Some of the scraps (chromolithograph color prints called “scraps” back then) I have collected over the years date back to 1851. It was around the mid-19th century that word “Victorian” began to be used to express a new consciousness of the industrial era. These scraps tell quite a bit what it was like living back in the Industrial age.
I’ve traced some back to the great exhibition of 1851. A massive exhibition put together by Prince Albert to showcase the progress of the industrial revolution. Thirteen thousand exhibitors with products on view for the six million visitors who left the London show with amazing color samples from firms like Julius Bien Co., Currier and Ives and Louis Prang and Company.
The event was referred to as the Crystal Palace exhibition and with this new technology owning a good number of these prints was like owning more than one TV set in the 50s. Printed images of children, maidens, puppies and flowers all laid out in highly decorative formatts. The subjects could be as simple as a wild flower or conveyed the values of patriotism or religion.
The landmark design was eight hundred thousand square-foot steel and glass
To dig a little deeper I believe that advertising may prove more valuable to future historians then books or other editorial contents.
That’s why I am floored by these images
To look at some of these color prints from the mid19th is to trace the daily lifestyle and changing interests in tastes, food, clothes, amusements and vices. Advertising gives us the reflection of that era and perception of what was in the victorian mind without any personalized author’s interpretation.
Take a look at this ad below. Being a woman in the 19th century was about being married. We can decipher this from the text in the ad. The pure genius behind this copy is that Listerine can help you towards that goal with their product.
Victorian graphic design captured and conveyed the values of the era of a time where capturing a husband meant smelling damn good!
The ad reads:
"Edna’s case was really a pathetic one. Like every woman, her primary ambition was to marry.
Most of the girls of her set were married––or about to be.
And as her birthday crept gradually toward that tragic thirty-mark, marriage seemed father from her life than ever. She was often a bridesmaid but never a bride."
That’s the insidious thing about halitosis (unpleasant breath). You yourself rarely know when you have it."
A true reflection of life in the Victorian world.
And as her birthday crept gradually toward that tragic thirty-mark, marriage seemed father from her life than ever. She was often a bridesmaid but never a bride."
That’s the insidious thing about halitosis (unpleasant breath). You yourself rarely know when you have it."
A true reflection of life in the Victorian world.
