A bored researcher's celebration of old newspapers/documents/ephemera and the people, stories and humor found therein. Currently reading and transcribing my way through a collection of over a thousand late Victorian letters I purchased at a flea market.
Considering this blog is now older than some of the people who follow it, I thought it might be useful to attempt to make things a little easier to find. This is going to be an (slowly) ongoing project as I have 15+ years of posts to go through and categorize/re-tag/etc.
Rachel & Co.
Ten years ago I impulse bought a box of more than 1,000 late-Victorian letters at a roadside flea market in rural Tennessee. A large portion of them were written by a wealthy teenage girl named Rachel to her cousins Will and Jack. What I've dubbed the "Rachel & Co." project documents my years-long effort to read, transcribe, research and share the fascinating people, stories and history found in these letters.
Rachel & Co. Who's Who - a brief-ish run down of the most frequent "characters" appearing in the letters (hoping to expand this soon to include more people).
Names
A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency Era Names
A Guide to Common Regency Era Nicknames
A selection of some A+ names I've come across in Regency era newspapers over the years
My annual Gloyd Roberson Memorial List of Actual Human Children Who Wrote Letters to Santa in 1920s/30s Oklahoma
A brief explanation of the origin of some common nicknames
Research Tips and Tricks
How do you find old newspapers online?
How do you read old handwriting?
Portraying a time period authentically in historical fiction
New York Herald Personal Ads
A selection of strange/cryptic/dramatic/scandalous personal ads posted in the New York Herald during the second half of the 19th century.
Breaking a 175-year-old code I found in the personal ads
The San Quentin Women's Ward
Mugshots and profiles of a few of the nearly 1000 women who served time in San Quentin State Prison between 1852 and 1933.
Dear Santa
My ongoing collection of 150 years worth of children's letters to Santa Clause that I post every December.
Upcoming/Ongoing posts and projects
Including this so my followers can peer pressure me into actually posting the things I do/research.
An exciting Rachel & Co. update
I hope you guys like dogs and spreadsheets cause hoooo boy did I go down a rabbit hole with this one
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In June of 1902, Rachel's former roommate Peggy (one of the "two Margarets") wrote Will from Pasadena, California where her family had recently relocated. Mart (the other Margaret) was visiting and the two of them had taken up a new hobby.
"We have taken to playing Ping Pong lately. Have you tried it? We play every evening until after eleven o'clock. Sometimes it is too much of a good thing." - Peggy to Will, June 1, 1902.
Joining Peggy and Mart in their new hobby was - well, pretty much the entire world...
After the introduction of lawn tennis (now just called tennis) in the 1870s created a worldwide phenomenon, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would move the sport indoors.
A handful of mentions of various games called “table tennis” or “parlor tennis” appear throughout the 1880s, often with rules that bear no resemblance to outdoor tennis. Several related patents were filed in England in the 1880s and early 90s, but none that seem to have resulted in mass production.
The earliest modern table tennis set was marketed under the name “Gossima” by J. Jacques & Son Ltd of London, beginning in 1891.
(source: The Graphic, December 10, 1898.)
A Gossima set included two vellum rackets, a covered cork ball and a foot high net that could be secured to any standard dining table with a strap.
Though I’ve found records of Gossima being marketed as far away as Pakistan and New Zealand, it seems to have met with limited success until the Fall of 1900 when it suddenly exploded in popularity among London’s elite under a new name - ping pong. This (both the sudden success and the new name) were likely due in part to the introduction of the celluloid ping pong ball we know today, which far outperformed the previous cork design.
In September 1900, the Pall Mall Gazette published an article (actually a stealth ad for Hamleys toy store) discussing the new fad and giving tips for players. The article was also picked up by overseas press and printed in several newspapers in the US and Canada (minus the Hamleys plug), spreading the first whispers of the game abroad.
By January of 1901 the fad had become near ubiquitous in London. The Evening News wrote ““Ping Pong” is the only game that may be mentioned, let alone played, in London drawing rooms. Everybody Ping Pongs, or watches other people Ping Pong, from the Dutchess in Belgravia down to the clerk in Forest Gate.”
(An improvised ping pong table set up by servants as portrayed in Punch magazine, November 13, 1901.)
The (London) Morning Leader wrote in March - “Gentle reader “Do you Ping Pong”? If you don't you're not an up-to-date person. It is as fashionable as mourning or the Twopenny Tube, and far more the rage than bridge.”
By May, Hamleys was selling folding ping pong tables and special sets for tournaments.
Throughout 1901, ping pong continued to grow in popularity across the British Empire and beyond. By this point the name “Ping Pong” had been trademarked in both England (by Hamleys and J. Jacques & Son Ltd.) and the US (by the Parker Bros.), forcing competitors to sell under various names including: Whiff Waff, Pom-Pom, Pim-Pam and Netto. “Table Tennis” or “Parlor Tennis” would remain the most common generic terms.
One London firm claimed to have sold one million ping pong sets in the last three months of 1901.
The US would not fully fall to the ping pong craze until 1902, and newspapers reported the spread of the game as you would an encroaching pandemic.
“[It] is becoming more infectious than smallpox and as catching as golf.” The Boston Globe warned in December 1901.
“If it were a plague, ping-pong could not be sweeping more widely over the face of the earth. In Mexico, in India, in Japan - everywhere - the ping-pong of the little xylonite ball is heard throughout the land…” - Harper’s Weekly, May 3, 1902.
(source: The Macon Telegraph, May 18, 1902.)
By May 1902 the ping pong pandemic had fully engulfed the US.
“For one not to know how to play ping pong means practically social ostracism.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 18, 1902
Ping pong parties and luncheons abounded. Pubs and poolrooms quickly converted into public ping pong parlors. Countless clubs and tournaments were soon arranged.
Even senators and congressmen were asked their opinion of the game and, in one case, whether they would support opening a ping pong parlor at the Capitol Building.
In late May, Alice Roosevelt hosted a “ping pong tea and dance” aboard the presidential yacht.
(source: The Bradford Weekly Telegraph, April 19, 1902.)
Enterprising businessmen attached the name ping pong to articles of all imaginable varieties. Soda fountains served ping pong punch and ping pong ice cream.
Photographers introduced the ping pong photo - which produced a strip of multiple pictures using a sliding frame which “ping ponged” back and forth.
(A ping pong photo of Mart and Rachel, taken circa 1902.)
Clothing stores carried ping pong hats, ping pong ties, ping pong shirtwaists, ping pong slippers and ping pong belts (made of mesh to resemble the net), while fashion columns suggested appropriate ping pong attire.
(A dress with pockets designed to hold ping pong balls, from the New Orleans State, May 25, 1902.)
(source: The Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 25, 1902.)
Flexible ping pong corsets were developed after some female players found it difficult to play the game in their tight-laced undergarments. One article mused whether ping pong might bring an end to tight-lacing altogether.
(source: The Indianapolis News, May 27, 1902.)
Articles extolled the healthy virtues of ping pong for exercise and weight loss, while others warned of its dangers to your health. “Ping pong shoulder”, “ping pong ankle”, “ping pong wrist” and severe eye strain were all touted as possible outcomes of overzealous play.
Worries that public ping pong parlors would encourage gambling resulted in Providence, Rhode Island implementing a ping pong license.
The ping pong craze would last through the summer of 1902, but begin to wane by the end of the year. Some areas extended the fad through 1903, but by 1904 it was well and truly dead.
“There isn’t half enough thankfulness for the griefs of yesteryear that haunt us no more. Ping-pong has gone.” The St. Louis Globe-Democrat proclaimed on January 25, 1903.
While a syndicated column in February 1904 printed “Weep copiously, dear ones, for the ping pong fad is dead. After the obsequies, you may trade your outfit for a phonograph and annoy the neighbors.”
Over the next two decades dedicated clubs continued to hold tournaments, but the general public more or less moved on.
Until another ping pong craze broke out in the late 1920s and persisted throughout much of the Great Depression.
After several more crazes and a stint in global politics, table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988.
"Doesn't 23 seem awfully old for a girl to be. Last night my 23 candles looked like immeasurable rows." - Rachel to Will, May 14, 1901.
For Rachel's 23rd birthday (May 13, 1901) she received numerous presents from family and friends: a silver chatelaine bag and 23 pink roses (from her mother), shoe buckles and sheet music (which they sang at her birthday party - from Will), chocolate from Huyler's, a handkerchief, a book of Heinrich Heine's poetry, American Beauty roses, and a silver mounted whip.
Though, as usual, her largest present was from her father. A horse, who Rachel named Crit.
Rachel's family owned a lumber mill in rural Pennsylvania (in what is now the Allegheny National Forest) and unpaved roads made horses a necessity.
I know which horse in Rachel's photo albums is Crit, because Rachel made sure to label him despite her failure to label many pictures of her human friends and family.
(Identifying animals and not humans in old photo albums has been a reoccurring problem in multiple research projects I've worked on.)
Despite modern "man-style" (to quote Will's friend Jennie) saddles gaining popularity, Rachel appears to have still chosen to ride sidesaddle, as her saddle is visible in this picture.
Though it's slightly overexposed, my favorite picture of Rachel and Crit is this one - which caught Crit mid-whinny and Rachel mid-giggle.
Rachel reported in the same May 14, 1901 letter that she rarely went riding with Jack (who was living with them at the time), as Crit and Jack's horse were "most uncongenial".
My grand mother told me her mother told her of doing washing for rich ppl at a place called Sylvan Beach and ironing leg-of-mutton sleeves with solid metal sad irons.
I cannot even imagine the logistics of ironing 1890s sleeves with a sad iron. I imagine your grandmother was very thankful when they went out of style. Thank you for sharing!
hey, i love your rachel and co project. every few weeks i find myself coming back and rereading some of the posts. one thing i was wondering is how aunt gussie is related to everyone is she rachel's dad's sister?
Yes! Gussie was the younger sister of Rachel's father and Will/Jack's father. Rachel's dad was born in 1841, Will's dad in 1843 and Gussie in 1845.
Their mother, Flora, died in 1850 and their father remarried to the woman who Rachel called Grandma. Aunt Lilla was the result of this second marriage and was 14 years younger than Gussie.
NP (Rachel's dad), Gussie, their mother Flora, and Eb (Will/Jack's dad) circa 1849.
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In April of 1896 Will received a hilarious fake break-up letter signed “Harry”. The whole letter reads as follows:
“Dear Miss:
Your condition is indeed pitiable, but when compared with my state (not united) it is not worthy of notice.
I am not angry, and freely forgive you for having led me on from friendship to that deeper feeling – prompted by which, I sent you the ? that brought to me the reply which blasted (forever?) all my bright dreams.
You ask in a flippant, girlish way, that everything may be as it was before the question was asked or answered. To me, Colton’s words are apropos here: - “Friendship may end in love, but love in friendship – Never. Your womanly (…) nature may find it possible to continue the old friendship – but this sentiment has taken a deeper root in my (manly) breast – and refuses to be supplanted by any lesser twig.
And now – I have just one thing to ask of you – that if ever again you are the recipient of attentions that are undesirable, from any of our sex, from 4 years ad infinitum, let the unfortunate know that such is the case – and do it at once. Don’t stop at coldness – we laugh at it; don’t stop at hints or cuts for we are used to them; but tell them directly & plainly that they are distasteful, and they will in the end, thank you for it.
Very sincerely – Harry”
I have suspicions “Harry” may have been a family friend named Hattie Rice as, when Miss Rice announced her engagement a year later, Aunt Lilla wrote the following in a letter to Jack:
“I gave your congratulations & messages to Hattie Rice and she told me to tell you that she did wish she had known you wanted to be engaged, she would have waited for you.”
which makes me suspect Hattie’s forbidden romances will Will and Jack may have been a running family joke.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love this any more, I found Hattie’s next letter to Will that states:
“My reply was not original in any particular but was composed of choice (?) selections from epistles from “turned downs.”“
I also wish I had Will’s reply to the original break-up letter as it seems (based on Hattie’s subsequent letter) Will responded by writing back and dumping her even harder.
“Oh Will when I read your letter I thought I would have fits. The family thought I had gone crazy for I laughed & shouted until black in the face… To think that my modest little ? should have called down this refusal on my head; when all that was intended was that it should poke you into writing me.”
An excerpt from the trial of Elinor Crane, who was arrested in Middlesex in 1693 on suspicion of burglary. A witness claimed one of the burglars was a woman in men's clothing, and Elinor had previously been seen in the area dressed as a man.
"But the Court asking her why she went in Mans Apparel, the Prisoner replyed, She went to Wooe a Widow. Upon the whole Matter the Jury brought her in not Guilty."
(source: Old Bailey Proceedings: Accounts of Criminal Trials, April 26, 1693.)
The week of April 12th, 1896 - It was unseasonably warm throughout the Northeastern US, hitting 84 degrees in Boston.
(source: The Boston Evening Transcript, April 14, 1896.)
Rachel wrote her cousin Will that she and her fellow students at Dana Hall School (outside of Boston) had been wearing summer clothing all week.
Presumably, as most young women would not have had their summer wardrobe ready in early April, they had to pull out the previous summer's fashions - which, thankfully for the fashion-faithful, did not vary much between 1895 and 1896.
The unofficial hot weather uniform for wealthy young women in 1895/6 was a light-colored shirtwaist featuring huge gigot sleeves and fitted cuffs, a high starched collar with bow-tie, and a dark skirt with a decorative belt.
This is Dana Hall's graduating class of 1896, likely taken within a month or two of the April heatwave. (source)
Outdoors this ensemble would be paired with a flat straw boater hat and a tailored jacket as in this French ensemble from August 1895.
(source)
1896 was the last hurrah of gigot sleeves, which would shrink, move up to the shoulder, and then completely vanish over the next 18 months or so.
Alas, even with summer clothing, the heat was still too much for Rachel and her fellow students and she reported to Will that they "still are roasting."
After rambling about various school activities for several pages she closes "Really, I am so hot I don't know what I am writing."
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I've just spent about two hours reading through ALL your Rachel & Co. posts. Thank you for sharing all these wonderful letters!
I'm so glad you're enjoying them!
I've been neglecting them a bit the last few months as I'm neck deep in another project, but I'm hoping to get back to Rachel-posting regularly in the near future.
I just really hate the word "fandom". It's just a portmanteau of "fan" and "random". It sounds like some desperate attempt to be quirky and different. Plus, the word "fanbase" already exists.
idk, i thought it was fan + kingdom, or fanatic + domain??
but yeah, it is a bit weird how we have ‘fandom’ when ‘fanbase’ already existed? but that’s language for you, always changing all the time
Actually, Anon, fandom is significantly older than fan base or fanbase; the OED gives the first known citation of fandom meaning “the community of fans of a thing” from 1903, while their first entry for fan base isn’t until the 1970s. If you compare the frequencies of the two terms in Google Ngram Viewer, you’ll see that fandom has historically been far more frequent, with fan base running a distant second (and the closed form fanbase an even more distant third).
The OED also rejects your portmanteau hypothesis, though I suppose sportswriters from the 1900s might’ve been trying to be quirky and different when they coined fandom from the productive derivational suffix -dom, which the OED also gives copies examples of throughout the 1800s (including BA-dom, old fogey-dom, blizzard-dom and theater-dom.
Respect the fandom, guys. It’s older than Steve Rogers.
So, seeing as the OED does not provide free access to its sources, I looked this up. According to various webpages, included this one, ‘fandom’ was used in 1903 by the Cincinnati Enquirer to refer to baseball fans.
Thus not only do we have an early example of a word that combines ‘fanatic’ with ’-dom’ as in ‘kingdom’, we also have a useful reminder that when it comes to excessively liking things to the point of it being its own subculture, people who are into sports have the rest of us beat by several orders of magnitude.
@rebellum who asked about this post - Question: what regions does this cover? You mention "the English speaking world," but I'm not sure what you're including there, since with regional specifications I see only the USA and the UK mentioned. Does this include British colonies?
The vast majority of my sources were from the British Isles and the US (simply due to online availability), but I did also look through a few newspapers from Barbados and Jamaica, as well as some legal registers from several British colonies in the Caribbean - and the results were so varied I found it difficult to draw any solid conclusions.
With most colonial regions, nicknames vary greatly depending on where the majority of white settlers in the area were from. For example if the area was heavily settled by the Scottish or in close proximity to French settlements (as in several Caribbean colonies) - you will see more mixed IE/Y endings than you would elsewhere.
These nicknames are the result of a three month survey I conducted using hundreds of primary sources ranging from newspapers to period literature to murder trial testimony. I have been sitting on this research for two years due to several names I was stuck on, but when I mentioned to project in a response to an ask recently I had several people encourage me to just post it as is - so here you go...
Due to the strict social rules of the Regency era, nicknames were very rarely used in the upper classes outside of family and very close friends.
Young, unmarried women would sometimes go by a nickname publicly, but even then the rules of formal address still applied. A young woman of status would be introduced as Miss Betsey Lastname, not just Betsey. The eldest daughter would be introduced as Miss Lastname, whether or not she went by a nickname.
The same rules applied to children of a certain status that went by nicknames. Servants would refer to their young charges as Miss Sally and Master Jemmy - not just Sally and Jemmy.
Adults who went by nicknames outside of close family/friends tended to be servants (free, indentured and enslaved) or members of the lower class. A scullery maid was more likely to be a Fanny than a Frances and a stable boy was more likely to be a Jack than a John.
You do also see men in positions of authority referred to by nicknames in a "man of the people" type way - hence Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, etc.
However, this was also often used in a sarcastic manner by political opposition.
A few notes on the lists below...
Nicknames were often very regionally specific. Names with locations in parentheses were used primarily in those areas, those without locations I've found evidence of use throughout the English-speaking world.
Nicknames are listed in very rough order of popularity, starting with the most popular - (I did not actually count the hundreds of occurrences of each nickname as the sources I used were very hard to quantify, so these are based on my general observations during the project and should not be taken as academic fact.)
A general rule - Y not IE endings unless you are Scottish.
Lizzy not Lizzie, Sophy not Sophie, Charley not Charlie
IE endings were still associated with French names
Women's Names
Amelia - Am(e)y, Emily
Ann - Nancy, Nan, Nanny (northern England), Annie (Scotland)
Alexander - Aleck/Alec/Allick/Ellick, Sandy - NOT Alex#
Anthony - Tony
Benjamin - Ben(ny)
Charles - Charley, Charlie (Scotland)
Edward - Ned(dy), Ted(dy) (Ireland)
Francis - Frank(y)
George - Georgey, Geordie (Northern England/Scotland)
Henry - Harry
James - Jem(my), Jamie (Scotland), Jim(my)$
John - Jack(y), Johnny, Jock(ey) (Scotland)
Joseph - Joe(y)
Richard - Dick(y)
Robert - Bob(by), Robb(y/ie) (Scotland), Robin
Samuel - Sam(my)
Thomas - Tom(my)
William - Bill(y), Will(y)
* I have found a single instance of both Lotty (in a dictionary from 1725) and Charley (a murder trial from 1735) being used as a nickname for Charlotte in the early 18th century, but none from the Regency period itself. So both nicknames pre-date the Regency era, but I, as of yet, cannot prove whether they were in use during the early 19th century or not.
# "Alex." was used in the Regency era as an abbreviation for Alexander, but I have never seen it used in a period source as stand-alone nickname. Alexander Hamilton would occasionally sign his name "Alex Hamilton" without the period, but he also didn't use a period when he signed it "A Hamilton". It is possible it was also a spoken nickname at the time, however I have not come across any hard evidence of this pre-dating the 20th Century.
$ Jim/Jimmy did exist as a nickname in the early 19th century, but was far, FAR, less common than Jem/Jemmy. It would not overtake Jem/Jemmy in popularity until the mid-19th century.
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