The Tricora Corset

Is it just me or do the two corsets - the horrible one and the delightful one - look exactly the same?

They both look rather awful, actually.

Jennie June (real name: Jane Cunningham Croly) was a English-born American journalist, editor and writer who organized the first women's clubs in America. She was a journalism professor at Rutgers Women's College (later Rutgers University).

Annie Jenness Miller wrote and lectured on the subject of dress reform, and edited Dress magazine; more information about her is here at Vintage Connection.

This 1899 ad is from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

The Glass Bridge

In December 1891 there was a terrible double murder in the tenement building at 35 Moore Street in Brooklyn: Jewish immigrant Frieda Borchinsky, age about 30, and her five year old son Isaac, were bludgeoned to death in the middle  of the day - with no one, apparently, hearing or seeing anything.

Several arrests were made, and the police suspected that Max Borchinsky, Frieda's husband and Isaac's father, knew more than he was telling, but the case remained unsolved. The Borchinsky funeral took place in a local livery stable; the family was so poor that a collection had to be made to gather the $30 undertaker's fee.

And then strange things started to happen:

In the spring of 1892, a young woman named Bertha Springer went to the police. She told them that she was engaged to Max Borchinsky "but [that] his actions were so strange in her company and he kept telling her in his melancholy moments that if he married her he might immediately after be arrested [and so] she now hesitates about becoming his wife." He told Bertha: "I am on a glass bridge that may break at any moment, and if I was sent to prison you would be so unhappy." Bertha told the police that Max kept talking about the glass bridge. So she came to the station to get some advice. The clerk on duty listened, then told her "to make a careful investigation and question him further about the glass bridge." She said she would, and left.

The summer of that same year, people reported seeing the white ghost face of little Isaac, always on Saturday at dusk at the end of the Sabbath. Men coming home from synagogue saw his "white baby face" at the third story window.The tenants fled; no one would live there, even rent free.  Women covered their faces if they had to walk by 35 Moore Street. The three-story brick tenement house was torn down soon after this because people said it was haunted and no one would go near it. 

Max Borchinsky was arrested for his wife and son's murder two years later, in 1894. He had been engaged to several young women, and one of them (not Bertha Springer) had him arrested for failure to repay a debt of several hundred dollars. During the inquiry, he seems to have contradicted himself and given the police reason to believe that he was the murderer (the papers never specify the evidence, though). Miss Springer seems to have moved on, fearing the man who stood upon the glass bridge.

Ironically, the man who finally bought the haunted tenement, tore it down and would build a warehouse on the site - was, according to the Eagle, a plate-glass importer.

Source: "Wants to Wed," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Apr 22, 1892, p. 6.

[Note: The Borchinsky case has many interesting facets which I have omitted for the sake of (relative) brevity.]

Other articles about the Borchinsky case:

Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
"The Borchinsky Double Murder," Dec. 16, 1891, p. 6.
"In the Dark," Dec. 17, 1891, p. 5.
"Lowly Burial," Dec. 18, 1891, p. 5.
"Not For Money," Jan. 15, 1892, p. 6.
"Waiting to See a Ghost," Jul. 3, 1892, p. 20.
"How Boschinsky [sic] Was Caught," Jun. 17, 1894, p. 24.

New York Times:
"The Bloch Murder Case," Dec. 17, 1891, p. 9 [Borchinsky had changed his name, temporarily, to Black/Bloch, but evidently reverted to Borchinsky later]
"The Borchinsky Murder," Jan. 16, 1892, p. 2.
"For Murders Almost Forgotten," Jun. 16, 1894, p. 5.

Image of people crossing the East River "Ice Bridge" in 1871 from the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Headline News 1871

Here are some news flashes from the Brooklyn Eagle on April 6, 1871 (p.1). They were collected as "Miscellaneous Items." These are the ones I liked the best. I learned a few odd useless facts too, which is always enjoyable:

The orange crop at Los Angelos [sic] is a success.

Von Moltke, minus potato

Von Moltke [chief of staff of the Prussian Army] has had a new variety of potato named after him [see Culinary Note below]*

New York City daily spends $8500 for bread, and $10,000 for cigars.


The name of a revenue collector in the Eighth Ohio District is Robb.

It costs more for eggs than for flour in first-class hotels.

The New York City Hall Park has been provided with fixed iron chairs.

City Hall Park ca 1900

William Cullen Bryant, before coffee.

The venerable poet editor Bryant  [William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) poet, journalist and editor of the New York Evening Post] gets up at 6 o'clock, takes a bath, and eats a light breakfast.

The number of horses imported into New Hampshire from Canada was never so large as at the present time.

Martin Tupper, in a pensive pose

A Cincinnatian who rashly asked for Martin F. Tupper's autograph, received by return post an autograph letter and four photographs of the proverbial philosopher, taken in different positions. [Tupper, (1810-1889), was an English writer and poet of great effusiveness; at Picture History it is noted that "his vanity...was so much a part of everything he wrote."]

Culinary Note: I didn't find out what sort of potato was named after Von Moltke, but here is a recipe from Dressed Vegetables à la Mode by Harriet Anne De Salis (London 1888, p. 52):

Potatoes à la Moltke

Take about eight good-sized potatoes, peel and cut them into long thin slices. Have ready three tablespoons of butter mixed with two tablespoonfuls of flour and put them in a stewpan and stir over the fire till the butter is a good brown colour; then add half a pint of broth and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Put the potatoes in this gravy and let them simmer gently till tender, which will be in twelve to fifteen minutes. Serve very hot. Some cooks put in a bay-leaf to simmer with the potatoes.

The pictures of Von Moltke and Bryant are from Wikipedia (links above); the California oranges from NYPL Digital Gallery; and Martin Tupper is from Picture History. City Hall Park postcard (circa 1900) from NYPL Digital Gallery.

1870s Beach Fashions: The Flannel Swimming Costume

When you go to the beach this summer, take a moment to consider how it would feel to be wearing the equivalent of flannel pajamas - because this is just what you'd be doing if you lived in the 1870s.*

In 1872 white or colored flannel "with shaded bands and woven fringe" was suggested  for bathing costumes - matched with flannel bathing caps and flannel shoes, too. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 1, 1872, p. 3) Peterson's Magazine agreed: in 1870, they noted that

...the best materials used for bathing-dresses are gray or dark-blue flannel, being the lightest in texture, cheapest in price, but [than?] moreen or tweed [!!]; and some persons recommend common bed-ticking as being better than anything else.

Moreen was a "plain stout cloth of worsted," according to David Booth's An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language (1836, p 185) - it was used for drapes and upholstery, mostly - not swimsuits.

In August 1879 the Eagle stated that "the new seaside costume is called the dragon, and it is made in both plain and checked cashmere, and worn with a cloth jacket that has a military plastron; it is fashioned with small metal buttons." They recycled trends even in the Victorian era, it seems, because 'the dragon' sounds just like the woman's costume in the 1872 picture at right. 

And just think about the idea of cashmere or tweed at the beach - it almost makes flannel (or bed-ticking) sound comfortable. Almost.

Not everyone liked flannel beachwear, though: "The most useful and becoming bathing dresses available are made of navy blue cloth in plainest style. White materials are not suitable, especially for large persons, and white flannel should never be used, since it is entirely worthless after having been once in the water." (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 17, 1879, p. 2)

The picture of the flannel bathing costume is from Peterson's Magazine (July 1872) via the NYPL Digital Gallery; as is the picture of the woman and girl in flannel beach attire, also from Peterson's (August 1870), here.

* Wait 'til you see what they were wearing on the beach in the 1850s and 1860s! - post on that coming later this month, along with the story of Lurline the Water Queen and more on Fred Bell (this link has links to all the Fred Bell posts).

Perhaps A Dime Museum Can Be A Book

"My doll is asking, are these are summer clothes?" "Yes, dear, this is 1849."

Just a little update...

There is something that I love about stories that are true. When I was in grad school, what inspired me was how in the really popular, third-rate Victorian novels, the writers put in all sorts of extraneous things about fashion and parties and everyday life, in a way that Dickens (for example) did not (because he was more artistic/creative/what have you). In other words - things about real life. Things that were not made up.

And it is no surprise I guess that it is hard for me to write fiction. I have not given it up or anything but I am looking at all the posts I have written here - which were always meant to form the basis of a book - and I'm thinking about what to do with them. It may well be that what I was meant to do was more of, say, an encyclopedia of odd pop-cultural moments in NYC history: fortune tellers and mock marriages and emerald fireworks over Brooklyn Heights in the 1840s. I've found the story of a bigamous woman in the 1850s in NYC that is fascinating. And more true crime. And ghost stories. And patent medicines.

I've also discovered some 18th century ancestors (in Germany) who were actors and actresses (one of them had his own traveling troupe), and another who was a minor poet-playwright who was not a success, and ended up working as a court secretary. He kept writing poems, though, even while he was a court secretary - which in itself is rather inspiring to me! Anyway, I might write about them once I translate all the masses of information I have about them, most of which is in Fraktur (an old-fashioned, Gothic typeface that is a bit tricky to read, never mind that my German is a bit rusty anyway).

So it may be that I will continue Dime Museum while shaping selected posts into a pop history book. Or else I'll start that new blog specifically for the pop history book project. I will also probably try my hand at fictionalizing some of the stories - just for fun, which will take the pressure off. Oh, and I'm going to revive my reading skills in German, too (I'll give it a good try, though).

The image is from NYPL Digital Gallery and shows the latest fashions for August 1849 from Godey's Lady's Book. I can't imagine wearing this sort of thing in August - even if it wasn't quite as hot as this August is turning out to be!