The Victorian era was a transformative period in British history. During Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 to 1901, the empire became the world's largest industrial power. It was a time of unprecedented advances in the arts and sciences, along with social improvements such as the rise of movements suffragettes .
Oddly enough, the Victorian period is also remembered for some of the most bizarre, and sometimes downright creepy, trends ever imagined in human history. While most people have probably heard of the Victorian practice of photographing their dead, that's just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, compared to some of the items on this list, it may even be one of the tamest trends of the era.
10. Belladonna eye drops
By the early 19th century, makeup had fallen out of fashion in Western Europe, giving way to a more nude, casual look that remains popular to this day. Queen Victoria even went so far as to declare it impolite, instantly making it unpopular among her subjects.
To achieve this look, Victorian women often experimented with other alternatives, some of which in a modern context could only be described as "lethal." From lead- and arsenic-based dyes, which can seriously damage the skin, to toxic substances like cinnabar, makeup set Victorian era could, at worst, painfully kill you, and, at best, leave you in debilitating conditions for life. Perhaps the most deadly practice of all was the use of belladonna—one of the most toxic plants known to us—as eye drops , to make the eyes appear larger, causing irreversible blindness or even death when taken directly orally.
9. Creepy Christmas Cards
Christmas cards date back to the Victorian period when In 1843 a man named Sir Henry Cole, inspired by the recently published "« "A Christmas Carol"» Charles Dickens ordered the first thousand copies. However, the earliest Christmas cards were expensive to produce, as each one had to be individually designed by a professional colorist using a technique called lithography. It wasn't until the 1870s that improvements in printing methods and the postal system allowed for mass production and distribution.
In terms of artistic style, it would be decades before the Victorians truly embodied the "Christmas card" aesthetic we recognize today. While many Victorian-era Christmas cards depicted everyday images such as animals and landscapes, there was also a strong demand for morbid and macabre illustrations.
Insects and lobsters were particularly popular, although there were also many works featuring mythological monsters and ghostly children. Historians believe that some of these drawings reflected harsh realities Victorian life, as many children from poor families froze to death on Christmas Day.
8. Mummy Unboxing Parties
In the early 19th century, the popularity of Egypt and ancient Egyptian culture in Europe revived, largely due to invasions Napoleon to England in 1798. However, in Victorian England, the craze took on a much darker tone. They were particularly obsessed with mummies, glorifying them in a way that anyone today would consider unscientific or even a little creepy.
One particularly shady practice was the unwrapping of Egyptian mummies and the display of the process as an art exhibition, typically by wealthy and influential collectors in cities like London. The ceremony involved food and drink—just like any other party you've ever attended—followed by the slow and careful unraveling of a long-dead, mummified human body in front of a captive audience, usually a professional surgeon. Depending on the performer, the session might include discussion and commentary on various features of the mummy, such as its condition. her skin and hair.
7. Tapeworm diet
While taking tapeworms may theoretically help you lose weight, science has advanced enough to understand that it's a terrible idea. Things were quite different in the Victorian era, when it was considered acceptable to sacrifice one's health and well-being to achieve the nearly impossible beauty standards of the time.
To achieve that fragile, almost lifeless look popular at the time, many women resorted to the tapeworm diet, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It was usually given in pill form. larvae tape worms, which then hatched, entered the digestive system, and hopefully began absorbing some of the host's food. Of course, since tapeworms are also parasitic, things didn't always go as expected, as the diet led to other medical complications, such as diarrhea and vomiting.
6. Dangerous cosmetics
A typical Victorian home's cosmetics box would contain many things considered industrial hazards today, so much so that if you ended up dying from chemical exposure, it would be difficult to say exactly what killed you.
Lead Lead was a particularly popular ingredient, widely used by women in powders and foundations throughout the Victorian era. Paints containing large amounts of lead were used to create a deathly pale appearance, although they also corroded the skin. и left other long-term effects on the body. Another favorite was mercury , which was used in products ranging from stain removers to cold creams.
5. Little Farmers
The Victorian period was a particularly difficult time for single mothers. While abortion was illegal and frowned upon, child abuse by parents, and the death of a child due to abandonment or neglect, carried almost certain death penalties. execution . In addition, single mothers were almost unable to find work due to social stigmatization illegitimate children.
To escape this situation, many women chose to hand over their unwanted children to someone colloquially known as a "baby farmer." These were other women or agencies who would adopt and raise the children in their care, usually in exchange for a large fee. While this was a noble idea, and many of these agencies did indeed evolve into the earliest forms of adoption agencies, the system was marred by cases of abuse. In particularly extreme cases, such as those of Margaret Waters and Amelia Dyer, many children were killed within days or even hours after adoption. This practice was so widespread that the British government had to take such laws , like the Infant Life Protection Act and the Children's Act 1908, to put an end to it.
4. Bathing machines
Bathing machines were portable changing rooms for women, primarily used on beaches and other public bathing areas. Despite their relatively progressive ideas in other areas, such as makeup, Victorians remained rather prudish about women enjoying themselves outdoors. To prevent this, strict segregation laws were introduced in Victorian England in 1832, requiring men and women to maintain a minimum distance of 60 feet from each other on the beach.
Of course, this wasn't enough, as it still allowed women to have a good time in public, albeit a little further away from men. The bathing machine was the perfect solution. It was essentially a large box on wheels carts , which could be pulled into the water by horses or by hand, with sections for wet clothes and ladders to keep everything above water. A swimmer would enter on one side, change into swimsuits, and exit on the other. More complex designs, like the one used Queen Victoria , accompanied by draperies and other improvements for greater privacy.
3. Green Scheele
В In 1775 Swedish scientist by name Carl Wilhelm Scheele created his own green dye mixture. Now known as Scheele's green, it was made from copper arsenite and was significantly improved over other commercially available greens. For example, it looked more like a naturally occurring green than the gray or brown hues found in most alternatives. Furthermore, as we now know, it was quite toxic, causing long-term illnesses in anyone exposed to it. In more extreme cases, it could even lead to death.
Despite this, Scheele's green—and its improved version called "Paris green"—became extremely popular during the Victorian era, used in everything from wallpaper to carpets and even children's toys. It would be appropriate to depict this period in a green hue, even if most people were well aware of the detrimental effects of arsenic exposure. According to one rumor, Napoleon Bonaparte likely died from excessive amounts of Scheele's green present on his island estate. Saint Helena .
2. Human hair jewelry
You might think that arsenic and lead were the strangest ingredients found in a typical Victorian home, but you'd be wrong. There was also human hair, usually taken from a deceased loved one, and turned into decorations , such as wreaths, necklaces, bracelets and anything else that can be made from hair.
It was a whole art form of the era, and more complex pieces required a lot of effort and time. Hair from more than one deceased relative or even a pet was often used if it helped the look. In the 20th century, this practice faded as more and more people began to realize that it was quite macabre. However, it can still be done. find museums and private societies engaged in the preservation of crafts.
1. Resurrectionists
While medicine and surgery reached new heights during the Victorian period, doctors, surgeons and other medical experts were always short of experimental subjects. at that time death penalty was rapidly going out of fashion, and there was suddenly an acute shortage of corpses for scientific experiments.
These conditions gave birth to a completely new class of criminals - resurrectors , a euphemistic term for grave robbers and organ traffickers who regularly supplied hospitals with fresh cadavers and body parts for their work. Although the practice was illegal, the high fees offered by practitioners, coupled with the country's high unemployment rate, apparently made it a profitable and widespread occupation. It was so bad that at its peak, people had to guard the graves of their loved ones to prevent them from being robbed.