Maggie's Journey to 20th Century Historical Mysteries and Romance

It’s a delight to be here on the release day for my second Lady Adelaide Mystery, Who’s Sorry Now?

More about Addie later, but I thought I might start with…the start. Like so many romance authors, I began my career writing Regency historicals, because who can argue with Georgette Heyer? I wrote two series, the Courtesan Court and London List books, although technically George the IVth was on the throne in the third Courtesan Court although he hadn’t had his coronation. J

And then, I came across a photograph of my grandmother and her sisters, known collectively as “the beautiful Miller sisters.” She was the youngest of eight siblings, and the seventh sister (her poor brother), born in 1887 or 1889. The discrepancy results from all the sisters changing their birthdates in the family Bible, the minxes.

Seeing them in their Edwardian finery around the turn of the twentieth century inspired me to write the Ladies Unlaced series, all featuring young women anxious to embrace societal changes. Telephones! Cars! Jobs! Suffrage! All of the Miller sisters save for my grandmother were redheads; some never married, and those that did were either very late to do so, or wound up scandalously divorced. I believe they must have been forces to reckon with.

After a brief foray into the Victorian era (the Cotswold Confidential novels), I turned again to the twentieth century, only this time I decided to try a mystery—quite a challenge for a writer who loves research but does not plot.

At all.

Thus came Lady Adelaide Compton, a widowed marquess’ daughter in possession of seven automobiles. It would have been eight, but her late husband crashed it, along with his French mistress, into a stone wall. There’s a strong vein of romance in the series, because Addie is a pretty, rich widow—who wouldn’t want to be husband number 2? Well, except for Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter from Scotland Yard, an ambitious Anglo-Indian fully away of society’s constraints. Will Addie break him down? TBD.

I’ve discovered the 1920s were an absolute golden age of music. As a little girl, I saved my allowance to buy a 45 of Connie Francis’ Who’s Sorry Now, loving her voice. Who could imagine it was written in 1923? And who could imagine it would be the perfect title for a mystery set in 1925 amongst the Bright Young People in London, whose only goal was to have to no goal but lots of fun?  The more things change, the more they stay the same, with apologies to the French.

And here’s my grandmother, as a young mother during the Great War, and as a gay divorcee sometime in the late twenties or early thirties. I think she’d be tickled to know how she’s inspired me. Do you have favorite old family photographs?

Maggie Robinson is a former teacher, library clerk, and mother of four who woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely compelled to create the perfect man and use as many adjectives and adverbs as possible doing so.

A transplanted New Yorker, she lives with her not-quite perfect husband in Maine, where the cold winters are ideal for staying inside and writing historical mysteries and romances.

A two-time Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice nominee, her books have been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Thai, Dutch, and Italian. Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Romance Writers of America, and Maine Romance Writers.

You can find Maggie's website at www.maggierobinson.net. She's also on  Twitter @maggielrobinson  and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maggie.robinson.165

Women's Work in the Victorian Era

by Christy Carlyle

William Powell Frith, Many Happy Returns, 1856

[This post was first published at RTG in May of 2014. Updated reprint with author's permission.]

The topic of women’s work in the Victorian era is more complex than you might imagine. During the 19^th century a popular notion of woman as a kind of domestic goddess or “Angel in the House,” based on a popular poem by Coventry Patmore, became prevalent, but the realities of the era were a bit different.

Though many women were responsible for the running of increasingly large families (due in part to an improved infant mortality rate) and tackled the role of household management with skill and finesse, many households were also dependent on women’s work outside the home. In some cases, this meant mothers and married women, particularly widows who had become de facto head of household, were required to supplement or supply the family’s income, but young women, even juvenile girls, also sought various forms of employment during the period.

Women and girls working in a match factory.

With the industrial boom of the mid-Victorian era, technology created a host of new jobs, many of which skilled men eschewed. But even when men were willing to take manufacturing jobs, employers often undercut them by securing the less costly labor of immigrants, women, and children.

Domestic service, in all its various forms, was the most common type of work women pursued outside the home. Work in the textile and clothing sectors was also common, including employment as seamstresses, laundresses, and work in mills that manufactured fabric. Family businesses, such as inn-keeping, might offer women opportunities for more administrative work, such as bookkeeping, managing stock, assisting clients, etc.

Female telegraph operators.

Compulsory elementary education became law in Britain beginning in 1871, but even before the law, women with access to education worked in fields such as teaching, nursing, journalism, and later in the century as telegraph operators, typewriter girls, secretaries, or in retail establishments.

Women of means and leisure often worked too. Though their efforts may have been unpaid, charities have been reliant for centuries on the work of women to care for the poor, sick, injured, and mentally or physically disabled. As the tail end of Victoria’s reign coincided with the start of the Progressive Era, women organized in increasing numbers to do the work of social activism and political reform, taking up the banner of women’s rights, suffrage, safer conditions in the workplace, child labor laws, and addressing many of the other social ills of the period.

Unfortunately, women’s activism and role as breadwinner did not mean she was freed from domestic duties at home. Still the main caretaker at home, Victorian women were often faced with the duel burden of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and caring for children inside the house while earning a supplemental wage outside the home too. While women juggle the same challenges today, Victorian women did not enjoy the luxuries of automatic dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and tumble dryers.

Female nurses on a children's ward.

Also, the choice to pursue employment might curtail a young woman’s options to “have it all” as many of us strive for today. 

In researching the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel for my book, Wanton Wager, I learned that young women who had committed themselves to employment as nurses in the hospital were forbidden from marrying. This meant women had to remain single, with no family to care for them, into their old age. The result is that women worked far past what we might consider retirement age. One story I read mentioned a woman who continued working as a nurse into her eighties because she had no other means of supporting herself.

Women have faced challenges in every century, but the Victorian era offered a unique set regarding the balance of work and home life, while also offering women increased options for employment. By century’s end, women were attending medical school and the U.S. had its first female attorney (that first would not occur in Britain until after the turn of the century). It is difficult to deny that opportunities abounded along with the challenges.

~*~

Wanton Wager (Whitechapel Wagers, Book 2) is set in Victorian London's dangerous East End and matches scarred Afghan War veteran, William Selsby, with spirited Whitechapel nurse, Ada Hamilton. When the two join forces to find Ada's missing sister, they discover passion despite their differences.

BIO:
Fueled by Pacific Northwest coffee and inspired by multiple viewings of every British costume drama she can get her hands on, USA Today bestselling author Christy Carlyle writes sensual historical romance set in the Victorian era. She loves heroes who struggle against all odds and heroines who are ahead of their time. A former teacher with a degree in history, she finds there's nothing better than being able to combine her love of the past with a die-hard belief in happy endings.

Contact Christy at christy@christycarlyle.com or find out more at www.christycarlyle.com

The Magic of Time Travel

 by Kristin Holt

I’m one of those lucky (truly, no sarcasm here) kids whose parents moved every couple of years. I attended 5 elementary schools, 2 junior high/middle schools, 1 high school, and 2 universities. I remember Michigan, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Texas, and California. If I had the awesome opportunity to live in another time or place, I’d choose the TIME option.

My reasons are simple:
1.  I’m enamored of all things pertaining to history of the American West,
2.  …because I write Sweet Victorian Romance set in the American West…
3.  …which means I’m constantly studying, researching, learning all about it.
4.  Wouldn’t it be cool to LIVE the Old West, rather than simply read about it?

 

Reading fiction set in my favorite historical time period in history is the best kind of time machine. I don’t need to leave my climate-controlled home, give up fresh produce in the middle of winter or an Internet connection…and I can escape at will into my favorite era and location. To me, reading fiction is a captivating distraction from anything or everything; when stressed I “hide in fiction”. I fall in, the world disappears, and my mind and soul is fully occupied in another place and another time. Best. Therapy. Ever.

When writing my soon-to-be-released novella, Courting Miss Cartwright (included in Cowboys & Calico, a 5-author novella collection coming 7-30-16 to Amazon), I spent weeks immersed in 1879 Colorado. I enjoyed researching the status of gold and silver mining in Colorado, including the big strike in Leadville, and the impact upon my characters and nearby fictitious town of Mountain Home, Colorado. Given the summer of 1879 is indelibly branded upon my brain this July, I’d set the dial on my time machine for then and there…as long as a return trip to here and now is guaranteed.

Image Courtesy of Hotel Paris Museum.org via Pinterest

 

Exclusively for kindle, only 99 cents!

Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author writes Sweet Victorian Romance set in the American West. She writes frequent articles about the nineteenth century American west--every subject of possible interest to readers and amateur historians. She contributes monthly to Sweet Americana Sweethearts (first Friday of each month) and Romancing the Genres (third Tuesday of each month).

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Brown's Matrimonial Method

 

by Kristin Holt

www.KristinHolt.com

Brown's Matrimonial Method
A Vignette of Victorian Advice
from:
Marriage and home : or, proposal and espousal : a Christian treatise on the most sacred relations to mortals known, love, marriage, home
by "A Clergyman"
Published 1888, Copyright 1886 (now in the public domain)

[See source links at bottom of article.]

"Brown, I don't see how it is that your girls all marry off as soon as they are old enough, while none of mine can marry."

"Oh! that's simple enough. I marry my girls off on the buckwheat straw principle."

"But what is that principle? I never heard of it before."

"Well, I used to raise a good deal of buckwheat, and it puzzled me a good deal to get rid of the straw. Nothing would eat it, and it was a great bother to me. At last I thought of a plan. I stacked my buckwheat straw nicely, and built a high rail fence around it. My cattle, of course, concluded that it was something good, and at once tore down the fence and began to eat the straw. I drove them away and put up the fence a few times, but the more I drove them away, the more anxious they became to eat the straw. After this had been repeated a few times, the cattle determined to eat the straw, and eat it they did, every bit of it. As I said, I marry my girls off on the same principle. When a young man I don't like begins calling on my girls, I encourage him in every way I can. I tell him to come as often and stay as late as he pleases, and I take pains to hint to the girls that I think they'd better set their caps for him. It works first-rate. He don't make many calls, for the girls treat him as coolly as they can. But when a young fellow that I like comes around, a man that I think would suit me for a son-in-law, I don't let him make many calls before I give him to understand that he isn't wanted around my house. I tell the girls, too, that they shall not have anything to do with him, and give them orders never to speak to him again. The plan works first rate. The young folks begin to pity each other, and the next thing I know they are engaged to be married. When I see that they are determined to marry, I always give in, and pretend to make the best of it. That's the way to manage it."

See the full text of this Victorian-era book:

1. on archive.org

2. on Hathi Trust Digital Library.org

Note: the transcription, above, is precisely as it appears in the original text on pp 129-130, including paragraphs.

Because I write Sweet Victorian American West Romance, I'm particularly interested in attitudes about courtship and matrimony in the 19th century and found this vignette amusing. As a mother, I see human nature hasn't changed in the intervening 128 years. Much has changed since the Victorian West; much has remained constant.

What do you think of Brown's advice? Is it as applicable today as it was in 1888?

Hi! I'm Kristin Holt.

I write frequent articles (or view recent posts easily on my Home Page) about the nineteenth century American west–every subject of possible interest to readers, amateur historians, authors…as all of these tidbits surfaced while researching for my books. I also blog monthly at Sweet Americana Sweethearts (first Friday of each month) and Romancing the Genres (third Tuesday of each Month).

I love to hear from readers! Please drop me a note. Or find me on Facebook.

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Copyright © 2016 Kristin Holt, LC