The following section doesn't deal with decorating, but rather with life during the Victorian period.
The information in this segment is primarily from a book, "London 1849,a Victorian murder story" by Michael Alpert, Prof. Emeritus of U of Westminster. He was writing a study of an infamous murder of the period, and included a lot of background information
London was foul, noisy and stinking. Its narrow streets squelched with mud and dung….Ladies delicately lifted their skirts to cross the road and gave a coin to the ragged boys employed as crossing-sweepers, who brushed away just some of the dung and dust.
A description of a Manchester slum, which could be as easily applied to London, from novelist Mrs.Gaskell’s description in MARY BARTON, 1848...
“[ The street] was unpaved; and down the middle a gutter forced its way, every now and then forming pools in the holes with which the street abounded. Never was the old Edinburgh cry of ‘Gardez l’eau!’ more necessary than in this street. As they passed, women from their doors tossed household slops of EVERY description into the gutter; they ran into the next pool, which overflowed and stagnated. Heaps of ashes were the stepping stones, on which the passer-by, who cared in the least for cleanliness, took care not to put his foot.”
The ‘slops of EVERY description’ (every was in italics in the original) and the ‘heaps of ashes’ are both euphemisms for excrement.
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The time when people ate their evening meal was a marker of their social class. In the 18th c., 5:30 had been the time the upper class dined, but by mid 19th c. this had moved several hours later, to about 7:30. The “middle” middle class dined at 6:00, the lower middle class at 5:30. “Dinner” stayed at noontime for the working class. At night the men didn’t finish their work day til 8:00 or later. They had “tea” around 4:00, and when they got home, they’d have supper which could come as late as 11:00.
For most families the most important expenditure was food, and bread was the largest item in the weekly food bill.
The price of tea was kept high til 1833 because of the East India Company’s monopoly of the tea trade. Taxes on tea were also high, so in the 1840’s tea consumption remained low. Most people drank a very weak and watery brew. In 1853 the duty on tea was reduced and new sources were developing in India and Ceylon, therefore the price of it began to drop and consumption began to rise.
Milk wasn’t drunk very much, there was no way to keep it fresh and prices were high until the development of a large rail system which enabled farmers to ship large amounts of fresh milk to the city on a daily basis. People used to put a great deal of sugar in their tea, as sugar prices had dropped a great deal. A laborer’s family would consume a pound of sugar every week. A middle class family that was able to afford a servant and had 2 or 3 children would consume about 4 ½ pounds of suger a week, almost a pound per person.
The poor had few cooking facilities, barely any pots, dishes, etc. Many had no hearth to cook upon and no utensils at all. They got food whenever they could afford it. Many ate from shops and stalls, the fast food of the day.
The wife of a laborer who was making 15 shillings a week, if she was economical could buy for her husband, herself and their 3 children:
5 4lb loaves of bread
5 pounds of meat
7 pints of porter (beer)
40 pounds of potatoes
3 ounces of tea
1 pound of sugar
1 pound of butter
56 pounds of coal
The tiny bit that was left went for rent for their room, soap and candles. There was nothing left for clothing, shoes, etc.
A better paid workman could have meat every day. He could add cheese and bacon to his diet, unless he was in the building trades and it was winter and he was off work. Then meat would vanish from the table and be replaced by bread and potatoes.
At the bottom of the heap were those who lived on potatoes alone.
Food and drink was far from pure or fresh. Unscrupulous food purveyors adulterated their foods with sawdust, brick dust, chalk,alum, ashes, and powdered bones. They added toxic ingredients to beer to make it seem fresher or more flavorful. Gin could contain sulphuric acid and arsenic. Foods were colored with copper or red lead.
There were few hotel dining rooms open to the public around 1849. The word “restaurant” was still considered a foreign word and most likely pronounced in the French manner.
Of eateries, at the bottom were the “greasy spoon” places frequented by working men. Men who wore suits to work ate in “dining rooms’ at partitioned off tables, in booths. At a higher leve were unmarried men and retired officers who could dine at their “club” where they could eat cheaply and well.
In most places food wasn’t very good and service was generally quite poor, but people didn’t dare complain. Many people depended on credit to get by, and couldn’t afford to antagonize their local shopkeepers.
It was unusual for a lady to dine out alone. It wasn’t til later in the century when department stores started offering refreshment rooms and J.Lyons and the A.B.C. which provided lunches for the new class of female typists and office workers that ladies began to eat out.
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Almost all sales people, or assistants, in shops were men. Prices were not listed. In the smarter shops bargaining was not allowed. You were not permitted to inspect goods at your leisure. Even in America, you'd tell the assistant what you wished to purchase and he would bring it out for you to see. It's been remarked that the London shop assistants behaved rather as if they were doing you a great favor by showing you a pair of gloves or some lace cuffs and then accepting your payment for same.
The wealthy had their clothes made for them. When they tired of them, they'd hand them down to their servants who would then wear them or sell them.The clothes continued down the line til eventually they arrived, in tatters on the backs of the poorest of the poor.It would not be unusual to see a barefoot slum dweller wearing layers of remnants of silk ballgowns.
By the 1840's women were wearing wider skirts than they did in the Regency period, however the crinoline was not yet in use.Women wore layers of petticoats to fill out the skirts to the required shape. A respecable woman would never be seen without stays or corsets. It's said that the undergarments known as drawers were invented when women started wearing hoop skirts, because on occasion a gust of wind could come up and blow women over and their skirts in the air, however they were in use before the advent of the hoopskirt. No lady went out without her bonnet. One of the reasons for this was that the poke bonnet hid her face, so that it could be seen only face-on, therefore making her less apt to receive unwanted attention from strange men. This seems to have been quite a danger in those days. Prostitutes wandered the streets of even the nicest shopping areas, waiting for customers. There were men who would annoy even respectable young women to solicit sex. The Pantheon, an arcaded bazaar of fashionable shops, used female shop assistants, unusual for the time. These young women had to leard how to handle the bolder men who made unseemly suggestions to them. "Beadles", the security cops of the time were stationed at both entrances of the arcade to keep the undesireable elements out.
Men by the 1840's had begun wearing dark colored, somber clothing. This was in part due to the soot filled air which dirtied everything. Policemen, stationmasters, other men in authority and even cabbies and grocers wore top hats, some of which were made of papier mache. By the way, in the Victorian era there was even papier mache furniture which could be quite expensive.
Wide black neckcloths hid the dirt that accumulated on a white shirt by the end of the week.
If a man could not afford to have his suits made by a tailor, he'd either buy his clothes froma second hand shop, or go to a fairly new inovation, a ready made suit shop.
Elias Moses and Son was the most widely advertised outfitter in London. He offered trousers, vests, jackets and ladies riding habits in many sizes and would alter them to fit. Moses had fixed price tags, which was considered highly vulgar by those who could afford to have their clothes made for them. His shop assistants were trained to be polite to the customers and his store was well lit and nicely decorated. This was quite a change for those who had previously had to shop for clothes in the second hand market. By 1860, Moses claimed that 80% of the population were buying ready made clothes.
In the 1840's facial hair, except for a military man's mustache, was considered to be a sign of mental imbalance, eccentricity or imbecility. Men went clean shaven til the Crimean War of 1854-56 which obliged British military men to grow beards. At this point, facial hair suddenly became fashionable.
In 1849 a French tailor spilled some turpentine on a dirty tablecloth and found that it had removed some oth the stain. Dry cleaning was born and men were no longer obliged to stick to black or near black. Gray and brown began to be worn.
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In 1841 the average life expectancy in England and Wales was 41, but in London it was only 37. In 1839 half the burials in London were for children under the age of 10.
London air was foul and sooty and the very soil it stood on was decayed. Old sewers were blocked or broken. They leaked into wells and water systems, and through the walls of cellars of even the wealthiest homes. Where there were no sewers excrement and urine were thrown into the street. Drains, sewers and gutters emptied into the only source of drinking water the pooor had.
Huge numbers of animals were driven down the streets of London to slaughter houses which were often only a few blocks from fashionable shopping areas. Dung, blood, entrails and hides covered with swarming flies were in the streets of the meat markets.
Every year in the 1840's thousands of bodis were buried in London's overcrowded burial grounds. Each layer of bodies took 7 years to decompose, but the rate of dying was greater than the rate of decomposition. In cold weather the clay soil of the London graveyard didn't freeze beacause it was full of the grease of putrefying flesh. Graves weren't filled in til the piled up coffins were within a foot or two of the soil surface. When the gravedigger started digging a new grave he often inadvertedly broke an old coffin with his shovel or pick. Remains of broken coffins were to be seen scattered across the grounds of cemeteries.
Cholera epidemics killed thousand through the years.In the 1850's medical men began realizing that the disease was transmitted through dirty drinking water, and even though steps began to be taken to clean up the sewage disposal system and water sources, it wasn't til 1902 that the problem of a clean affordable water system was solved.
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People rented their homes. A small builder would build a row of homes and number them 1,2,3 etc.,then sell the houses to landlords, who in turn rented them out. A person might pay rent on the same house for 30 years. The writer, Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane paid rent on their house for 31 years. In consideration for all the improvements they made on the house during this time, their landlord never raised the rent.
A woman had a hard time running a London house in 1849 without help.City kitchens were usually in the basement. If the house had an "area" in front of it, then the kitchen would get at least some light from the below street level windows. A wealthier home would have water piped to upper stories, but many homes with running water only had it in the basement level.
Bathrooms were still rare in 1849.There were public baths and wash houses. In 1849 there were about 300 baths a day taken at the George Street Baths.
Homes would have a privy or "necessary" at the end of the back garden. Excrement fell into a wooden box and wascovered with earth by a hopper or a shovel. "Night-soil men" came at night and emptied the boxes and soil the contents for fertilizer.
In 1849 ranges or "kitcheners" were just coming into use in homes. They were much more fuel efficient than cooking on a hearth, but landlords wouldn't install them without raising the rent, so many continued to make do with a hearth. A kitchen of this sort would often have a roasting spit hanging in it, and a trivet to support several pots. In winter, with the grime and fog a London kitchen would get greasy and grimy. The floor would have been damp.
London houses were heated with coal. The coal man would tip a load of coal, spreading black dust all over housewives clean laundry and washed front steps. Rooms were smoky from coal dust that came down the chimneys in downdrafts. Improperly attached chimney pots would come crashing to the ground in high winds.
Gas lighting was rare in homes before the 1850’s. Many people used whale oil or other oils in their lamps, and perhaps tallow candles in bedrooms. The poorest used rushes dipped in bacon fat for lighting.
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The lower middle class consisted of small manufacturers, shopkeepers, innkeepers, master tailors, clerks, teachers, lower ranks of professional people, railway and government officials, etc. They were “in trade” or were paid for their services, as opposed to those who lived on their inheritance or investments.
Below the middle classes were the working men. The 1844 Factory Act cut the hours that their children were allowed to work down to 6 ½ hours a day, and womens’ to 12. In 1847 another act cut womens’ allowable working hours to 10, but this law was often ignored.
The infamous workhouses were for the poorest. Many were fatherless children, lunatics and impoverished elderly. If a servant lived to old age, and his employer didn’t see fit to care for him or her, they took refuge in the workhouse. Life in even the best and cleanest of them, run by well meaning folk was still harsh.
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In 1834, of 130,00 couples who married, 1/3 of the grooms and ½ of the brides could not sign their names on the register. In 1851, the numbers weren’t much better. This didn’t include the many who didn’t bother to get married.
In 1851 a “religious census” was taken on Easter Sunday. The result shocked everyone. ¼ of church goers that day went to Church of England services, ¼ went to churches of other denominations and half didn’t go at all. Evangelism arose to rechristianize English society.
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In the 1840’s some families spent 20% of their income on beer and other alcohol, but this was just what was spent on consumption at home.In London an outlet for alcohol could be found, on average, every 100 yards. The pub was a warm and cheerful place when your home was dark and cold. In 1849 annual beer consumption in England and Wales was 19.4 gallons a head, or about 3 pints a week per each man, woman and child. Of course, some drank much more, because the population at the time also included a great many teetotalers.
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In 1840 a huge change occurred when the cost of sending a letter dropped . Before that it cost over a shilling to send a letter, a folded single sheet of paper, sealed with was, from London to Edinburgh. If you wanted to put your letter in an envelope, you paid an extra charge., as you did for each extra sheet of paper, but now you cpuld send a letter for a penny Six deliveries of mail came to the door each day, later that rose to 12. Because of the huge new influx of mail, London was divided into 12 postal districts. Before, when a postman came with a letter, he had to stand at the door and await payment. If you didn’t have the money, you didn’t get the letter. In 1849 it was advised that people cut a slit in their front doors, so that the postman could just drop your mail through the slot and be on his way. In 1853 it usually took 5 days for a letter to arrive in London from Spain. To send a letter you went to the post office, though when the penny service started a “bellman” would walk the busy parts of town ringing a bell and holding a bag with a slit in it in which you could post letters. There were no letter boxes in London til 1855.
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The term “police”, as in referring to men who kept the public order, was hardly known in England before the end of the 18th c. The force begun by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 was known dor some time as “the new police”. The very word was unpopular, reminding people of the authoritarian forces in foreign countries. Many suspected Peel’s police to be a standing secret army. It took about 20 years for them to be accepted and valued.
Showing posts with label 1840's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1840's. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 February 2007
Saturday, 3 February 2007
VICTORIAN DECORATING 1830-50
A book on homes and decorating from 1844 reveals that some of the most frequently used tints were grey, pea, sea and olive greens and fawn. These were readily mixed from a narrow range of pigments on the job site using colors such as Prussian blue, yellow ochre and burnt umber.
Later ready mixed paints became available but there was still a shortage of colorfast pigments. Bright reds, purples, yellows blues and blue-greens tended to fade quickly. The normal Victorian range included black, white and cream, dark reds, browns and ochres of all shades and a wide variety of greens.
Other early Victorian interior colors til @ 1850 tended to be light and soft. Pearl, white, delicate pinks and lavenders were popular. Later deeper colors and complex patterns came into vogue. Throughout the period the dining room, study and drawing room tended to be more masculine. Bedrooms and parlors tended to be more feminine with softer colors and textures.
For entries and stair halls, cool and sober colors were suggested, such as grey (charcoal & white), stone ( a brownish-grayish mix ), or drab (raw umber mixed with white). These colors could also serve as bases for marbleizing.
Another wall treatment that was popular was to score the plaster while wet to resemble cut stone blocks, then marbleize the wall to look like stone. Wall papers in this pattern were also very popular.
Parlors and drawing rooms should be gay and elegant, advised decorating books and magazines. Green was very popular, with sea green, pea green and olive green being the most widely used. A soft grayish rose color, pearl grey and pale apple green were recommended colors, and it was customary for woodwork and moldings to be painted a darker shade of the wall color for contrast. White and gilt were confined to town house drawing rooms.
There were 2 schools of thought on how to decorate the dining room. One group preferred sober colors, another stronger , contrasting colors. Libraries should have sober, grave colors such as fawn, a light yellowish brown, or other brown or grey shades. Bedrooms, on the whole, should be painted or papered in light colors, but a bright room could be done in crimson, claret or dark green.
New walls had to dry for one year before being painted in oil paints, then the average was 5 coats of paint. Turpentine was added to the final coat to cut down the gloss. Whitewash was usually applied on the walls for the first year, and some people preferred this finish, and kept to it. It was cheaper, and it was matte, or flat. Coloring agents were added, so the term whitewash is a bit misleading. The drawback to it was that it was not durable. It was advised to wash it off before repainting or papering, therefore there is little evidence to show what colors were preferred when using it.
Color choices changed over the years partly because of changes in lighting. Gas lights were brighter than oil or candles, electric lights changed the room once again. Early in the 19th century vivid bright colors were used, since they became very muted in the dim light of evening. Toward the end of the century, paler hues began to be used more often used because of the brighter light cast by gas or electric lamps.
Walls, ceilings and woodwork were painted in 3 separate values of a color. The ceiling would be the lightest, then the walls darker and the woodwork either lighter or darker than the walls. In other words, perhaps pale green on the ceiling, light green on the wall and darker green on the woodwork.
By 1840 thanks to technology, wallpaper had become the popular way to decorate walls. Prior to this only the wealthy had wallpaper, as it was handmade and quite expensive.
Critics disliked this sort of wallpaper pattern in the 2nd quarter of the 19th c. They complained so much about the usage of this style of paper, that it is quite likely it was extremely popular.
Two versions of the same scenic paper produced by the firm of Jean Zuber. The top was "Views of North America" 1834. The second version was named "War of Independence" and issued a few years later.
Most writers of the 1840’s advised that the better rooms of the house be papered, especially the parlor and best bedroom. Wallpaper was applied in the French fashion, papered baseboard to cornice, with a narrow border for decoration. The dominant color in the paper determined the color of the ceiling and woodwork. Critics felt that papers should be architectural ,with columns, friezes, panels,etc.,, or landscapes. Also popular were historical papers with groups of figures or portraits, papers representing the previously mentioned cut stone (ashlar papers), or those imitating fabrics, like damask. Landscape papers were very popular across the country and seen in many hotels. Prices varied by the number of rolls in a set and by the colors used. Monocromatic scenes were much cheaper. If you could afford wallpaper, you could afford scenic paper. They were usually hung above chair rails or over architectural papers, that might imitate a stone balustered wall, etc. Wallpapers with depictions of statues were also popular. They were often hung in the front halls of middle class homes so that they would give the air of a statuary gallery. Another popular paper, especially in bedrooms and parlors was one with small repeating patterns of diamonds or stripes, often with geometric designs, fruits, flowers or ribbons worked into them. Some architectural authorities like Downing also liked flocked or “velvet” papers. They were generally the most expensive and did not wear well. They were on the whole confined only to parlors.
Borders were widely used. They covered mistakes in cutting as well as being decorative. In the 1840’s they were generally narrow, @ 3” wide. The most common were florals, trailing vines, or architectural. Fabric swag designs were also popular.
This is a reproduction of a marbleized style of wallpaper.
This is a version of an ashlar paper.
Two popular styles of wallpaper border from the first half of the 1800's.
Paper was rarely used on the ceiling in this period. Ceilings were generally decorated with a plaster or papier-mache center medalion from which hung a chandelier. The decoration was often based on leaves or a flower. Most critics of the period advised the use of a cornice to separate the walls and ceiling. If there was no cornice, then the wallpaper border would be used alone.
Graining and marbleizing appeared often on doors and woodwork. If you were having the house painted in oil paint, then the added cost for graining was slight. A coat of varnish was added to the decorative finish to protect it. This also made it smooth and therefore easier to dust and wash. Because of this, graining appeared often on doors, window sashes and baseboards, areas that were exposed to the most dirt.
Stencils and tromp loi were also popular.
Most American floors during the first half of the 1800’s were of softwood boards, often laid in random widths, and never stained and varnished. If they were not completely covered with some kind of floor covering, they had to be scrubbed with a stiff brush and sand, and sometimes bleached with lye. Painting floors was something the homeowners could do themselves and was a bit better than leaving them bare. This was a fairly common thing to do.
Floors were often painted in patterns to simulate rugs. The next step up was a painted floor cloth. These could be rather costly, but a homeowner could make their own and save quite a bit of money, and many did. Generally they were placed in hallways and parlors. There was a varnished paper floor covering advertised for sale in the 1820’s, but it’s not known if it ever became popular. Floor tiles came into use by the 1850’s, but on the whole, those that survived tended to be the less expensive solid colored ones. One of the most universally used floor coverings was matting. The coarse ones were made from coconut fiber, straw, and corn husks. Finer ones were made from sheepskin or thick wool. Some households used it to cover woolen carpets during the summer. Others used it as their only floor covering. Still others used it under carpets as padding, or as an edging if the carpet was not wall to wall. It came in @ 3 foot wide strips, which were cut and them seamed together.
Another popular floor covering was drugget. It was used to cover and protect carpets, or used as the sole floor covering or underneath rugs as protection and to cover any unattractive floorboards around the perimeter. It was so popular that it became the generic term for any covering used to protect another carpet, including baize, or heavy linen. They were also used as runners, with decorative borders stiched along their lengths. Some factories produced patterned druggets. They were also painted, and one article proposed that housewives make them from cloth remnants stiched together not unlike a patchwork quilt. Another article had an interesting idea. The author suggested that the home owner cover the large central section of the floor with a drugget, and then lay strips of carpet around the edges of the room, to suggest that there was an expensive carpet covered by the drugget.
There were many kinds of carpeting, but the machine made kind, and therefore the least expensive and most widely available, was a flat-woven carpet that had no pile. The machines of the day were only capable of weaving strips of fabric no wider than 36”. The carpet we use today is therefore known as “broadloom”, and not in wide use at the time. The strips could be used as runners, or cut into doormats, or stiched to what ever width was desired.
Most homeowners of the 1830’s and 40’s did not use elaborate curtains. English and American writers recommended “blinds”. This however, can be confusing to people today, as there were many different kinds of blinds. Shutter-blinds , or folding Venetian blinds, or Venetian shutters, were shutters with louvers that could be opened and closed. Venetian blinds were the wooden slats held together with tapes, that we now generally refer to as blinds. They were in use in America since the mid 18th c. They were often topped with cornices of wood or pierced tin. They were also used outdoors, but installed within frames to prevent them from blowing in the wind. Awnings were also described as blinds. Some were of linen or canvas, others were made of wooden slats.
Wire blinds were a version of the modern insect screen. Woven wire, or wire gauze was stretched on a wooden frame and placed on the window casing. Since the wire could rust, it was proposed that they be decoratively painted with landscapes, etc.
This is an example of a painted window screen
Another, more commonly used method of keeping out insects was the short blind. These were curtains placed over the lower half of open windows to keep people from being able to see into the house. They were hemmed top and bottom and gathered onto brass rods that were affixed to hooks on either side of the window.
Roller blinds were probably the most common window covering of the 19th c. There were spring operated blinds as early as the 1830’s, the ones we use today are spring operated. Much more common, however, were pulley operated blinds, since factory made spring rollers were not produced in America til 1858. Any kind of fabric could be used, and books gave instructions on how to make them. Many were decorated with paintings, the most popular seems to have been landscapes. Some homeowners used paper instead of fabric. “Curtain” papers were in production. Wallpaper was also used.
This is a painted window shade, circa 1840. It has a border around it, though in earlier years it was more customary to have the scene painted from edge to edge. Shades were also painted with floral designs.
Curtains were much simpler in design than the heavy ones generally associated with the Victorian era. A simple piece of fabric, with rings sown to it could be threaded onto a string which was nailed to both sides of a window frame. A frill or valance could be added to cover the rings at the top of the window.
Two examples of simple curtains that were widely used.
Here are two examples of curtains and valances. The one on the right would be identified as "Gothic", the one on the left, "Grecian". The shape of the valance is the only identifying difference.
A Venetian curtain was another popular window curtain. It was similar to today’s roman shade. Swags were also popular. A fully draped window consisted of a cornice, a drapery or valance, and one or more curtains. In the 1840’s a cornice was generally a painted, gilded or stained pole or narrow panel that was screwed to the molding at the top of the window. The drapery or valence hung below this, attached by rings, hooks or tacks, and over the curtains. The curtains were also not as full as those we use today, they used less width of fabric in ratio to the width of the window. Curtains were measured to fall to the floor when looped back. When they were closed, the extra fabric would “puddle” on the floor in order to help keep out drafts. Most curtains were drawn by hand, though there was a pulley system by 1800 called a “French rod” , but it was expensive and even as late as 1845 was not often used. By the way, pinch pleats did not come along til late in the century.
The boxed wood cornice served 2 uses. On one hand it covered the curtain rings or the rope pulleys. On the second hand it also was important in excluding drafts.
In the 19th c. a valance was a piece of fabric that hung in vertical folds from a rod or cornice, very similar to what we think of as a valance today. A drapery was a piece of fabric that was draped over a pole roughly horizontal to the floor. In today’s decorating terms a window scarf or a modern swag or festoon would fall under draperies. Many critics did not care for the draperies, citing them as being expensive, time consuming to make and care for and a depository of dust and vermin. An interesting note in the shift of fabric usage …In 1833 it was recommended that window fabrics should be identical to the color and fabrics used elsewhere in the room, such as upholstery or bed hangings. If there was no other fabric in the room, then they should match the woodwork, red, brown or scarlet with mahogany, for instance, and lighter ones with oak. By 1844 people were reading that window fabrics should only harmonize with other fabrics in the room.
A sketch done in 1841 showing Venetian blinds, folded back interior shutters, valance, sheer glass or undercurtains and draperies.
In England and America the best bedsteads at the time were either four poster, tents, or “French”. Most people, however, slept in simple unadorned beds. Curtaining beds took an enormous amount of fabric. A fully draped four poster used over 50 yards of fabric, a tent bed 43 yards. Hangings for a four poster included a head cloth, a valance, tester (canopy) and side panels which could be drawn at night. There could be more than one valance. Fully draped four posters or French beds would be quite expensive, and therefore not the norm for your average homeowner.
These are the three most popular "best" bedsteads of the 1830's through 1850. They are the "four post bedstead", the "French" bedstead, shown in the center, and the "tent" bedstead on the right. These beds, however were not in wide use in America or Britain. Most people slept in simple uncurtained beds.
Later ready mixed paints became available but there was still a shortage of colorfast pigments. Bright reds, purples, yellows blues and blue-greens tended to fade quickly. The normal Victorian range included black, white and cream, dark reds, browns and ochres of all shades and a wide variety of greens.
Other early Victorian interior colors til @ 1850 tended to be light and soft. Pearl, white, delicate pinks and lavenders were popular. Later deeper colors and complex patterns came into vogue. Throughout the period the dining room, study and drawing room tended to be more masculine. Bedrooms and parlors tended to be more feminine with softer colors and textures.
For entries and stair halls, cool and sober colors were suggested, such as grey (charcoal & white), stone ( a brownish-grayish mix ), or drab (raw umber mixed with white). These colors could also serve as bases for marbleizing.
Another wall treatment that was popular was to score the plaster while wet to resemble cut stone blocks, then marbleize the wall to look like stone. Wall papers in this pattern were also very popular.
Parlors and drawing rooms should be gay and elegant, advised decorating books and magazines. Green was very popular, with sea green, pea green and olive green being the most widely used. A soft grayish rose color, pearl grey and pale apple green were recommended colors, and it was customary for woodwork and moldings to be painted a darker shade of the wall color for contrast. White and gilt were confined to town house drawing rooms.
There were 2 schools of thought on how to decorate the dining room. One group preferred sober colors, another stronger , contrasting colors. Libraries should have sober, grave colors such as fawn, a light yellowish brown, or other brown or grey shades. Bedrooms, on the whole, should be painted or papered in light colors, but a bright room could be done in crimson, claret or dark green.
New walls had to dry for one year before being painted in oil paints, then the average was 5 coats of paint. Turpentine was added to the final coat to cut down the gloss. Whitewash was usually applied on the walls for the first year, and some people preferred this finish, and kept to it. It was cheaper, and it was matte, or flat. Coloring agents were added, so the term whitewash is a bit misleading. The drawback to it was that it was not durable. It was advised to wash it off before repainting or papering, therefore there is little evidence to show what colors were preferred when using it.
Color choices changed over the years partly because of changes in lighting. Gas lights were brighter than oil or candles, electric lights changed the room once again. Early in the 19th century vivid bright colors were used, since they became very muted in the dim light of evening. Toward the end of the century, paler hues began to be used more often used because of the brighter light cast by gas or electric lamps.
Walls, ceilings and woodwork were painted in 3 separate values of a color. The ceiling would be the lightest, then the walls darker and the woodwork either lighter or darker than the walls. In other words, perhaps pale green on the ceiling, light green on the wall and darker green on the woodwork.
By 1840 thanks to technology, wallpaper had become the popular way to decorate walls. Prior to this only the wealthy had wallpaper, as it was handmade and quite expensive.
Critics disliked this sort of wallpaper pattern in the 2nd quarter of the 19th c. They complained so much about the usage of this style of paper, that it is quite likely it was extremely popular.
Two versions of the same scenic paper produced by the firm of Jean Zuber. The top was "Views of North America" 1834. The second version was named "War of Independence" and issued a few years later.
Most writers of the 1840’s advised that the better rooms of the house be papered, especially the parlor and best bedroom. Wallpaper was applied in the French fashion, papered baseboard to cornice, with a narrow border for decoration. The dominant color in the paper determined the color of the ceiling and woodwork. Critics felt that papers should be architectural ,with columns, friezes, panels,etc.,, or landscapes. Also popular were historical papers with groups of figures or portraits, papers representing the previously mentioned cut stone (ashlar papers), or those imitating fabrics, like damask. Landscape papers were very popular across the country and seen in many hotels. Prices varied by the number of rolls in a set and by the colors used. Monocromatic scenes were much cheaper. If you could afford wallpaper, you could afford scenic paper. They were usually hung above chair rails or over architectural papers, that might imitate a stone balustered wall, etc. Wallpapers with depictions of statues were also popular. They were often hung in the front halls of middle class homes so that they would give the air of a statuary gallery. Another popular paper, especially in bedrooms and parlors was one with small repeating patterns of diamonds or stripes, often with geometric designs, fruits, flowers or ribbons worked into them. Some architectural authorities like Downing also liked flocked or “velvet” papers. They were generally the most expensive and did not wear well. They were on the whole confined only to parlors.
Borders were widely used. They covered mistakes in cutting as well as being decorative. In the 1840’s they were generally narrow, @ 3” wide. The most common were florals, trailing vines, or architectural. Fabric swag designs were also popular.
This is a reproduction of a marbleized style of wallpaper.
This is a version of an ashlar paper.
Two popular styles of wallpaper border from the first half of the 1800's.
Paper was rarely used on the ceiling in this period. Ceilings were generally decorated with a plaster or papier-mache center medalion from which hung a chandelier. The decoration was often based on leaves or a flower. Most critics of the period advised the use of a cornice to separate the walls and ceiling. If there was no cornice, then the wallpaper border would be used alone.
Graining and marbleizing appeared often on doors and woodwork. If you were having the house painted in oil paint, then the added cost for graining was slight. A coat of varnish was added to the decorative finish to protect it. This also made it smooth and therefore easier to dust and wash. Because of this, graining appeared often on doors, window sashes and baseboards, areas that were exposed to the most dirt.
Stencils and tromp loi were also popular.
Most American floors during the first half of the 1800’s were of softwood boards, often laid in random widths, and never stained and varnished. If they were not completely covered with some kind of floor covering, they had to be scrubbed with a stiff brush and sand, and sometimes bleached with lye. Painting floors was something the homeowners could do themselves and was a bit better than leaving them bare. This was a fairly common thing to do.
Floors were often painted in patterns to simulate rugs. The next step up was a painted floor cloth. These could be rather costly, but a homeowner could make their own and save quite a bit of money, and many did. Generally they were placed in hallways and parlors. There was a varnished paper floor covering advertised for sale in the 1820’s, but it’s not known if it ever became popular. Floor tiles came into use by the 1850’s, but on the whole, those that survived tended to be the less expensive solid colored ones. One of the most universally used floor coverings was matting. The coarse ones were made from coconut fiber, straw, and corn husks. Finer ones were made from sheepskin or thick wool. Some households used it to cover woolen carpets during the summer. Others used it as their only floor covering. Still others used it under carpets as padding, or as an edging if the carpet was not wall to wall. It came in @ 3 foot wide strips, which were cut and them seamed together.
Another popular floor covering was drugget. It was used to cover and protect carpets, or used as the sole floor covering or underneath rugs as protection and to cover any unattractive floorboards around the perimeter. It was so popular that it became the generic term for any covering used to protect another carpet, including baize, or heavy linen. They were also used as runners, with decorative borders stiched along their lengths. Some factories produced patterned druggets. They were also painted, and one article proposed that housewives make them from cloth remnants stiched together not unlike a patchwork quilt. Another article had an interesting idea. The author suggested that the home owner cover the large central section of the floor with a drugget, and then lay strips of carpet around the edges of the room, to suggest that there was an expensive carpet covered by the drugget.
There were many kinds of carpeting, but the machine made kind, and therefore the least expensive and most widely available, was a flat-woven carpet that had no pile. The machines of the day were only capable of weaving strips of fabric no wider than 36”. The carpet we use today is therefore known as “broadloom”, and not in wide use at the time. The strips could be used as runners, or cut into doormats, or stiched to what ever width was desired.
Most homeowners of the 1830’s and 40’s did not use elaborate curtains. English and American writers recommended “blinds”. This however, can be confusing to people today, as there were many different kinds of blinds. Shutter-blinds , or folding Venetian blinds, or Venetian shutters, were shutters with louvers that could be opened and closed. Venetian blinds were the wooden slats held together with tapes, that we now generally refer to as blinds. They were in use in America since the mid 18th c. They were often topped with cornices of wood or pierced tin. They were also used outdoors, but installed within frames to prevent them from blowing in the wind. Awnings were also described as blinds. Some were of linen or canvas, others were made of wooden slats.
Wire blinds were a version of the modern insect screen. Woven wire, or wire gauze was stretched on a wooden frame and placed on the window casing. Since the wire could rust, it was proposed that they be decoratively painted with landscapes, etc.
This is an example of a painted window screen
Another, more commonly used method of keeping out insects was the short blind. These were curtains placed over the lower half of open windows to keep people from being able to see into the house. They were hemmed top and bottom and gathered onto brass rods that were affixed to hooks on either side of the window.
Roller blinds were probably the most common window covering of the 19th c. There were spring operated blinds as early as the 1830’s, the ones we use today are spring operated. Much more common, however, were pulley operated blinds, since factory made spring rollers were not produced in America til 1858. Any kind of fabric could be used, and books gave instructions on how to make them. Many were decorated with paintings, the most popular seems to have been landscapes. Some homeowners used paper instead of fabric. “Curtain” papers were in production. Wallpaper was also used.
This is a painted window shade, circa 1840. It has a border around it, though in earlier years it was more customary to have the scene painted from edge to edge. Shades were also painted with floral designs.
Curtains were much simpler in design than the heavy ones generally associated with the Victorian era. A simple piece of fabric, with rings sown to it could be threaded onto a string which was nailed to both sides of a window frame. A frill or valance could be added to cover the rings at the top of the window.
Two examples of simple curtains that were widely used.
Here are two examples of curtains and valances. The one on the right would be identified as "Gothic", the one on the left, "Grecian". The shape of the valance is the only identifying difference.
A Venetian curtain was another popular window curtain. It was similar to today’s roman shade. Swags were also popular. A fully draped window consisted of a cornice, a drapery or valance, and one or more curtains. In the 1840’s a cornice was generally a painted, gilded or stained pole or narrow panel that was screwed to the molding at the top of the window. The drapery or valence hung below this, attached by rings, hooks or tacks, and over the curtains. The curtains were also not as full as those we use today, they used less width of fabric in ratio to the width of the window. Curtains were measured to fall to the floor when looped back. When they were closed, the extra fabric would “puddle” on the floor in order to help keep out drafts. Most curtains were drawn by hand, though there was a pulley system by 1800 called a “French rod” , but it was expensive and even as late as 1845 was not often used. By the way, pinch pleats did not come along til late in the century.
The boxed wood cornice served 2 uses. On one hand it covered the curtain rings or the rope pulleys. On the second hand it also was important in excluding drafts.
In the 19th c. a valance was a piece of fabric that hung in vertical folds from a rod or cornice, very similar to what we think of as a valance today. A drapery was a piece of fabric that was draped over a pole roughly horizontal to the floor. In today’s decorating terms a window scarf or a modern swag or festoon would fall under draperies. Many critics did not care for the draperies, citing them as being expensive, time consuming to make and care for and a depository of dust and vermin. An interesting note in the shift of fabric usage …In 1833 it was recommended that window fabrics should be identical to the color and fabrics used elsewhere in the room, such as upholstery or bed hangings. If there was no other fabric in the room, then they should match the woodwork, red, brown or scarlet with mahogany, for instance, and lighter ones with oak. By 1844 people were reading that window fabrics should only harmonize with other fabrics in the room.
A sketch done in 1841 showing Venetian blinds, folded back interior shutters, valance, sheer glass or undercurtains and draperies.
In England and America the best bedsteads at the time were either four poster, tents, or “French”. Most people, however, slept in simple unadorned beds. Curtaining beds took an enormous amount of fabric. A fully draped four poster used over 50 yards of fabric, a tent bed 43 yards. Hangings for a four poster included a head cloth, a valance, tester (canopy) and side panels which could be drawn at night. There could be more than one valance. Fully draped four posters or French beds would be quite expensive, and therefore not the norm for your average homeowner.
These are the three most popular "best" bedsteads of the 1830's through 1850. They are the "four post bedstead", the "French" bedstead, shown in the center, and the "tent" bedstead on the right. These beds, however were not in wide use in America or Britain. Most people slept in simple uncurtained beds.
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