Mugshots. The 19th Century Invention Still Used Every Day C.A. Asbrey  A female Suffragette being forced to pose for her mugshot. Note the an’s arm around her throat, although most of him has been removed by the photographer.  It was Read more…

Poison In The Pot – The 19th Century Whistleblower and the Poison Squad Accum’s book “A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons”. A spider lurks in the middle of the web over its prey, and a skull crowns Read more…

St. Valentine’s Day – Love and Vinegar In The 19th Century C.A. Asbrey The custom of celebrating St. Valentine’s Day came to America with European immigrants. Handmade valentines were exchanged up until the 1850s until mass-produced cards began to be Read more…

The Cleveland Street Scandal   Tim Alderman The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London, was discovered by police. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and Read more…

This Infamous 19th-Century Birth Control Pamphlet Got Its Writer Imprisoned Charles Knowlton did three months hard labor and was fined $50 By Kat Eschner The change  in modern attitudes owes a lot to doctors like Charles Knowlton, born on this Read more…

The Secret Recipes Of The 19th Century It’d be too easy for me too look at the famous secret recipes of products like Coca Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken. We all know these are old products and their recipes are Read more…

Crazy Inventions Of the 19th Century C.A. Asbrey  Cholera pants were believed to protect against the chills which were thought to cause disease, and that keeping the stomach and abdomen warm could protect against bowel complaints.  The Victorians still believed Read more…

Things Invented Much Earlier Than You Think C.A. Asbrey Many of the inventions below do have counterparts which hail from ancient times, such as the battery and the vending machine, but for the purposes of this piece I am looking Read more…

The 19th Century – The Invention Of Modern Times Bruce Robinson   If you were born in the early nineteenth century, you were in for a big surprise: by 1900, the world you had grown up in was gone for Read more…