oldbookillustrations:

Be off! be off! for the iron wolf is coming.

E. W. Mitchell, from Cossack fairy tales and folk-tales, selected, edited and translated by Robert Nisbet Bain, London, 1894.

(Source: archive.org)

questionableadvice:

~ The Alphabet of Flowers and Fruit, c. 1871-1890
via University of Washington
(click to enlarge)

“DO NOT LET YOUR CHILD DIE!”

Note: Given the dramatic advertisement I assumed Fenning’s Children’s Powders would be another Victorian era quack medicine but surprisingly they are still sold today and contain paracetamol (acetaminophen).

(via fuckyeahvictorians)

“Norwegian Ponies”

Not one specific breed of pony, and not what’s traditionally called the “Norwegian Pony” (the Fjord horse), ponies used for skijoring came in many shapes and sizes - temperament, ability to withstand the cold, and responsiveness under harness was all that mattered in these horses and ponies.

Skijoring using horses and dogs is regaining popularity these days, but I doubt you’ll ever see such fashionable ladies on the course again.

The New Book of the Horse. Charles Richardson, 1911.

“Tamed zebra jumping.”

While zebras have been tamed here and there through history, they’ve never been truly domesticated, like horses have been.

Photo by Frank G Carpenter. US Library of Congress Archives, 1890.

liquidnight:

William Edward Downey

“Miss P Broughton in swing, full length, white dress, nearly full face, shoe on”, 1892

Phyllis Broughton (1862-1926) was an actress and dancer who found fame through her appearances at the Gaiety Theatre on Aldwych in London, home of the “Gaiety Girls”.

[From the National Archives UK]

(via drtuesdaygjohnson)

Baroness Helene von Hammerstein with Mr. von Roon

Dance scene from the play “Gavotte de Vestris.” Photographed in Berlin in 1897.

Der Tanz. Dr. Karl Storck, 1902.

penguinsweaters:

Lucy Hobbs Taylor, born today in 1833, was the first American woman to earn a degree in dentistry.

She was denied admission to the Ohio College of Dental Surgery due to her sex, but began studying privately under the tutelage of its dean, Dr. Jonathan Taft, and later apprenticed herself to a licensed graduate before opening her own practice in the spring of 1861 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Later she moved her practice to Iowa where, in July 1865, she was elected to membership in the Iowa State Dental Society and sent as a delegate to the American Dental Association convention in Chicago. Finally, in November 1865 she was admitted to the Ohio College of Dental Surgery where, after receiving credit for her years of professional practice, she graduated in February 1866, thus becoming the first woman in the U.S. to receive her doctorate in dentistry.

Later Lucy would be quoted as saying, “People were amazed when they learned that a young girl had so far forgotten her womanhood as to want to study dentistry.”

Lucy died in 1910 but her skill and dedication to the field of dentistry has not been forgotten. In 1983, the American Association of Women Dentists honored her by establishing the Lucy Hobbs Taylor Award, which it presents annually to members in recognition of professional excellence and achievements in advancing the role of women in dentistry.

Sources 1, 2, 3

<3

(via dendroica)

“The Two-Horse Act”

1874 Chromolithograph by Gibson & Co.