Of course I have to work them up together in my hands like marble cake–but it gives the effect, don’t you think so? The saffron beads are jonquils.

“I’m sorry the suffrage flowers don’t come out a bright yellow.

“I can hardly wait for summer to bring the roses. I am so anxious to work with them. They are so expensive and in such demand that I haven’t been able to get hold of many. I had a few American beauties once and they made the loveliest beads–almost the same color. I strung them with black beads and they were bought at once.

“Could I make beads of mistletoe? If there were enough of it, though I am afraid they would come out gray. But holly ought to be lovely, the red and green beads together. Oh, I try everything. Mother does, too. She makes the beads when I am not at home.”

Mrs Wood who looks hardly older than her daughter, smiled brightly. “I used to try to write,” she said, but my typewriter is getting a long rest. I believe in doing the thing that comes to your hand. And every time I make a bead I think it is another coin toward Louise’s going abroad. She must if she is to be a successful designer.

The “Weezy-Wizy” Beads.

“We call them the ‘Weezy-Wizy’ beads from a childhood nickname of hers–her name is Louise Eliza. We had to have a name to patent, so we took that.

“It’s rather hard work, for every single bead has to be separately and carefully molded, and baked in a very hot oven. At first I had a queer feeling that it was Saturday all the week. But now I think more about the romance of it. I try to picture the bride who wore the lilies I am working over. I wonder what her dress was made of, and how her veil was arranged. And I am, oh, so careful not to mix in a single petal of some other bouquet.

“One little bride sent me not only her wedding bouquet, but a sample of her gray traveling suit for me to match. It was a blueish-gray, and I mixed French and purple lilacs, and got it exactly. I strung it with tiny black beads, so that it came down below her waist. We make them any length, of course.

“It’s fun to wonder what the postman will bring me every day, and to turn the faded flowers into bright new beads that will never fade. It’s like quickening a cooling love. But the flowers must be only faded, not dried. I can’t make over dead sentiment. That would take Cupid himself!

The Washington [DC] Post 10 May 1914: p. 6

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  One can still find instructions on how to make flower beads, such as at this site.

There was loudly-voiced scepticism over commercially produced floral beads, with many persons suggesting that actual flowers would discolour and that, to be attractive, beads must be made with added colour, corn-starch filler, and fragrance. This description of flower-bead necklaces given as party favours is candid about the materials used:

At his annual lawn party given by Mr John Lewis Childs to the little girls of Floral Park, three hundred guests. received a favour of “a necklace of beads, made of flowers grown on Mr. Childs’ grounds in California, including orange blossoms, roses and violets. Some of the beads are natural color, others colored with ground mineral, such as turquoise and malachite. In most cases the beads retain the fragrance of the flowers.”

Times Union [Brooklyn NY] 16 July 1915: p. 7

 

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Corset Bag: 1902-1926

1896 corset with blue ribbon flowers https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/listing/471826124/1896-corset-bag-antique-corset-victorian

What do you do with your corsets when you remove them at night? Oh-o-o-o-, I mean girdle, or whatever you wear to hold up your stockings—for no CHIC woman wears ‘em rolled today!

Well, if you are a very NICE little lady, you put them into a scented corset bag that hangs on the closet wall.

‘N if you ever have one, you will never again be able to bear seeing your girdle lying on a chair! So why not give a lovely corset bag to your girl friend? They may be made so easily, you know. But don’t do what we did, and keep it yourself after it is made, just because you like it so well!

EXACTLY HOW TO MAKE ‘EM.

Notice the three top figures in the illustration: they show the way to make this corset bag. Purchase ribbon about 12 inches wide for the outer cover, another length of ribbon of a contrasting color for the lining, and a length of sheet wadding cotton that is about 14 inches wide.

Now make a “sandwich” of the outer covering, the cotton and the lining! Sprinkle the cotton lavishly with sachet, then baste the three pieces together. Now fold them up like Figure A, with the raw edges out, of course. Next bind them like Figure B, leaving loops at either side to hang the bag with. Figure C is the corset bag finished, with the same ribbon you use for the binding appliqued in a circle, and other applique or embroidery in its center. This bag should be about 25 inches long.

Nashville [TN] Banner 19 December 1926: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil has been asked, “Why a corset bag? What is the necessity?”  This 1912 squib answers that question nicely:

Corset Bags for Christmas.

This holiday season many women are making corset bags as gifts, and the idea seems a very practical one. The pasteboard box in which the corset is sent home is always a clumsy affair to keep in a dresser drawer, yet one does not like to toss a handsome new satin corset into a drawer filled with other articles. The corset bag is a long, narrow case made of linen or silk, and in it the rolled up corset may be kept when not in use. Every corset should be tightly rolled when taken off, since this keeps it in better shape, and the corset bag will hold the rolled up corset firmly. Some of these bags are of heavy linen embroidered with dots in Dutch blue, old rose or some other pretty color. Evening Star [Washington DC] 8 December 1912: p. 74

The term “corset bag” seems to have made its first appearance beginning in about 1902. Prior to this sellers of corsets often furnished long, narrow boxes to contain the rolled corset. They would have seemed drab compared to the pretty articles described in the papers. And, to be fair, pasteboard is not the optimal material for storing textiles.

Embroidered black satin corset bag, beautifully finished and lined. https://www.etsy.com/il-en/listing/675829325/victorian-corset-bag-edwardian-lingerie

Speaking of underwear, there are the most exquisite bags into which to put one’s corsets in traveling, or one may have a bag for every pair if they are all best, and some fortunate women revel in the finest of the dainty things. One of the corset bags is of white silk, with a large cluster of lilies of the valley with their green leaves hand-painted on it. The bag is long and narrow, and is gathered with a silk cord or ribbon at the top.

The New York [NY] Times 25 March 1902: p. 7

Prettily embroidered linen corset bag https://www.etsy.com/il-en/listing/675829325/victorian-corset-bag-edwardian-lingerie

The corset bag has become a part of one’s underwear. It isn’t really to wear, but all who wear corsets should know about it. This is a long, narrow bag of silk or muslin; it should be four inches longer than the corset and of exactly the same color. It is furnished inside with little scent bags suspended from narrow ribbons Into this bag the corset is put at night and the string is drawn up. This serves the double purpose of protecting the corset and perfuming it. More than that, it hides the corset, and in case it is laid away, one can tell at a glance the color of the corset that is inside.

Nashville [TN] Banner 25 October 1902: p. 13

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

That Paris Look: 1924

French frock, Spring, 1924. http://vintagetextile.com/gallery_1920s.htm#fort

That Paris Look.

Chicago Dally News:

“I have just seen Mrs. Janes,” said Mrs. Simmons’ niece as she sank wearily into a chair. “She had a new dress on. I don’t think I’d like it a bit if people copied my clothes.”

“You are not very clear in your remarks,” laughed Mrs. Simmons. “But you remind me of an incident in my girlhood that was almost a tragedy. There was a dress I designed all by myself. It was a mighty pretty girlish gown. I wore it to some entertainment at school and when the girls admired it I told them I had designed it myself and I thought it was the prettiest dress in the world.”

“I’m sure it was lovely,” said her niece.

“Three weeks after I first appeared in it,” Mrs. Simmons continued, “one of the girls whom I liked least came to me with a sort of triumphant manner and said she thought I had been boasting that my brown dress was my own design and therefore the only one of its kind. I defended my statement and she finally believed me, but told me that she had seen a white-haired woman wearing a dress of the same style. I was heartbroken and tried to think she was mistaken, but when I asked our dressmaker about it she said the woman had seen my dress and had come in and offered her such a good price to make one like it that she had done so, hoping I would never know about it.”

“Oh, the poor child!” cried her niece. “I was just wondering about whether I’d better tell what Mrs. Janes said. But I don’t know that you would mind after all.”

“Mrs. Janes is a very pleasant woman,” declared Mrs. Simmons.

“It wasn’t much,” said her niece. “She had on a new dress and she very evidently expected me to notice it, so I obligingly admired it. It was really very pretty, so I could do so truthfully, but Mrs. Janes said it did not compare with one her sister had just had made. She said that her sister had met you somewhere or other in a lovely dress that she liked extremely. She said it was one of the dresses you got in Paris last summer and was therefore just at the height of style here now, so she had her dressmaker copy it from her description.”

“That is very flattering,” said Mrs. Simmons dubiously. “It Is nice to have people like your things but I’d a little rather they didn’t copy my Paris dresses. I don’t remember where I wore that gown that Mrs. Janes saw it. Did she describe it at all?”

“She said it is dark blue with a line of red near the neck, and it has some kind of drape on the hips. She says her sister copied it exactly and is telling everybody it is a model by somebody or other in Paris. Mrs. Janes always adds that it is a copy of the model, and her sister tells people that now and makes it sound as if it were really a better thing than the original gown.”

“I never said my dresses were anybody’s model,” protested Mrs. Simmons. “Some woman at the boarding house over there told me about an inexpensive dressmaker, and I went to her to have these two dresses made, that is all. They aren’t anything much, I just wanted to get something there. But I can’t think where either of those two women saw that dress, for I have worn it only twice, and to places where they don’t go. I’ve been saving them, as I said, to use this spring.”

“Mrs. Janes said she saw it when you had it on at a meeting of the guild,” said her niece. “But her sister saw it before that and asked her to notice particularly how the sleeves were made when she saw you next, as she had forgotten them when, she saw you at Mrs. Dunbar’s mah jong party.”

“But I didn’t wear that Paris dress to Mrs. Dunbar’s. Let me think—oh yes, I did wear that blue dress with red pipings. Well, well, so Mrs. Janes’ sister copied it did she?”

“Yes, she did!” cried her niece. “And I should think you’d be awfully sore at her for it, too—your new Paris gown!”

“Oh, no, I don’t mind a bit,” chuckled Mrs. Simmons. “You see, I gave that dress to the janitor’s wife only yesterday.”

“You didn’t! And you have worn it only twice'”

“Oh, I have worn it a great deal. I had made it over three months ago from an old thing I got just before the war and I hoped it would last, but I am getting too plump for it, not to say, fat. That dress never even heard of Paris! I wonder If I haven’t some more old clothes with the Paris look?”

The Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln NE] 23 March 1924: p. 31

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: We have read in “The Lightning Adaptors of Fashion,” how Miss Billie Burke copyrighted her stage dresses so that they would not be copied. And the shockingly brazen methods of the copyists of French couture designs were exposed in “Fashion Pirates.” The practice was not confined to professionals as we see in the confessions in ‘Things I Steal,” and “The Very Worst Thing.”

Copying was, to many ladies, a harmless practice, particularly if they did not think too long or hard about the ethics of the thing. Yet there was a danger in adopting French fashions—one which was rarely mentioned in the press:

A bit of warning advice may be inserted here for the American woman shopper who believes that all French styles must needs be extreme. The absolutely sensational things now and then launched by the French dressmakers are nothing but advertisements, and they are never worn by French ladies, only by the conspicuous beauties of doubtful reputation, who are hired to display the novelties at some public function like the spring races at Auteuil or Longchamps. While it may be a temptation to copy a startling hat or gown, it is really the part of wisdom to select the quieter modes, which are just as artistic and more appropriate and which lead to no embarrassing ambiguity as to the social classification of a good-looking well-dressed American woman.

The French woman of accepted position is the model for the American woman to follow in copying French fashions. All American women intend to do this, but the majority of them make bad mistakes and innocently do themselves harm. But it is almost impossible to make the American woman realize this.

Pittsburgh [PA] Daily Post 5 July 1912: p. 8  

For what shall it profit a lady, if she shall gain an entire French wardrobe, and be mistaken for a conspicuous beauty of doubtful reputation?

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.