The wedding day was considered to be the most important day in the life of a Victorian girl. The girls were taught from the early age to marry and to take care of the family. The marriage of a girl was something very special for the mother, the soon to be bride and her family.
Victorian weddings were more or less similar to the wedding celebrations we have today. Many traditions of Victorian weddings are still being followed and one of them is the color and style of the wedding attire.
The wedding dress of the Victorian era had a fitted bodice with a small waist and long skirt. It was made of organdie, silk, linen, lace, gauze, tulle and cashmere.
The wedding was also very important for the grooms and they were also concerned with fashion. The Victorian groom often wore a frock coat made of blue color with best flower favor in his lapel.
Take a look at these beautiful photos to see what Victorian couples looked like on their wedding days.
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France is a transcontinental country spanning Western Europe and overseas regions and territories in South America and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Including all of its territories, France has twelve time zones, the most of any country. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and several islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra and Spain in Europe, as well as the Netherlands, Suriname and Brazil in the Americas. Its eighteen integral regions (five of which are overseas) span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and over 67 million people (as of May 2021). France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country’s largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice.
Inhabited since the Palaeolithic era, the territory of Metropolitan France was settled by Celtic tribes known as Gauls during the Iron Age. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture that laid the foundation of the French language. The Germanic Franks arrived in 476 and formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia becoming the Kingdom of France in 987.
In the High Middle Ages, France was a powerful but highly decentralised feudal kingdom in which the king’s authority was barely felt. King Philip Augustus achieved remarkable success in the strengthening of royal power and the expansion of his realm, defeating his rivals and doubling its size. By the end of his reign, the kingdom had emerged as the most powerful state in Europe. From the mid-14th to the mid-15th century, France was plunged into a series of dynastic conflicts for the French throne, collectively known as the Hundred Years’ War, and a distinct French identity emerged as a result. The French Renaissance saw art and culture flourish, various wars with rival powers, and the establishment of a global colonial empire, which by the 20th century would become the second-largest in the world. The second half of the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots that severely weakened the country. But France once again emerged as Europe’s dominant cultural, political and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV following the Thirty Years’ War. Inadequate economic policies, an inequitable taxation system as well as endless wars (notably a defeat in the Seven Years’ War and costly involvement in the American War of Independence), left the kingdom in a precarious economic situation by the end of the 18th century. This precipitated the French Revolution of 1789, which overthrew the absolute monarchy, replaced the Ancien Régime with one of history’s first modern republics and produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation’s ideals to this day.
France reached its political and military zenith in the early 19th century under Napoleon Bonaparte, subjugating much of continental Europe and establishing the First French Empire. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of European and world history. The collapse of the empire initiated a period of relative decline, in which France endured a tumultuous succession of governments until the founding of the French Third Republic during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Subsequent decades saw a period of optimism, cultural and scientific flourishing, as well as economic prosperity known as the Belle Époque. France was one of the major participants of World War I, from which it emerged victorious at great human and economic cost. It was among the Allied powers of the World War II, but was soon occupied by the Axis in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, the short-lived Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The current Fifth Republic was formed in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. Algeria and most French colonies became independent in the 1960s, with the majority retaining close economic and military ties with France.
France retains its centuries-long status as a global centre of art, science and philosophy. It hosts the fifth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the world’s leading tourist destination, receiving over 89 million foreign visitors in 2018. France is a developed country with the world’s seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by PPP; in terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy and human development. It remains a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and an official nuclear-weapon state. France is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the Eurozone, as well as a key member of the Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and La Francophonie. (Wikipedia)
Normandy, France. Mont St. Michel, 1934
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Alex Ross (1851–1894) came to Calgary, Alberta in 1884 and set up a photographic studio at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Osler Street. He had previously worked for a photographer in Winnipeg, but felt the time was right to strike out on his own and establish his own business.
He quickly became well-known for his photographs of the First Nations people in the Calgary area, especially the Tsuu T’ina (called Sarcee at that time) and the Blackfoot. Some of the photographs were taken outdoors, but many more were carefully-posed studio shots. By 1891 the studio seems to have closed, and three years later Ross died at the relatively young age of 43.
Blackfoot boys, 1886-94
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An untold number of children were touched by the atrocities of World War II. Throughout the war, the proportion of civilian deaths to military deaths is said to have been as high as three to one — and some countries were definitely affected much worse than others.
The country most affected during the war was Poland. More than 6 million people, equal to one-sixth of the country’s pre-war population, died during World War II. All of these victims were predominantly civilian, with a great many of them being children.
However, getting caught up in the maelstrom of war, whether it be a mass execution or a bombing raid were not the only tragic circumstances that Polish children had to worry about. Many of them faced the distinct possibility of being kidnapped by their German oppressors. Under “Generalplan Ost” — the Nazi plan for genocide and ethnic cleansing in Europe — tens of thousands of Polish children were kidnapped and taken to Germany to become “Germanized.”
It has been calculated that over 250,000 Polish children were kidnapped during World War II. It is estimated that nearly 75 percent of these children never made it back home to their families in Poland after the war.
Aside from Poland, a large number of other countries suffered immensely horrifying civilian casualties during World War II. Some of the countries include include the Soviet Union, China, Germany (where an estimated 76,000 children died as a direct result of Allied bombing raids), Japan, India, and the Philippines.
Let us not forget that more than 1 million Jewish children were killed by the Nazis and their allies or packed into ghettos across Eastern Europe. In these ghettos, children often died from starvation and other privations. Those that did not die in the ghettos were either consigned to the death camps to be gassed or were executed and placed in mass graves.
Only those adults and children who were considered productive and useful to the German war effort were spared and even then, their fate was effectively secured by the horrendous working conditions and the miniscule amount of food given to each needed for subsistence. What made these mass killings even worse was the fact that, during the war, most of the world thought that these stories of mass extermination and death camps were propaganda – tales not to be belived.
Many of the most touching photographs that depict children during World War 2 show Britain during the Blitz. A large number of British children were sent away to the countryside as part of the government’s evacuation scheme known as Operation Pied Piper. The evacuation scheme had been touted as a great success in the media but in actual fact, by early 1940, more than 60 percent of children had returned home, just in time to witness the Blitz. All told, at least 5,028 children died during the Blitz.
While historians have tended to focus on other more high profiles topics relating to the Second World War the facy remains that without a doubt, children are the forgotten victims of the war.
A little girl holds her doll in the rubble of her bomb-damaged home. England. 1940.
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Elvis appeared at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, FL. Juvenile Court Judge Marion Gooding warned Elvis in chambers after the first show that he must tone down his act. Elvis told reporters “I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong”. Elvis modifies his show nonetheless, wiggling his little finger suggestively with a gesture that replaces some of his less restrained body movements and at the same time still drives the audience wild.
“One of the most memorable events in the theatre’s history occurred in 1956, when Elvis Presley came to the Florida Theatre for his first concert appearance on an indoor stage. Presley, the City of Jacksonville and the Florida Theatre found themselves subjects of a LIFE Magazine feature when Juvenile Court Judge Marion Gooding sat through the performance to ensure that Presley’s body movements would not become too suggestive”. Florida State Theater.
Crowds await entrance to see Elvis Presley performs at one of his two concerts at the Florida Theatre on August 10 & 11, 1956.
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Memphis is a city along the Mississippi River in southwestern Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. It is Tennessee’s second-most populous city behind Nashville; fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation’s 28th-largest; and the largest city proper of those situated along the Mississippi River. The city is the anchor of West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi, and the Missouri Bootheel.
Memphis is the seat of Shelby County, Tennessee’s most populous county. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods.
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Robert Montgomery (born Henry Montgomery Jr.; May 21, 1904 – September 27, 1981) was an American actor, director, and producer. He began his acting career on the stage, but was soon hired by MGM. Initially assigned roles in comedies, he soon proved he was able to handle dramatic ones, as well. He appeared in a wide variety of roles, such as the weak-willed prisoner Kent in The Big House (1930), the psychotic Danny in Night Must Fall (1937), and Joe, the boxer mistakenly sent to Heaven in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). The last two earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
During World War II, he drove ambulances in France until the Dunkirk evacuation. When the United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, he enlisted in the Navy, and was present at the invasion at Normandy. After the war, he returned to Hollywood, where he worked in both films, and later, in television. He was also the father of actress Elizabeth Montgomery.
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Post-war Paris brought a blossoming of culture and thought. The Nouvelle Vague transformed French cinema, young couturiers reinvigorated French fashion, existentialism flourished in literature and philosophy, and the city swung and swayed to a vibrant jazz and rock ’n’ roll scene.
In the middle of it all, was Paul Almasy. The well-traveled photojournalist, born in Hungary, had made Paris his hometown and spent his days and nights wandering its alleys, avenues, and after-hours bars. Through his photographs, we visit the embankment of the Seine and the old market halls, its music joints and glamorous cafes, but also the hidden backyards and artist’s studios.
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Born 1893 in Kings County, New York, American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol Mae West had her entertainment career spanned seven decades. She was known for her lighthearted, bawdy double entendres and breezy sexual independence.
West was active in vaudeville and on the stage in New York City before moving to Hollywood to become a comedian, actress, and writer in the motion picture industry, as well as appearing on radio and television. She often used a husky contralto voice and was one of the more controversial movie stars of her day; she encountered many problems, especially censorship. She once quipped, “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” She bucked the system, making comedy out of conventional mores, and the Depression-era audience admired her for it.
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