candie !!

Samantha’s Lawn Party Dress is great! I love that she finally got a white summer dress, although the fabric is a little bit too opaque.

(Augusta Auctions)

The mob cap style hat was mostly popular for children

but adults could have their own very fancy versions

Perfect for playing croquet!

louis and claudia's relationship is tragic and doomed. it's not black and white! she hated him for what he did and how he failed her and she loved him deeply! that's her father/brother she couldn't save, who would never choose her first, who would always put someone else before her. that's why it hurts! it's crazy to even think she hates louis and lestat the same amount

1800s Week!

gemilemon submitted to medievalpoc

‘The Black Boy’, by William Windus, c.1844

Oil on canvas

76.1 x 63.5cm

In the Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, United Kingdom

The boy in this portrait is said to have crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool as a stowaway, and was discovered by local Pre-Raphaelite artist William Windus on the doorstep of the Monument Hotel. He was apparently reunited with his parents after a relative saw the portrait in the window of a frame-maker’s shop, although it is not certain if this touching anecdote is true or not.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/collections/legacies/windus_black_boy.aspx

This painting could be read as an example of how European artists sometimes treated black people as picturesque subject matter. However, it can also, perhaps more convincingly, be seen as a straightforward realistic portrait.

Windus was born in Liverpool and trained at the Liverpool Academy Schools. This poor boy dressed in rags is traditionally associated with a touching story with a suitably happy ending. He is said to have crossed the Atlantic as a stowaway and been found by Windus on the steps of the Monument Hotel in Liverpool.

Windus is then supposed to have employed him as an errand boy. This painting was put in the window of a frame-maker’s shop.

A sailor relative of the boy saw it, found the boy and took him back to his parents. It is unknown whether this story is true or not.

Windus’ image of picturesque poverty would have had a strong appeal in Victorian England. It is also, however, a strikingly direct picture of a boy, shown in a matter-of-fact pose. It does not have any ‘humorous’ props or symbolic details that often accompanied images of black people from the time suggesting lowly status or social inferiority. It is simply an image of a poor boy, similar in style to many other images of the ‘lower classes’ produced at this time.

1800s Week! flidgetjerome submitted to medievalpoc:

For 1800s week, PoC Sailors on British Ships

Sailors of African origin in the British Navy;

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12039.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/108983.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254841.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/154245.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/143280.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/104319.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/143258.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/143250.html

The most famous of them all, Billy Waters;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Waters

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254220.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254871.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254870.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254869.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/254977.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/255159.html (with bonus racism and a Robert Wedderburn cameo)

Sailors of South Asian origin (known as Lascars) on British-owned merchant ships

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/117212.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/148377.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/552967.html

[mod note: edited into photo post]

1800s Week!

Gottfried Lindauer

Portrait: Heeni Hirini and Child

Bohemia/New Zealand (1878)

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Well, your best bet is usually going to start with a google books search with your terms: https://www.google.com/#q=Lascars&tbm=bks

You can also check the Wikipedia page, not for the content but for the references and resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascar#References

Which looks like this:

So you can look those up and see if they have any worth.

I found this website for a research project at the University of Southampton with a few more references:

Balachandran, G. 2007, South Asian Seafarers and Their Worlds c.1870-1930s. In J. H Bentley, R. Bridenthal and K. Wigen (eds.) Seascapes: Maritime Histories, Littoral Cultures, and Transoceanic Exchanges. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Fisher, M H. 2006. Working across the Seas: Indian Maritime Labourers in India, Britain, and in Between, 1600-1857. International Review of Social History, 51 (s14):21-45.

Tabili, L. 1994. “We Ask for British Justice”: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Visram, R. 1986. The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947: Ayahs, Lascars and Princes. London: Pluto.

There’s also general-ish maritime history research toolkit sites like “More Than A List of Crew” that might have something of value for you.

 I can’t do the research for you, as you say, but feel free to chase down those leads to wherever the rabbithole takes you!!

and if anyone at all is interested in stories with lascars, PLEASE go read the Ibis trilogy by Amitav Ghosh. He’s an author who studied Anthropology and History, and he’s one of the finest living authors who write in English in India. His book Sea of Poppies is basically about the opium trade in the 1800s, so his stories connect the British East India Company, Indian ‘girmitiyas’ or indentured labourers, lascars on board the opium-running ships, and 18th century China. Its is GLORIOUS, and my favourite character is this hybrid, half-Chinese, half-everything else lascar called Serang Ali. Plus the amount of research in that book is intimidating, since it’s historical fiction. Sorry to butt into your post but this book is HIGHLY RELEVANT. And excellent.

Ira’s Shakespeare Dream    

By Glenda Armand Illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Ira Aldridge dreamed of being on stage one day performing the great works of William Shakespeare. He spent every chance he got at the local theaters, memorizing each actor’s lines for all of Shakespeare’s plays. Ira just knew he could be a great Shakespearean actor if only given the chance. But in the early 1800s, only white actors were allowed to perform Shakespeare. Ira’s only option was to perform musical numbers at the all-black theater in New York city. Despite being discouraged by his teacher and father, Ira determinedly pursued his dream and set off to England, the land of Shakespeare. There, Ira honed his acting skills and eventually performed at the acclaimed Theatre Royal Haymarket. Through perseverance and determination, Ira became one of the most celebrated Shakespearean actors throughout Europe.

Ira’s Shakespeare Dream at Lee & Low books: https://www.leeandlow.com/books/2885

[Ira Aldridge; portrait by William Mulready c. 1840]

“A young African negro has been in this city for the last few days who claims to be a Hebrew. He is deaf and dumb and as black as the ace of spades. He carries a pad of paper with him and answers all questions by writing them in Hebrew and Loschen Khodish. What excites the most wonder is that he writes Loschen Khodish very rapidly. It is the language of the books of Moses, and is made a special study of, spoken and written with ease only by the rabbis and highly educated Hebrews.

“The negro was sent to one of the rabbis of Hartford, who is perfectly satisfied that he is a Hebrew. He says that he came from a large town in Africa, where there is a tribe of about 20,000 black Hebrews who speak Loschen Khodish and are quite prosperous. He also says that his father is a rabbi in that town, and that is why his father took the trouble to teach him to write these languages, which needed an extra amount of labor on account of his being deaf and dumb.

"He says his people not only write Loschen Khodish, but it is their speaking language as well. He left home a few years ago and has seen a good deal of the world. In each town he hunts up the Jewish section, and there they give him clothes, food and money.

"What surprises him, he writes, is that no Hebrew knows of his countrymen in Africa.”

The Houston Daily Post, September 20, 1897 

1800s Week!

Charles Cordier

Bust of a Black Moorish Woman

France (1856)

Cordier was known for his portrait busts of subjects considered “ethnographic” to Europeans. Although his own attitudes toward his works and the people he depicted made little difference in how they were received, his comments might be of interest:

1800s Week!

François Dubois

Allegories of the Four Continents: America, Asia, Africa, Europe

France (1843)