Trimz DDT Wallpaper -- In Disney Prints!

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

Finally the true story how Bambi's mother died.

Comments

[myrnalene.livejournal.com]

HEY THIS SEEMS LIKE A GREAT IDEA.

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

Just like all the 'antibacterial' plastic stuff we see now, eh?

[jena.livejournal.com]

SRSLY.

[hootie-mcboobs.livejournal.com]

+1

[jena.livejournal.com]

Best username ever. I want to be you.

[hootie-mcboobs.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It took me a long time to come up with something that shows how witty and sophisticated I truly am... :)

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

In a book I have, The Victorian Home, the author says that wallpaper used to contain arsenic (the only way you could produce certain colours, I presume.)

Now this.

Remember one rule of thumb: never, ever, lick the wallpaper. I don't care how tasty it looks...

[misstia]

is it called 'the victorian home' or 'inside the victorian home'? i have the latter....i saw that in my book too....about the arsenic in the wallpaper....and i think some had lead? i can't remember...i know there was a couple toxic things in the wallpaper though....

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

Ha - looks like we have the same book, different editions. Mine is by Judith Flanders and so is yours - in Britain, it was first published as The Victorian Home.

I found it fascinating - did you read the bit about the day in the life of the All-in-One Maid (or whatever her name was) - the poorer families could only keep one maid and she had to do EVERYTHING - from early morning to late at night. It's a wonder there wasn't a revolution...

[misstia]

that book is just awesome!! with such detailed information about the things that went on in the household in every day life....

i know!!! and of that one maid who's diaries she kept inserting (can't recall her name!) but she's the one who wrote about just being so exhausted and one day she had to hold the umbrella for the mistress of the house who complained what a long hard day she had watching a parade!! and that maid married a painter/artist but had to keep the marriage secret because his mother wouldn't have approved because it was below his station....

i think that book should be required reading for anyone interested in victorian life!

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Hannah Cullwick! I cannot recommend this book more strongly than it deserves.

Clean'd away upstairs & wash'd the things up. Put coals on the fire. Went up & made all the beds & emptied the slops {contents of chamberpots}. Came down & swept the dining room all over & dusted it. Swept the hall & steps & shook the mats ... clean'd the windows in the hall & passage & clean'd the hall & steps on my knees, the back stairs, then I was got to the passage. I took the matting out & shook it. Swept the passage & took the things out of the hole under the stairs -- Mary uses it for her dustpans & brushes. It's a dark hole & about 2 yards long & very low. I crawl'd in on my hands & knees ... I got the handbrush & swept the walls down. The cobwebs & dust fell all over me & I had to poke my nose out o' the door to get breath, like a dog's out of a kennel. Then I swept the floor of it & got my pail & clean'd it out & put the things back in their places. I was very black as I could be, but I didn't wash till I'd clean'd the passage & 'tatoe hole out & the shelves & back cellar, & then I finish'd in the kitchen & made the fires up & wash'd my face & hands ... The first part of the family came back at six & was ready for tea. The Mistress said she was very glad to be at home again, it'd been such a hard day for her. She said that as I carried the umbrella over her from the front gate.

[misstia]

that's her!!! and that's the passage i was thinking of!!

that book should be required reading for any history major/lover....

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Am I good, or what?

(For social histories, Judith Flanders is Liza Picard's only rival. Have you read Flanders's second book, Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain? I'm reading it now.)

[misstia]

just put Flanders's second book in my amazon cart!!! and i haven't even heard of picard!! so i put some of her books in my cart too!!! thanks!

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

Flander's book is very user-friendly - I would give it to anyone to read - well, anyone interested in those small domestic details about how people used to live.

You'll be shocked at how hard maids had it. I also remember the info on electric lights - how BRIGHT our world would seem to someone like Dickens. To them, sitting in our living room with one light on would feel like being in an operating theatre. I love that kind of stuff!

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Echoing everything the others have said: this is a terrific book. For one thing, it does a great job of yanking the rug out from under the notion -- very prevalent in the US -- that Victorian England had only two social classes, the Bellamys (rich with a whole staff of servants) and Eliza Doolittle. weelisa cites above the description of the daily routine for a maid-of-all-work -- the servant in a lower-middle-class house that had only one servant -- and she's right, it's chilling, particularly when you bear in mind that the girl doing it might not be twelve yet.

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

Yikes!

[purplesocks.livejournal.com]

...by giving them cancer!

[whoseline_wlsc]

I kind of like the Disney wallpaper-but not enough to want it with DDT.

What's going on with that picture on the wall above Mom's head? A cat hung on a line or something?

[srsly-yes.livejournal.com]

A space alien on a swing?

[janenx01.livejournal.com]

DDT wallpaper and thalidomide pajamas. Ah, the innocence.

[meig.livejournal.com]

Holy CRAP. I had that Disney paper with Bambi on it in my room when I was little. This was early 70's, so probably not the DDT-laced atuff, but it was still that same pattern. Whoa.

[jena.livejournal.com]

Well, now, the DDT wears off after one or maybe two years, so you're probably okay. ;)

[adrienneee.livejournal.com]

Well, one thing's for sure, these people probably didn't have bed bugs...