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Hoplite

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Tangent here. I usually write in the early medieval period when practically nothing was written done. Now I'm writing in the early modern period for this WIP and it's kind of bonkers how much easier and harder it is in some ways. I have actual facts I can check! ...I have actual facts to check.

The blessing, and bane, of writing outside of dark ages.
 

benbenberi

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Tangent here. I usually write in the early medieval period when practically nothing was written done. Now I'm writing in the early modern period for this WIP and it's kind of bonkers how much easier and harder it is in some ways. I have actual facts I can check! ...I have actual facts to check.

I feel your pain. One of the original reasons I transferred my WIP from historical fiction (set in the 1650s) to historical fantasy was that I knew that there was extensive written evidence about precisely what some of my characters were doing, where they were, who they were interacting with, etc., on specific days throughout the duration of the storyline. I had handled some of the letters in the archives! But I hadn't had time to dig into them deeply, or take real notes. And I knew that (1) I was probably never going to be able to get time in that archive to do the research, and (2) knowing that the facts were abundantly documented, and available for anyone who could do the research, I couldn't just invent what I wanted for my story. However plausible it might have been, I would still KNOW I was making shit up because getting the facts right was inconvenient.
 

autumnleaf

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They slept together in the same bed that whole time, and the parents just pretended they were good friends.

It used to be a lot more common for men to sleep in the same bed without anyone considering them gay. Abraham Lincoln, for example, used to share a bed with his friend on the campaign trail. Some modern writers have interpreted this as proof that Lincoln was gay, but it isn't.

Some letter writers would commonly address their same-sex friends as "dearest" and other terms that modern readers would interpret as romantic, but contemporary readers would just see as expressions of close friendship.

I'm guessing that many gay couples flew under the radar in this way.
 

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It used to be a lot more common for men to sleep in the same bed without anyone considering them gay. Abraham Lincoln, for example, used to share a bed with his friend on the campaign trail. Some modern writers have interpreted this as proof that Lincoln was gay, but it isn't.

Some letter writers would commonly address their same-sex friends as "dearest" and other terms that modern readers would interpret as romantic, but contemporary readers would just see as expressions of close friendship.

I'm guessing that many gay couples flew under the radar in this way.

It is really interesting how very affectionate, both emotionally and physically, male friends were in the 19th and even early 20th C. In the 19th C it's quite common to see photographic portraits with friends or brothers holding hands (http://www.formerdays.com/2013/05/friends-of-civil-war.html) and even in the 1920s, the films have male friends hugging and having their arms around each other casually all the time in a way you'd never see in the 1950s. So "they're just really good friends" wouldn't be such an eye-raiser a lot of the time, which hopefully helped couples out a bit. You do wonder sometimes though... just yesterday I came across this ca. 1850 daguerreotype where one man flat out has his thigh over that of the other man, with that man's hand resting on it: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection...0150624&ao=on&ft=*&what=Daguerreotypes&pos=75 . The person writing the caption points out that men were more easily physically affectionate then, but still, I have to wonder about their conclusion the men are "more likely" friends than lovers....
 

flapperphilosopher

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That's not surprising, considering how little standardization there was among cars at the time. And you just know if you had a character turning a key when it should have been a starter button, someone would catch it.

Exactly... I'm always on the lookout for those tiny differences!

I got lucky and found a memoir by a St. Paul man that describes the community immediately after World War II. That and a more general book about the gay history in the Twin Cities are really all I've got to go on. Pre-1960s, there just isn't much documented.

As you can imagine, the gay scene was very closeted. St. Paul had one gay bar and it was very low key. No dancing, no PDAs--basically nothing to give away what kind of place it was. Most of the regulars only knew each other by first names. Apart from that, there were a few recognized cruising spots where a man could pick up a date, but you always ran the risk of getting arrested or assaulted.

It sounds terribly isolating and lonely, but it was also kind of amazing what people could get away with. I read one anecdote about two men who lived for more than fifteen years with the parents of one half of the couple. They slept together in the same bed that whole time, and the parents just pretended they were good friends.

Interesting! A memoir like that is really striking gold for that kind of thing. It's sad, though, how incredibly careful you had to be (or have to be, in some parts of the world). At the moment in the part of downtown Toronto where I work every single business I pass from the subway to my work (including big ones like Starbucks) has at least one big rainbow flag up, if not several and/or rainbow decorations. The major banks are trying to out gay-pride each other in their subway ads. It sort of amuses me, then I stop and think wow... I live in a time and place where putting a big pride flag in your store's front window is considered the thing to do. That's really something.

OK, this is going to sound hokey and silly. But here goes.

I joined this forum just a couple months ago, in January. I've participated as I could, here and there, now and then. I've asked a few questions, shared a few things for critique, etc. But I felt I was floating, and not really 'part' of the AW community yet.

All of a sudden, I feel at home. I'm rooted (I first wrote that as rotted!) now. I don't know why something as simple as a relaxation/community forum in historical fiction should work such wonders, and so quickly, but it has. Woohoo!

Glad I brought that peat. Looks like we need another soon!

Aww that is so nice! I am very happy with this thread too, it's nice to get the chance to hang out, I like you guys. :)
 

Lillith1991

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It is really interesting how very affectionate, both emotionally and physically, male friends were in the 19th and even early 20th C. In the 19th C it's quite common to see photographic portraits with friends or brothers holding hands (http://www.formerdays.com/2013/05/friends-of-civil-war.html) and even in the 1920s, the films have male friends hugging and having their arms around each other casually all the time in a way you'd never see in the 1950s. So "they're just really good friends" wouldn't be such an eye-raiser a lot of the time, which hopefully helped couples out a bit. You do wonder sometimes though... just yesterday I came across this ca. 1850 daguerreotype where one man flat out has his thigh over that of the other man, with that man's hand resting on it: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection...0150624&ao=on&ft=*&what=Daguerreotypes&pos=75 . The person writing the caption points out that men were more easily physically affectionate then, but still, I have to wonder about their conclusion the men are "more likely" friends than lovers....


Flapper, having looked at other pictures of friends from the time, I agree with you. I wonder how they came up with the friends conclusion in the second photo? It seems to go beyond what is typical for an period when admitedly a lot of affection between friends was seen as normal. Other pictures I've seen generally have a couple points of contact, but the second picture has the two friends legs entwined, one with his arm around the other, and each man resting a hand on the others leg. That seems like a lot even for the time period, and even if the pair had a epic romantic friendship/bromance. Which for me is telling, because that's the only way I can see it not being romantic in the sense of what modern western people think of as romantic, as friendship that simulates a romance in intensity and depth.
 

flapperphilosopher

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Flapper, having looked at other pictures of friends from the time, I agree with you. I wonder how they came up with the friends conclusion in the second photo? It seems to go beyond what is typical for an period when admitedly a lot of affection between friends was seen as normal. Other pictures I've seen generally have a couple points of contact, but the second picture has the two friends legs entwined, one with his arm around the other, and each man resting a hand on the others leg. That seems like a lot even for the time period, and even if the pair had a epic romantic friendship/bromance. Which for me is telling, because that's the only way I can see it not being romantic in the sense of what modern western people think of as romantic, as friendship that simulates a romance in intensity and depth.

Exactly...I'm in the old photo field and I've looked at heaps of 19th century portraits. Men holding hands, men with a hand on each other's leg, par for the course, no reason to see it as more than friendship or brotherhood. Thigh over thigh, with hands on upper legs--that's unusually intimate. If not romance (in our current implying-sleeping-together-or-wanting-to sense) definitely that kind of highly intense close "romantic friendship", and certainly a striking glimpse at a very intimate relationship from over 150 years ago.
 

Lillith1991

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Exactly...I'm in the old photo field and I've looked at heaps of 19th century portraits. Men holding hands, men with a hand on each other's leg, par for the course, no reason to see it as more than friendship or brotherhood. Thigh over thigh, with hands on upper legs--that's unusually intimate. If not romance (in our current implying-sleeping-together-or-wanting-to sense) definitely that kind of highly intense close "romantic friendship", and certainly a striking glimpse at a very intimate relationship from over 150 years ago.

I've got my slash goggles, and a love of history to thank for seeing exactly what you meant. Who knew that slash goggles could be useful outside of fanfiction world? Not me, that's for sure.

Though I will admit they make looking at history interesting. For example, the relationship between William Lee, a slave of Washington and Washington himself was interesting to say the least. He did all sorts of things for Lee you wouldn't have expected him to do, and talks an awful lot about Lee's sentiment for him over the years. I haven't been able to find as much on the pair as I would like, but what I have found suggests an extremely strong friendship between master and slave that probably would have been called a romanctic friendship or bromance now. And that still doesn't stop me from wondering precisly what Washington meant by sentiment, since it means several things just like the word friendship could mean several things.
 
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Tocotin

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I could never get the hang of geta, for some reason.

It depends on the type. Geta are an equivalent of high heels for men and women, so they aren't really meant to be comfortable. I've only ever worn komageta and they were okay, but other types... ugh. My MC wears straw sandals for the most part, also because geta were expensive.

Flapperphilosopher, that picture is awesome. I'd like to think they were lovers, but also it's not impossible that it's a joke.
 

Sunflowerrei

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That's a really interesting find, Flapper. I love old photos. I recently found a picture of my grandfather as a toddler with his grandmother (so, my great-great grandmother) from the 1920s. I had no idea we had a picture of the great-great-grandmother.

Also...Victorian death portraits. Whoa, creepy.
 

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Flapperphilosopher, that picture is awesome. I'd like to think they were lovers, but also it's not impossible that it's a joke.

Certainly it's not impossible, but I think it's even more unlikely than them being lovers-- you see it's a daguerreotype, which were the first photographs made commercially, 1840-1860, and were literally photographs on silver mirrors. They were very expensive, and even the most upper-classes might only get one or two ever (or at least until photos got cheaper, which wasn't a guarentee at the time). So there's just about no playfulness in them. I'm crazy about old silly pictures and I can't recall ever finding a silly daguerreotype. Photos did get cheaper very quickly, and from the 1850s onwards you do start seeing more and more interest in playing around for the camera-- this tintype, for instance (probably 1860s-90s) has a guy sitting with his leg over his friends' shoulders: https://www.flickr.com/photos/20939975@N04/2459705264/in/album-72157604818154297/ but is clearly an intentionally silly pose (you can especially tell from their expressions) and part of a silly set these three guys made for funsies: https://www.flickr.com/photos/20939975@N04/sets/72157604818154297 . In 1880 it wasn't such a big deal to spend money on a silly photo, but in 1850 it really would have been. Though if these two guys were the extremely rare pair who DID, that's great too, so it's a win of a photo all round! :)
 

mayqueen

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This conversation is super interesting. My day job is as a historical sociologist. (Why am I not just "a historian" or "a sociologist"? Long boring story.) It's always fun (is that the right word? Interesting?) to think about the gap between the written record and what actually happened. Given that written accounts are never ever "just the facts, ma'am", but always written from someone's perspective, it's so difficult to know. Were they friends or lovers? How can we use our current sociocultural lens to decipher the answer? (That is not a rhetorical question.)

Yeah, death portraits. Wow.
 

flapperphilosopher

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That's a really interesting find, Flapper. I love old photos. I recently found a picture of my grandfather as a toddler with his grandmother (so, my great-great grandmother) from the 1920s. I had no idea we had a picture of the great-great-grandmother.

Also...Victorian death portraits. Whoa, creepy.

That's awesome!! The other year when one of my grandmothers died, we found she had a bunch of old family photos I'd never ever seen, including a couple from the late 19th century of my great-grandmother as a baby and even a carte-de-visite from 1885 of my great-great-grandfather as a young-ish man. Amazing, isn't it, how we can actually look at what such distant ancestors looked like? It trips me out when I think before the invention of photography, no one but the very rich would have ever seen what any relatives who died before them looked like.

Post-mortem photos really creep me out too, though in the context of the above I suppose getting a picture of them dead was better than never having any picture of them ever....
 

flapperphilosopher

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This conversation is super interesting. My day job is as a historical sociologist. (Why am I not just "a historian" or "a sociologist"? Long boring story.) It's always fun (is that the right word? Interesting?) to think about the gap between the written record and what actually happened. Given that written accounts are never ever "just the facts, ma'am", but always written from someone's perspective, it's so difficult to know. Were they friends or lovers? How can we use our current sociocultural lens to decipher the answer? (That is not a rhetorical question.)

Yeah, death portraits. Wow.

Interesting!! In my undergrad days I discovered the existence of the Journal of Historical Sociology (I think it's called, or some combo of those words) and thought, ooo, historical sociology, that sounds fun! I was already 3rd year or so though and had never taken any sociology, so plain old interdisciplinary social history it was for me. What approaches would you take to deciphering something like that photograph through a sociocultural lens?
 

ElaineA

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I had never seen a formal death photo (nor did I know it was a "thing") until a friend took me to the Museum of Death. They had a number of baby ones, which, I suppose made a macabre sense. People who lost their children in that time didn't have lots of candid shots of their babies to remember them by like we do now. At least they had one peaceful-looking photo for memory-sake.
 

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I forgot to mention that the photo of my great-great-grandmother and little toddler grandfather was on my Japanese side, so she's in a kimono, looking very Meiji era, which is when we figure she was probably born.

As for the death portraits, the peaceful ones I can understand--how else were they supposed to be able to remember what the deceased looked like? But there were some--and I stole this idea to use in the Victorian-era novel I'm working on--where the dead person is sitting up or standing up, sometimes with a relative beside them. There were a few that I saw where I couldn't tell which was the living person and which was the dead person.
 

ElaineA

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As for the death portraits, the peaceful ones I can understand--how else were they supposed to be able to remember what the deceased looked like? But there were some--and I stole this idea to use in the Victorian-era novel I'm working on--where the dead person is sitting up or standing up, sometimes with a relative beside them. There were a few that I saw where I couldn't tell which was the living person and which was the dead person.

Okay, that tips the macabre scale. *cringes*

I think it's time for a drink. I think it's mead for me this evening.
 

autumnleaf

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Also...Victorian death portraits. Whoa, creepy.

Maybe I'm weird, but I find them touching rather than creepy. It was likely the only photo the family would have of that person, especially if it was a child. I've known people who had a photo taken of their stillborn baby, for that very reason.
 

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I want to hear about the swordfights! Not being able to bend or twist would be a liability I'd think. Of course, the stays could slightly protective as well - I've run across (unreliable) 19th century newspaper articles of them deflecting bullets and such.

(And yay for breast support - I am a 36DD post-baby and having a devil of a time with bras.)

The breast support was an awesome part of the sword-fighting in a corset! We did a living chessgame on a wooden, life-sized chess board. When each piece took another piece, everyone would clear off the board and a fight would ensue. We would use broadswords, rapiers, quarterstaves, etc. Lots of fun! We worked all year with the acting, fight choreography, etc. Sometimes it was horribly cheesy, but we had fun! And it was set in the Viscaya Museum and Gardens in Miami - a fantastic setting. Manor house, maze gardens, fountains, etc. http://vizcaya.org/

No corsets, but I found a video on youtube from one of our games (1993!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONNM6FbVIE - The players are my friends Ian and Rees. You can see what we did - I was somewhere in the background (not a star player!)

And yes, our costumes weren't always quite period - sometimes for safety reasons.

And some more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IaiEuNt4Cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bowaYN1LPEE (not in a corset, but she's wearing full Italian Renaissance velvet dress in the Florida sun!)

This is a group similar to ours (Florida Renaissance Festival) and does have some fighting in corsets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsdWaToGLkc
 
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mayqueen

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Interesting!! In my undergrad days I discovered the existence of the Journal of Historical Sociology (I think it's called, or some combo of those words) and thought, ooo, historical sociology, that sounds fun! I was already 3rd year or so though and had never taken any sociology, so plain old interdisciplinary social history it was for me. What approaches would you take to deciphering something like that photograph through a sociocultural lens?
I don't think I'd be all that different from a discipline historian. It would be a lot of first trying to figure out who the people were in the photo, who took it, when it was taken, etc. Then I'd try to determine what was going on at the time that might have shaped why the photo was taken and why it looks like it does. I'd also do a bit of a discourse analysis to figure out what the men in the photo and the photographer were intending to convey and how it would have been viewed then (like the link talks about being pre-Freud -- so what were the other messages about masculinity and same-sex relations floating around?). So a lot of embedding the photo in its historical and cultural context. I think where my field differs is that we are concerned more about representativeness. How many other photos like this exist? How many other photos of men? Etc.
 

marinapr9

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Oooh, yes let's talk wardrobe. I need to research more clothing details for my 1870s project, one of them being how someone might conceal weapons in a dress of the time. Did I mention one of the weapons is pretty much a machete?

Meanwhile, my MCs from my Reconstruction novel are watching the sparring match that is the White People Writing PoC thread. Jack lights a cheroot. Maggie pours a glass of whiskey. He reaches for it, she glares and bangs down the bottle. "Get your own."

Victorian dresses had pockets. Big ones. I learned that in writing my book about the American Civil War. Not sure if it would carry a machete safely, but they were pretty deep.
 

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It's sort of amazing (and horrifying) to realize how deadly infections were before antibiotics... I was skimming a newspaper from ca. 1920 (I forget the exact year) in the course of my day job research and noticed an article about a man in his early 20s who'd died of blood poisioning.... from getting a scratch on his cheek from the hairpin of a lady sitting next to him on a streetcar!!! :S


Even more horrifying was the use of mercury for many diseases in the nineteenth century. Blue mass, for example, a mixture of mercury and chalk, was used extensively in the Civil War. It burned huge holes in people's faces and ate away bone and flesh.
 

flapperphilosopher

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I don't think I'd be all that different from a discipline historian. It would be a lot of first trying to figure out who the people were in the photo, who took it, when it was taken, etc. Then I'd try to determine what was going on at the time that might have shaped why the photo was taken and why it looks like it does. I'd also do a bit of a discourse analysis to figure out what the men in the photo and the photographer were intending to convey and how it would have been viewed then (like the link talks about being pre-Freud -- so what were the other messages about masculinity and same-sex relations floating around?). So a lot of embedding the photo in its historical and cultural context. I think where my field differs is that we are concerned more about representativeness. How many other photos like this exist? How many other photos of men? Etc.

Sounds right up my alley! I finally took a course in sociology in my 4th year and loved it--looking back I think a double major in history and sociology would have been a great idea for me. I'm very interested in social history and always make sure to see what those in the social sciences have to say about my topics, which can be so illuminating. Neat to meet a real life historical sociologist! :)

(off-topic--my internet spellcheck is very odd. I mistyped historical as "hisotircal," and the only option it gave me was "sophistical". :Wha: )

Even more horrifying was the use of mercury for many diseases in the nineteenth century. Blue mass, for example, a mixture of mercury and chalk, was used extensively in the Civil War. It burned huge holes in people's faces and ate away bone and flesh.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
 
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mayqueen

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The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia is super interesting and also disturbing. I saw a traveling exhibit there about Civil War medicine. I have never been more grateful for penicillin.

Neat to meet a real life historical sociologist! :)
Aww thanks! This might be the only place that anyone says that to me.
 

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Good morning time travelers!

Curious- what are you reading these days? I finish Conn Iggulden's Conqeueror series a few weeks ago. I admittedly have not read any Bernard Cornwell before.. so I picked up The Last Kingdom a few days ago. I burned through it and it's sequel the last few days. I am about half way through the third book in the Saxon Tales series, Lords of the North, now.

I really like that Uhtred is the only PoV character. But it is also in 1st person, which is kind of offputting for me. I like reading 3rd person. But it seems hard to find a single PoV in 3rd person.