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1890’s Fashionplates
Fresh from the McDowell Dress Cutting Academy Journal in New York- Summer fashions for the seaside. This could have been Emma Borden and her friend Helen Brownell at Fairhaven shore, dressed in some serious leg o’ mutton sleeves.
(From the blogger’s collection)
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New Lizzie Borden Photo found in Swansea !
HOLY COW!!!It’s been a long, long time since a new photo of Lizzie has been published and the cover of the newly released Hatchet must qualify as a Stop the Press spectacular! Kudos to Hatchet editor Stefani Koorey and Borden historian Leonard Rebello for some great detecting. Other Borden photos and mementos were also located at the Swansea Museum just before Christmas 2007. It’s big news in Borden land tonight! For a subscription and a look at the cover, visit the link below. The Hatchet has also changed its title and content scope to include Victoriana , mystery and murder.
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/MondoLizzie/
The image of Lizzie at about nine years of age in a charming straw hat has been published with the permission and knowledge of the Swansea Historical Society on the site above. Internet copyright laws do apply and the permission to copy in the current issue of The Hatchet, and on The Hatchet-linked blog , Mondo Lizzie Borden, was obtained for one-time usage legally by the editor.
Any cropped, altered, or grayscaled “bootleg” reproductions which may appear elsewhere and are being circulated, are without the knowledge or permission of the Swansea Historical Society and have been cropped from the copyrighted cover of the latest edition of The Hatchet. For those who object to their personal photos appearing without permission on the Internet: propagating, harvesting, and disseminating copyrighted images amounts, in essence, to image theft. Any benefit which might have been afforded the institution to which the image belongs through print and product reproduction is compromised. Sadly, historical societies and museums are those institutions which most need the revenue.
Some worthwhile reading – http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/copyright-internet.htm
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Postcards from the Past
Old Fall River can still be found in the happily inexpensive postcard collectible. There was scarcely an important building, monument, park, or street scene which evaded the camera’s lens. Many of the cards were printed in Germany and Britain, and some are extraordinary testimony to the lithographer’s skill. Along with the usual city edifices and scenes, the New Year’s postal, featuring famous city sights and sites framed within the new calendar year, the homemade glitter cards, and cards promoting a city by name are desirable to collect. Most can be easily procured in the $4-$8 range. The candid shots of street life, featuring average citizens can give a real feel for the era and details of clothing, architecture and landmarks of the place and time.
New Year’s Greeting
Customized “glittercard”
Visitor’s souvenir postal for “The Folks Back Home”
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Dressing Up History
Over the years since 1991, it has been fun to re-live the 1890’s and to re-enact history as part of the cast at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast. Every August 4th there is a new script and new faces to fill the roles. Before the house was open to the public in 1996, some of us had fun dressing up and giving performances and carriage tours around the city. In 1992 the city put on an impressive effort to mark the centennial of the Borden case with Maplecroft open, plays, a Victorian Cafe, city exhibits and a conference at the local Bristol Community College. 1992 may never be equalled. The Second Street Irregulars, a group of armchair sleuths, evolved from the conference as friends were made there who wanted to continue to meet when the centennial ended. Today the group is going strong again, and meets twice a year to discuss aspects of the case and visit places pertaining to the Borden family and the crime.
Finding costumes for the past 16 years has been a challenge, but thanks to Butterick and Simplicity patterns, and a new company called Recollections, (see link) dressing the part has become easier.
Thankfully costumes for the men are not as difficult, and for many years the part of Andrew Borden has been played by Borden scholar Ed Thibault who has made Lizzie the subject of interest for over 30 years and has worn a black frock coat to great effect! There’s nothing quite like time traveling in a costume with friends who share the same interests with matching enthusiasm.
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1995 Second Street opens its doors
It is wonderful to revisit the first days of the the Lizzie Borden B&B via Youtube, only weeks after it opened on August 4, 1995. All of the original staff are there including George Quigley, brother of present cook, Dave Quigley, owners Ron Evans and Martha McGinn, and day manager Rochelle Pettenuti who painted the portraits of the Borden clan which still hang in the rooms on the second and third floor. It was Ron Evans who had the vision and passion to open the house to the public as a museum and bed and breakfast. Sadly, he lived only a very short time afterward and would not know how very successful his dream would become. The house had just been repainted in a tan and brown color scheme, and furnished as closely as possible to the house as it was in 1892.
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Centennial Memorabilia
There’s nothing that quite equals the 100th anniversary of any sort of event, and Fall River made a grand effort to tastefully recall the 100th anniversary of the famous Borden case. TheLizzie Borden Conference team at BCC, and the city-wide affiliates could see it was clear that something was expected by those living in the area to mark the 100th year following the Crime of the Century in 1892. The historical society produced a boxed stationery set with numbered letterhead and envelopes, and served as a location for the postal service’s special postmark cachet for envelopes. Perhaps the biggest seller at the historical society was the Centennial calendar in black and white on heavy cream stock. It has become highly collectible and occasionally appears on EBAY.
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FAQs at #92
Two questions often asked by visitors at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast are: 1. Is there anything original left in the house? 2. Why is there a broken plate hanging on the diningroom wall?
The Borden sisters retained ownership of #92 Second Street until it was sold in 1918. How much of the original furniture was taken with them to Maplecroft in 1893, how much was put into storage, and what was left in the house is unknown. Anything which was stored is rumored to have been lost in a flood during a storm. There is nothing original left today. The Glenwood woodstove is a favorite item in the house and must be very like the one in which Lizzie burned that famous Bedford Cord dress on the day after the funeral of her father and stepmother and on which Bridget cooked the equally famous mutton for breakfast. This old woodstove was found rusting away in a field in Vermont and was refurbished and piped for gas in 1995.
The white ironstone plate in a shadowbox in the diningroom was retrieved from the ground when the barn was rebuilt a couple of years ago. The location was in the backyard northeast corner of the lot where the barn privy had been located. What could not be burned was buried or tossed into the outhouse or privy vault. Many items of metal and glass and transferware plate fragments were found, including a broken doll commonly called a “Frozen Charlotte.” Lizzie was 12 when the Bordens moved into Second Street, but it is still fun to think it may have been hers.
The Bordens used a practical white ironstone for daily use and this was on the diningroom table at the time of the murders in readiness for the noonday meal which never took place. Many fragments of white ironstone crockery were found in the privy excavation including this plate, which may have been from the Borden’s cupboard.
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Bloody Versicle #1
Over the decades since the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden, many have set their theories and ideas about the family and their relationships to music and verse. Here is one more offering, by this blogger to add to the effort!
Ode to Domestic Harmony
It was the day of the murder and all through the house,
Tension mounted twixt Lizzie and Andy’s plump spouse.
Emma, in Fairhaven, with Brownells in their nest,
Closed weary eyes and longed for some rest.
With heavy feet dragging, Bridget downward did trod,
Doing as she was told with one tired, resigned nod.
Seizing bucket and pole out the doorway she clattered,
Got sick in the yard, but what did that matter?
Spying a friend standing close to the fence,
She sauntered right over without much of a wrench.
Chatting and smiling in the warm August sun,
It sure beat the washing and was surely more fun.
Uncle Morse had departed, so peculiar and thin,
To visit the Emerys and their visiting kin.
While no one would say that he was a glutton,
He thought “Oh, Dear Lord, please no more mutton!”
Andrew had left to count all his money,
Lizzie was quiet, and he thought that was” funny”.
He sighed as he walked to the banks just downstreet,
And felt faintly ill, “It must be the heat”.
Abby trudged on upward with her clumps of false hair,
And hitched up her skirts as she mounted the stair.
Already defeated and without a friend,
She looked up to Heaven thinking “How will it end?”
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The End of an Era
The Funeral of Queen Victoria 1901 (shown in Youtube segment below)
The death of England’s beloved Widowed Queen marked more than the end of an era. The Victorian period in history was not only the reign of one monarch, but a way of thinking, a code of morality and behavior and social expectations which affected every particle of social custom and culture. Her son, Edward VII would be a pale shadow of his mother in his brief reign of barely a decade following Victoria’s death. King Bertie’s reign would be filled with court scandal involving the King’s many paramours – which no doubt the old Queen would have found “unamusing”. Bertie is show below with his favorite wirehaired fox terrier, Caesar. The little dog marched behind his master’s coffin in the funeral procession in May of 1910.
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Website “Lizzie Borden Live”- goes live!
A new website has gone up on the web today promoting LIZZIE BORDEN LIVE, a one-woman show, written and performed by Jill Dalton, directed by Jack McCullough with incidental music by Larry Hochman. It is set in 1905, Fall River, MA, thirteen years after the unsolved murders of Andrew Borden. It’s a good-looking, user-friendly site, with notes about the actress, production and performance schedule. Don’t forget to click on the My Space link which features some intriguing slide shows of Maplecroft exteriors and Oak Grove Cemetery.
http://www.lizziebordenlive.com/
Abby and Lizzie on the front stairs at Second Street
Shelley Dziedzic and Jill Dalton
photo by Richard Behrens
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Herald News Blog
Just a little late in finding this feature! The city paper has added a blog with YouTube footage of the recent Victorian Christmas tour. This one features the Historical Society gift shop and recreation of McWhirr’s Department Store. Hopefully there will be more.
The link below should take you to the video and article by staff reporter, Debbie Allard.
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A new Garden Bay Lizzie Mini released
A second in the series of Lizzie Borden mini documentaries has been released today from Garden Bay Films. Author Len Rebello (Lizzie Borden Past and Present) gives a tour of the Borden cellar, pointing out where the hatchets and axes were found, and details of Lizzie’s two trips to the cellar on the night of the murders. The third mini should be released in about three weeks.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on_-jMcBs-8
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Happy Birthday Mr. Poe
This Saturday will mark the 199th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. So-what does this have to do with Lizzie Borden? Not much actually, except for that Poe is widely regarded as the Father of Detective Fiction and the master of the whodunnit and how. Detective fiction is widely considered to have begun in 1841 with the publication of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe featuring “the first fictional detective, the eccentric and brilliant C. Auguste Dupin. Many authors followed after Poe’s distinctive style including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie to name the two best-selling authors of the genre. Lizzie Borden would surely have read Poe’s works.
The city of Baltimore tries to lay claim to the genius, but Poe was actually born in Boston, Massachusetts and led a short but dramatic life. His actual cause of death is uncertain, but 40 years of not taking very good care of his health took a toll in the end- that and his deep sorrow at losing his young wife to consumption just two years before he died in 1849.
The Poe House in Baltimore observes the birthday every year with plays, toasts, readings of Poe’s works, and the famous Poe Toaster- a mystery man who slips into the cemetery on Greene Street with three roses and a bottle of cognac and leaves them on Poe’s grave in the dead of night. His identity is a secret well-guarded by the curator of Poe House.
One can only wonder what Poe would have thought about the Borden Case- he may have been inspired to write a short story about it! Poe was no stranger to the Fall River-Providence area as two years before his death he went wife-hunting again and his eye rested upon a Providence lady, whose parents forbade the marriage due to Poe’s reputation. Interesting to think of Poe strolling by that house on Second Street which did exist in 1845! http://www.eapoe.org/index.htm
Lizzie was as silent and cryptic in court as that famous bird in Poe’s most beloved work.
“Nevermore!”
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2008 Prepare to be Amazed
Fall River High School postcard
There’s plenty new under the sun on the Borden Case for 2008. Prepare to be amazed. The recent Fall River Historical Society newsletter confirms more of the eager speculations about their upcoming book tentatively titled Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie Borden and Fall River which is being researched and assembled by the curatorial staff. The Andrew Borden family time span will provide the framework on which will hang an inside glimpse, profusely illustrated with never-before published images, of life on the Hill and in the “Spindle City”.
A treasury of private letters, diaries and photos will reveal Lizzie’s social set, society functions she attended, and events she would have observed in the city. This is not a rehash of the infamous murder case, but rather a look at the world and people Lizzie knew. So very little is known of her very young life, but details of her life were recorded in the journal of a close friend in the 1870’s. For those who love the city’s history, and Borden case scholars, the 2008 release date of this volume is awaited with great excitement and promises to be a revelation.
Excerpt from Parallel Lives
‘1875 marked the year that Lizzie Borden entered Fall River High School and in the spring of her freshman year she first appeared in ***’s diary. Friday, the thirty first of March, 1876 was “a beautiful day and after school I walked nearly home with Lizzie Borden. . .” ‘
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Abby Must Have Known
The guest room which was to become a chamber of death to Abby Borden is situated off the second floor landing. There are only two doors leading into it: one from the hall landing, and one door leading into it from Lizzie’s room. Lizzie says her room was kept locked and a heavy tall bookcase blocked entry into the guest room from her side of the communicating door, rendering that entryway unusable by the killer.
That leaves only the hall landing entry door. Sounds of approaching footsteps can be clearly heard almost immediately in the guestroom as the killer would have started up the staircase.
Abby would have heard and seen who came through the door. With the only method of escape open to her being an across -the -bed attempt to flee, the bed curiously showed no signs of disturbance later on when the body was found.
With a wound cut deep over her left ear, with the skin hinge at the back, it must be that either Abby had her back to the killer and spun around at the last minute to see what was coming at her, or she was facing her killer when the first blow fell. Measuring back five feet three inches (Abby’s height) from the spot where her head hit the floor, she must have been standing at the foot of the bed when she was attacked. Abby would not have been surprised to see John Morse (who had stayed in that room the previous night), the maid, Bridget Sullivan- or Lizzie. All could have entered without causing alarm. John Morse has an alibi, Bridget was seen washing windows and also talking to the Kelly’s maid, Mary Doolan out by the fence- which leaves only- Lizzie.
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Fashionplates of the 1890’s
After the decline of the second rigid bustle period, the 1890’s ushered in an interest in the reprise of the leg o’ mutton sleeve, called “gigot” in a previous incarnation. While skirts became plainer and wide at the bottom, sleeves became elaborate and grew to an alarming rate at the upper arm, reaching ridiculous proportions by 1896. After reaching the limit, mercifully, the gigantic ballooning sleeves collapsed and returned to the more pleasing contours of pre-1890. Big shoulders and sleeves, a small waist, neat, close-to-the- head hair with frizzled bangs, and dainty boots were the aim of Lizzie’s 1892 social set. Those who could afford it had their evening gowns from Worth. It was a great time to be a girl! Images from www.fashion-era.com, the Delineator magazine, www.costumersmanifesto.com and Long Ago Fashions.
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A Companion Blog for Warps and Wefts
Whether you enjoy strolling through old cemeteries on a Sunday afternoon- or take an interest in Borden case personalities, the companion blog, Friends of Oak Grove, may be a new blog site of interest. A great many of the principle players in the case find their final rest within the walls of Oak Grove, in itself a superb example of the Victorian memorial park ideal of the mid-nineteenth century. The Borden family, friends, attorneys, policemen, witnesses and others of interest will be showcased on the web blog, which will also serve as a companion site for the upcoming publication, The Shadows Have Fallen : A History of Oak Grove Cemetery.
Victorian funeral customs, reference books, unusual stories and monuments, and historical background on the famous inhabitants will be featured. Friends of Oak Grove is a new group of locals who will undertake special projects for the cemetery under the direction of the superintendent such as guided history tours, planting and landscaping sessions, grave documentation and recording, photography, stone rubbing classes and other activities to benefit the cemetery. Follow the blogroll link on this page or click on www.oakgrovecemetery.wordpress.com
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Headboard Revisited
