The Best 1869 Fashion Trends to Try This Spring

As the weather’s warming up, you may be considering a refresh to your spring and summer wardrobe. Luckily, we have an 1869 issue of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine to help you find the season’s most stunning looks.

First and foremost, of course, one must consider the proper bonnets: billowy, floral, and decidedly dainty.

Once one’s coiffure is properly obscured, it’s time to shop for the essentials–layered silhouettes, miles of ruffles, and all the best trends to try this spring!

Embrace the season in this breezy day-to-night look, which includes ample tassels and a wee parasol to help you keep your cool street-side.

If you’re ready to trade in your sarong and get creative with this season’s swimwear, our magazine has some beach-ready looks for you:

For those who prefer strolling to swimming, we have an airy ensemble that also sounds like a spooky plumbing malfunction:

If you’re searching for hot summer looks for the whole family, may we suggest these voluminous ensembles for your young lady’s puppet-watching needs?

This smart and wearable ensemble is perfect for feeling giddy near swans:

We hope these bold styles and versatile classics will help inspire your new look!

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Spring in Special Collections

It’s finally been feeling like spring in Rhode Island this week, which has everyone feverishly thinking about crocuses and tulips, budding trees, mud puddles, and every other seasonal motif one can list.

For instance, we’ve been dreaming about soft, fuzzy chicks…

Novellus Libellus institutionum pro tyronibus. Cologne: Thomas Odendall, 1742.

And loveable, huggable bunnies.

Conference program, New England Convention of Magicians. Boston: NECM, 1947.

Phew! Yikes! Happy spring!

Closing Out the Cruelest Month

I don’t know about all of you, especially if you’re reading this in Australia, but I’m pretty darn excited that it’s finally spring.

The flowering trees here in Providence are really doing their thing.

Illustration from Les roses: peintes par P.J. Redoute, decrites et classees selon leur ordre naturel par C.A. Thory (Paris, 1835). Yes, I know that a rose is not technically a flowering tree.

People are throwing open their windows and doors, and flooding out onto the sidewalks.

Frontispiece from James Thomson’s The seasons: containing, spring. summer. fall. winter (Philadelphia, 1795).

Baby animals are being small and hilarious.

Nothing to do with Special Collections, everything to do with ducklings in ramekins, via GIPHY.

People are sweeping off their driveways, painting their fences, and pressing seeds into the ground. Here’s a 100% accurate description of me in my garden, courtesy of Henry Ward Beecher’s 1857 Plain and pleasant talk about fruits, flowers, and farming:

When the winter lets us out, and we are exhilarated with fresh air, singing birds, bland weather, and newly-spring vegetation, our ambition is to lay out too much work. We began with an acre, in garden… By reference to a Garden Journal (every man should keep one), we find that we planted in 1840, sixteen kinds of peas; seventeen kinds of beans; seven kinds of corn; six kinds of squash; eight kinds of cabbage; seven kinds of lettuce; eight sorts of cucumber, and seven of turnips… Although we worked faithfully, early and late, through the whole season, the weeds beat us fairly.

You shall not discourage me, Henry Ward Beecher! I’m planting fifteen more kinds of peas as soon as I get home from work today.

Enjoy the warm(er) weather, dear readers, stop by Special Collections to look at historical field guides to flowers and sea shells, and stay tuned for a blog post on the most questionably-themed historical children’s book we’ve seen to date.