Edwardian Promenade

PERIOD DRAMA ALERT: THE PORTER

Debuting on CBC and CBC Gem on Monday, February 21 at 9 p.m. (9:30 NT) Inspired by real events and set in the roar of the 1920s, THE PORTER (8×60) follows the journeys of an ensemble of characters who hustle, dream, cross borders and pursue their ambitions in the fight for liberation – on and off the railways that crossed North America. It is a gripping story of empowerment and idealism that…

Gilded Age Literature: Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence Readathon

Julian Fellowes’s new period drama, The Gilded Age, premieres on HBO/HBO Max on January 24, 2022. It’s been quite a while since I’ve revisted the works of Edith Wharton. I stumbled upon a copy of The House of Mirth at 18 and was hooked–I reread it once a year for the next ten years. Later, The Custom of the Country battled for the title of my favorite Wharton novel, with The Glimpses of the Moon…

Everything You Wanted to Know About Julian Fellowes’s The Gilded Age

**The** Mrs Astor at the Assembly Ball of 1902 What Is It About? After long last, Julian Fellowes’s original period drama set during the Gilded Age will premiere on HBO, January 24, 2022. The Gilded Age is set in 1882, against the backdrop of New York City’s transformation into the center of arts, culture, technology, finance, and high society. When Marian Brook moves to New York City from rural…

PERIOD DRAMA ALERT: Passing (2021)

It seems fitting that the lead up to the 100th year celebrations of the Harlem Renaissance (more accurately known as the Negro Renaissance–more on that soon on EP) begins with an adaptation of the one of defining novels of the period: Nella Larsen’s Passing. Published by Knopf in 1929, Larsen’s second and final novel follows the interactions of two childhood friends, Irene Redfield and Clare…

PERIOD DRAMA ALERT: MISS SCARLET AND THE DUKE

Premiering on Sunday, January 17 at 8/7c When headstrong Eliza Scarlet is left penniless after the death of her father, she has two choices for financial security: marriage or her father’s private detective agency. But no matter how well she knows the tricks of his trade, the trade itself is deemed entirely inappropriate for a genteel lady of the 1880s. Enter “The Duke,” Scotland Yard’s Detective…

The Prince and the Actress: When Florence Met George

© E. Azalia Hackley Collection/Detroit Public Library

Though African American performers dazzled British society and its royals since the days of Walker and Williams(who brought their minstrel revues to English shores in the early 1900s), and performers like Aida Overton Walker, Sissieretta Jones, and others were viewed as the epitome of Black glamour–there was something different about Florence…

Edwardian Promenade: Black Lives Matter

Dear Readers,

I’m in the process of revamping Edwardian Promenade to be more intentionally inclusive and multicultural. When I started this blog back in 2007, I was a budding history geek who was excited by the enormous changes and innovations of the early 20th century. This blog was literally a brain dump of interesting facts I discovered in books, magazines, and documentaries.

From the…

Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not like movie theaters. Not because of any hygienic issues but because I never feel like I can relax in my seat like I can wrapped up in a blanket at home, with my inexpensivesnacks and drinks at hand. And so, alas, even the Downton Abbey movie couldn’t pry me from my prejudice! But renting the digital copy proved a comfort in this time of corona, and I…

When the clock struck midnight on January 1, 1920 everyone awoke from the spell cast by the Great War and the Spanish Flu to a world changed–and yet not. Common perceptions peg the 1920s as one long party, where things considered “modern” emerged. If you comb through Edwardian Promenade’s archives you’ll see the presence of modernism in the pre-war period; furthermore, great anxieties lingered…

As the influenza pandemic, known colloquially as “la grippe” or the Spanish Flu, spread across the globe, governments and health officials immediately began to call for the use of masks as a solution to keep more people from getting sick.

Soon, the streets were filled with people wearing these gauze masks, much to the tut-tutting of The Haberdasher, a San Francisco-based men’s clothing…

What Queen Alexandra Wore, and the Royal Women exhibiton at @Fashion_Museum #edwardian #royals #fashionhistory

Queen Alexandra, ca 1877

From the earliest days of her arrival to England as the beautiful, vivacious Danish princess come to wed the Prince of Wales, Alexandra set the fashion trends of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Her most lasting trend was the wearing of dog collar necklaces and chokers, alleged to hide a surgery scar on her throat. The trend for ladies to carry bejeweled walking…

PREMIERING TONIGHT on Starz: Howards End, starring Hayley Atwell and Matthew Macfayden

Hayley Atwell as Margaret Schlegel and Matthew Macfadyen as Henry Wilcox in Howards End. Starz Trailer Brief Review

I managed to watch the miniseries a few months, and though I admit it’s not as sharp or luxurious as the 1992 film starring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, and Samuel West, it is breathes more life…