If you were a lady in the Victorian era, and you wanted to go for a walk - whether in the country or the city - there was a problem. The problem was the interaction of your long and trailing skirts with rural mud or dirty city streets (full of heavens know what sort of filth). But a solution was no farther away than a loop attached to your belt or chatelaine.
A chatelaine, from the French word for "chain," was a belt hook with chains attached to it, worn by ladies. Each chain held a useful object, such as scissors, thimble, watch and keys. This picture of a chatelaine is from the National Park Service.
And here is the solution to the problem of mud versus skirt: the skirt-lifter! The tonged part held the bottom of your skirt up and kept it clean. The Friday one was fairly plain. Some of them were quite fancy looking, as you can see. The seashell-shaped lifter is from Victoriana Lady; the gold one is from GoAntiques. The latter was attached, as you can see, to a finger ring. The skirt lifters were popular from about 1870 to the early 1900s. The one featured in Friday's post dates from about 1880. Once again, I won't tell you my source, since I'd like to use it again in future.
Congratulations to Laane of Laane Loves, who knew exactly what this was, and was the first to post a correct response. Laane was the first, but kudos also to everyone else who agreed with her:
Robin (no blog link listed)
Bill (ditto)
Kittybriton at The Nonce
Jude at Mature Not Senile
Shinade at The Painted Veil
And a huge thank you to everyone else for your creative and entertaining guesses:
P.L. Frederick at Small and Big: dog leash with earmuffs, early iPod holder or possibly spaghetti tongs
FreshHell: something medical involving electro-shock therapy or gynecology
Jennifer at some rabbits: some sort of scale
Daisy the Curly Cat: dog leash with handy pooper-scooper tongs attached
Dr. Lauren at The Ancient Digger: possibly a torture device
John at English Wilderness: weird candle snuffer or tapestry hanging device
Kirsten at The Soccer Mom Files: elephant nose tweezers
Grace at Hugz Before You Go
Joanne at Poetic Shutterbug
Hairball at Hairballs On the Carpet of Life: a pickle grabber with a wrist strap
Babette at Babette Feasts: an ice grabber with a wrist strap
Thank you all, you make it so much fun! More to come in the next weeks: more Friday mysteries of course, and posts involving Victorian ghosts, Victorian fortune tellers, a strange tale of the Mexican War, and one of the oddest medical ads I have ever seen.
[The picture of the 1870s ladies is from the NYPL Digital Gallery.]
5 comments:
Well, that was cool and very informative, thanks for the fun.
Jude - It really was fun, I like learning about weird little things like this!
With a finger ring attached? Why I never...!
Thanks for the fun learnings.
Urg, I could have actually answered this correctly. Shame on me for taking some time off and just now catching up! :-) From what I hear, ball gowns sometimes had these sewn into the design so a woman could waltz gracefully and not trip on her train. furthermore, having worn some of these types of garments, a finger would be severely tired by the end of the day lifting a skirt over and over! Oy, the clothes weigh a lot.
http://pastperiodspress.com
P.L. - It was fun! Now I need to find something else fun (actually I have but I don't know if I can grab the image)
Norkio - I was thinking that too, a finger ring would have been very uncomfortable, holding up all those skirts...
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