Think of 1920s Ireland and images of war and brutality come to mind. With upheavals from 1920 to 1925 it’s hard to think or believe that life did go on albeit at a perhaps more fractious pace. Ordinary life did prevail around bullets and bombs; people got married, went to work and school, shopped for clothing, and went on holidays. And surprise surprise Irish women did bob their hair, shorten their hemlines, and danced the Charleston and shock horror where just as much a Flapper as their British counterpart! View Post
The Stitches That Made It To The Moon
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon. When Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon, they were wearing state of the art space suits designed by Playtex. Playtex as in the company that pioneered the use of latex in women’s undergarments including girdles and long-line bras. The spacesuits where designed by Playtex and where stitched by female seamstresses who already worked for the company such as Hazel Fellows, Anna Lee Minner, Lillie Elliott and Ruth Anna Ratledge. There is even a somewhat hilarious video of a man wearing an early version of one of the space suits to test out the limitations of the suit itself.
The Tenement House, Glasgow; A Social History Lover’s Paradise
In June I re-visited one of my favourite museums in Scotland; The Tenement House in the West End of Glasgow. The museum was the home of Miss. Agnes Toward (and her mother) from 1911 until 1965 when she entered long-time hospital care before dying in 1972. The Tenement House was sold to the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) in the early 1980s and is a microcosm of one woman’s lifetime experiences from the early to mid-twentieth century.