She Loved to Play With Her Dead Doll

Leave it to the Victorians to create a doll modeled after a dead girl.  The dolls are ghostly white bisque with frozen limbs.  They feel cool to the touch.  Like tragic little corpses.

First manufactured in 1850, Frozen Charlottes come in all sizes, ranging from a mere ½" to 18" tall.

So who was this famous dead girl?

Dressed in her finest gown, Charlotte and her boyfriend drove in his sleigh to a New Year's Eve Ball in rural upstate New York.  Vain girl that she was, she refused to wrap up in the heavy woolen sleigh blankets because she wanted to make sure anyone they passed could see how beautiful she was in her ball gown.  When the young couple arrived at the party, her date discovered that Charlotte had frozen to death.

The account appeared in the New York Observer on February 8, 1840.  Poet Seba Smith immortalized the story with the poem Young Charlotte.  William Carter set the poetic tribute to music.

The dolls were originally produced as bathing dolls.  They were the rubber duckies of the 19^th Century.  The tiniest Charlottes were also baked into children's birthday cakes or Christmas puddings as party favors.

Had she lived today, I'm sure we would see Charlotte on Girls Gone Wild.

Abe Lincoln's Trousers

I think it's time to clear this up ....... Victorian men would not have been caught dead wearing a pair of breeches. 
They wore trousers - just like today's men.

Think Alexander Graham Bell,

Thomas Edison



and Abraham Lincoln.

Breeches are tight pants that come to just below the knees and are worn with tall men's stockings. Men of the 18th Century wore them.    That means in the 1700's.

Think Little Lord Faunlery,

Louis XV

and George Washington.

Pants are important.

Let's stay focused.

If this looks Victorian to you, please reread the text.



Let's Bring Back Break-up Bling

I think a break-up should always include jewelry.

A Victorian boyfriend would arrive at the home of the girl he planned to break up with armed with a piece of jewelry in the pocket of his best suit.   He would present his card at the door and ask to see the girl. After taking tea with her and her mother, the young couple would be left alone in the parlor.

On bended knee, the boy would offer the little box and tearfully explain that he was joining the French Foreign Legion and would be leaving in the morning.

Today the tattooed and pierced cowardly knaves dump their girlfriends by email, IM, voicemail, text, Twitter, Facebook Wall, Skype or sticky note.

Curses be upon them.

Remember girls, ALWAYS drive the dump truck.