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A Day Of Victorian Era Hobbies

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A Day of Victorian Era Hobbies

There’s no denying we’re living in a fast-paced, tech-forward world. While the 21st century has many advantages that the 1800s did not, there are still ways we can enjoy Victorian-era hobbies today.

Whether you’re a Victorian enthusiast, a history buff, or you’re just looking for a unique way to change up your activities and try something new, consider planning a day of Victorian-era hobbies.

From morning to evening, you can enjoy the simple-yet-sophisticated lifestyle of what someone might have done on a typical day in the Victorian era. It’s a great way to spend a day away from technology, do something different with friends and family, or even educate your kids with a bit of interactive history.

Let’s take a look at how you might plan your day filled with Victorian-era hobbies, and how you can enjoy each one.

Morning

In the early Victorian years, breakfast typically consisted of meats, cheeses, and beer. That might sound more like party food by today’s standard. However, over time the scope of breakfast changed to what most people recognize today as “full English,” consisting of things like:

  • Eggs and bacon
  • Bread
  • Fish
  • Porridge

While you might not want to have fish for breakfast, you can absolutely enjoy freshly-fried eggs and thick-cut bacon. If you want to be as authentic as possible, consider making your own bread.

While it’s baking, take a brisk walk around your neighborhood. People in the Victorian era tended to eat more calories than we do today, but they were far more active, walking nearly everywhere.

As you’re enjoying your breakfast, do some reading and relax while you ease into the day. Consider scanning through some classic pieces of Victorian poetry by Bronte or Browning, and plan out your day so you have a basic idea of what needs to be done. In the Victorian era, that may have included preparing any food that would need to be eaten later in the day, so it could start cooking and be finished by dinner time.

Midday

After a hearty breakfast and a morning of relaxation, consider filling your afternoon with as many fun hobbies as possible. You might be surprised to find that you really enjoy some of the “old-fashioned” activities, including Victorian-era arts and crafts.

Many practices are making a comeback nowadays, including things like letter writing with wax seals, embroidery, and flower pressing.

Victorian women, especially, were often extremely busy with “DIY” projects during the day, tackling everything from natural dyeing to shellwork and paper art. If you don’t want to get too crafty, consider sitting down and hand-writing a letter to a friend or family member. It’s a thoughtful gesture, and who wouldn’t want to receive a kind note in the mail in this age of email and texting?

If you’d rather be a bit more active with your midday activities, try something new like clay pigeon shooting. This is a fantastic outdoor activity to enjoy with friends, or even on your own if you’re looking for some solitude.

Clay shooting actually started in the Victorian era, beginning with glass balls filled with feathers. It quickly became a sport of its own and remains popular today. You don’t have to be a shooting expert to enjoy yourself and stay safe. Plus, there are many benefits to target practice, including improved balance and stronger hand-eye coordination. It also serves as a great way to alleviate stress.

Evening

There was no better way to end a long day in the Victorian era than by being surrounded by friends and family.

Some things never change.

You can end your day of Victorian hobbies by hosting a historical dinner party. Serve traditional food and drink, and consider hosting your party outdoors in the garden. 

Obviously, you don’t have to be completely authentic here. Your main goal should be making sure your guests are comfortable and happy. If you plan on hosting outside, keep the following outdoor dinner party do’s and don’ts in mind:

  • Choose a location with enough space
  • Check the weather
  • Embrace a mismatched aesthetic (or go with traditional decor)
  • Have adequate lighting
  • Store and serve your food safely

After the meal, continue the festivities by sharing poetry, art, or music with your guests. If you give people enough notice to plan something of their own to share, you can enjoy a whole evening of Victorian-era entertainment. It’s a unique and fun way to change up the traditional dinner party, and most people are happy to try something new and take a step back in time.

In many ways, our world today is vastly different from what it was in the 1800s. However, there are still so many things we do that are influenced by the Victorian era, and other things that are returning to popularity after hundreds of years. If you want to enjoy a day of Victorian-era hobbies and appreciate the simpler things that led us to where we are now, let these ideas serve as a loose schedule. Whether you spend the day on your own or with people you love, you’ll have fun stepping back into a simpler time in history.

Sustainable Victorian Interior Design Tips

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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Though traditional Victorian homes are not very eco-friendly or sustainable, there are many ways you can renovate an old house to make it more sustainable or design a new Victorian-style home using sustainable materials and elements. There is no reason you have to give up your love for Victorian design just to be more eco-conscious.

Sustainability is important, and homeowners need to do their part to minimize their home’s carbon footprint to mitigate further damage to the environment. Still, it is possible to have a beautifully elegant Victorian home while being mindful of your impact on the planet.

Below are some tips and tricks you can follow to design the sustainable, modern Victorian home of your dreams:

1. Build Your Own Sustainable Victorian Home

If overhauling an existing Victorian-era home seems like too much work, or if you simply can’t find exactly what you are looking for, building your own home in the Victorian style is an option. Building a family home takes a lot of time, money, and effort, but the result is often worth it. It means you can use more sustainable materials from the start and ensure everything looks exactly the way you want it to.

2. Renovate a Condo or a Townhome

Maintaining a smaller carbon footprint can sometimes be achieved by living in a smaller home. So instead of buying and renovating a Victorian house, you can look for a smaller condo or townhome that is a new build designed in the Victorian style. New, smaller builds like condos and townhomes are often more sustainable, and even if you can’t find one in the Victorian style, you can renovate it or decorate it using Victorian design elements.

3. Eco-friendly Subdued Hue Paints

Today, chic Victorian designs are all about using darker, subdued hues such as smokey blacks, blues, and greens, while bringing in brighter colors with the furniture and decor. Not all paint brands are the same, however. So when choosing your Victorian paint colors, opt for brands that use non-toxic paints that are more sustainable and better for your health.

4. Sustainable Patterned Fabrics

Contrasting textures and fabric patterns are staples in Victorian-style homes as they can give the space a very opulent and luxurious feel. However, you don’t need to buy expensive fabrics to achieve this look. You can purchase more sustainable fabrics and dye them yourself using natural dyes. Or you can even find what you are looking for at thrift stores.

While fabrics and decor from a thrift store might not have been initially made sustainably, buying things second-hand helps keep landfills from overflowing and reduces the number of new things that need to be manufactured. You can shop second-hand for just about anything, including curtains, lace table cloths, patterned pillows and bedcovers, and more. 

5. Upgrade Old Appliances

One of the best ways to make your home more sustainable is to install new energy-efficient appliances. Older, Victorian homes often come with outdated appliances that use more energy than they need to. Of course, many new energy-efficient appliances do not reflect the Victorian style, but there are design hacks you can use to make them look vintage. There are even some companies that sell modern, energy-efficient appliances that are designed to resemble those from bygone eras.

6. Prioritize Natural Light

While elegant, vintage light fixtures are a great way to bring the Victorian style to your home, they are not always the most eco-friendly design option. This is not to say you can’t install these light fixtures or use elegant lamps, but it’s best to actually use them as little as possible. To avoid having to use lights during the day, try to design or buy a home that has a lot of windows and good natural light. This can help you reduce your energy bill and lower your home’s carbon footprint while still allowing you to use elegant, Victorian light features when it gets dark.

7. Buy Second-hand Art and Decor

The elements that often tie a space together are art and decor. Hunting down vintage pieces to create your Victoria dream home can be fun and even eco-friendly, depending on where you shop. There are plenty of new companies that manufacture things in the Victorian style, but supporting these sellers is not very sustainable. Instead, seek out thrift shops and antique stores to repurpose existing art and decor.

It’s more satisfying anyways to know that you are using an actual piece versus buying something new that looks vintage. You can even find and repurpose old light and plumbing fixtures that better match the Victorian style.

Wrapping Up

Just because Victorian design doesn’t look sustainable doesn’t mean it can be environmentally friendly. There are many construction companies today, for example, that can build a Victorian-style home using eco-friendly materials. And the interior design can easily mimic the Victorian era while utilizing sustainable and thrifted products and materials. There are really no limitations if you are willing to get creative and put in a little extra effort.

Victorian Hosting & Home Etiquette Still in Use Today

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When most people think of the Victorian era, proper etiquette and manners are some of the first things that come to mind. Many of the etiquette standards set in that era are still in use today and hold cultural relevance.

Of course, some things have changed. But, it’s interesting to see the influence the Victorian era had on the things we consider normal today, especially when it comes to hosting and basic etiquette.

So, what are some of the lessons that have stood the test of time? Everything from how you greet and treat your guests to how your home is decorated has a deeper background than you might realize.

With that in mind, let’s dive into this interesting section of history.

The Host With the Most

Entertaining guests and hosting dinner parties are standard practices today. Whether you’re getting your extended family together for a meal or inviting friends over for something more upscale, certain things make for a good host/hostess, including:

  • Making sure everyone is comfortable
  • Being prepared
  • Making your home visitor-friendly
  • Helping everyone find what they need and get around
  • Making everyone feel welcome
  • Taking care of everyone’s dishes and offering refills for individual glasses

Invitations are still the norm in many cases, too. That’s something that goes well beyond the Victorian era, but one thing that has changed is the casual nature of invites. In the Victorian age, invitations had to be formal, or they weren’t taken seriously. Today, it seems like creating an online event is enough to get more people to attend your event. Setting a date and time and explaining what to expect in your invitation is proper etiquette and can get more people to attend your event. But, it’s interesting to see how the formalities have changed.

If you’re a guest at a party, there are also things expected of you – many of which stem from the 1800s, including:

  • Letting your host know how long you’ll be staying
  • Bringing a gift
  • Conforming to “house rules”
  • Lending a hand
  • Being grateful

When it comes to how to be a good host or guest, many of your actions will reflect on proper etiquette. So, how has that changed since the Victorian age? What has stayed the same?

Mind Your Manners

It’s easy to assume people had better manners in the 1800s, but so many of the etiquette rules put in place during that era are still used today. Some of those rules, especially when it comes to attending events, include:

  • Not coming by unannounced
  • Dressing for the occasion
  • Being your best self in front of others
  • Striking up conversations

That said, some basic etiquette rules have changed dramatically over the years. It’s rare to see a gentleman “bowing” to a lady in the street these days. According to the 1875 publication the Manual of Social and Business Forms, this type of bowing was acceptable. But, it also might cause rumors and gossip to start.

Interestingly enough, that same manual takes a somewhat criticizing tone when it comes to small talk, suggesting that “no topic of absorbing interest may be admitted to polite conversation” for fear that it might cause discussion. Imagine if that rule still rang true today! No one would have to worry about heated political debates at their next dinner party. Perhaps it’s a rule that should come back around!

Hosting and Houseplants

When you’re hosting a get-together, you want your house to be clean, decluttered, and accessible for everyone. Most people also put a bit of extra effort into making it feel “homey” and decorated the way they like.

In recent years, there has been a boom in houseplant popularity when it comes to home decor. The COVID-19 pandemic caused another rise in plant-palooza as people were spending more time at home and got into new hobbies and endeavors. There are actually many benefits to bringing nature indoors. It helps to reduce stress, improve air quality, and boost your mood. Plants are also a great way to make people feel more comfortable and welcome in your home.

But, plant fever is nothing new. It was going strong in the Victorian era, with certain exotic plants seen as prized possessions – many only fit for royalty. If you live in a small home or apartment today and you have plenty of plants, know that once upon a time that would’ve been a prominent status symbol!

Whether it’s decorating, hosting, or simple etiquette and manner lessons, the changes and similarities between today and the Victorian era are interesting to look at. So much of what was done in the past is still relevant today. Even though some of those old rules have fallen away, they have undoubtedly influenced our culture, society, and the way we interact with each other.

How The Victorian Era Changed The Way We Look At Our Pets Today

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It’s hard to imagine a world without pets. Dogs are considered to be man’s best friend. Cats are cute and cuddly companions. Even more unconventional pets like mice, lizards, and Guinea pigs have become major parts of American homes.

But, it wasn’t always that way.

While owning animals for different purposes has been practiced for centuries, the Victorian era changed the way we look at pets. Up until the 19th century, it wasn’t common to have an animal in the home with no real purpose other than companionship. People certainly weren’t researching how to care for kittens or spending money on dog toys the way they do today.

So, what is the history of pets, and how did that change during the Victorian era? If you’re a pet owner today, you can probably thank the 19th century for changing the way we look at our furry friends. Let’s dig deeper into those changes, and why they matter so much in terms of the dog or cat you might have by your side while you’re reading this.

The Early History of Pets

Research has shown that humans have likely kept animals as some form of entertainment for centuries. It’s believed that dogs were the first domesticated animals, as research has been published showing wolves were domesticated in Europe 16,000 years ago, and in Asia about 14,000 years ago.

These animals weren’t really considered “pets.” Rather, they were more like property, kept around for entertainment purposes or to do a specific job. That didn’t mean those animals weren’t enjoyed by their owners, but it was a far cry from the companionship and praise of household pets we’re used to today.

The real rise of pet domestication in the U.S. began in the early 1700s with the catching and taming of wild animals – including squirrels! Most squirrels were trapped by children who caught them in their nests and attempted to domesticate them. The trapping and taming of wild animals didn’t stop there and carried on into the Victorian era, though it combined with a view on pets that was starting to become a bit more exclusive.

What Changed in the Victorian Era?

As the Victorian era rolled in, pets were already well-established for some people. It was their purpose, however, that started to change. It was during the 19th century that it started to become more acceptable for animals to be companions. That included letting them into the home and allowing them to be a part of the family. Many people started to see pets as a way to add moral value to a family and build character for children.

During the Victorian era, people became more interested in a domestic lifestyle, and having a pet seemed to naturally fit. Pets were especially encouraged for young boys, as they were thought to develop a sense of responsibility.

But, the pets of this era were slightly different than the cat curled up next to you or the dog at your feet right now. Poor and working-class families essentially had to trap their own pets. Many of them captured wild birds to keep in cages or rabbits to keep in hutches. Middle- and upper-class families popularized pedigree dog breeding. It was seen as a sign of status and wealth, and something that is still practiced today.

With the rise of pet popularity in the Victorian era, people became interested in keeping more unusual or exotic animals. There were even manuals on how to care for such wild pets, including:

  • Squirrels
  • Monkeys
  • Badgers
  • Owls
  • Ravens

While the types of pets people have may have changed, pet owners of today owe a lot to this era for changing the narrative of what domesticated animals can be.

Today’s Pets are Parts of the Family

Today, 67% of households in the U.S. have some type of pet. Many of those furry (and sometimes not so furry!) friends are considered to be part of the family. The pet industry is booming, reaching $99 billion in 2020. Needless to say, we’ve come a long way in how pets are perceived and what they’re used for. The 21st century has even seen a rise in animal rights, with several notable court cases featuring animals as plaintiffs.

There are still “working animals,” of course. Working dogs are extremely common in farming, police work, search and rescue, and even for therapeutic purposes. But, many pets are simply constant companions within a household. People now take the time to pet-proof their homes and provide things like:

  • A bed
  • Toys
  • Food and water bowls
  • A litter box/training pads
  • Training treats

People care for their pets so much today that many even take out pet insurance to help cover veterinary bills. In centuries past, the medical care of domesticated animals was rarely a concern. Today, pet insurance can cover everything from diagnostic testing to emergency care.

It shouldn’t be surprising to see how far the role of the household pet has come throughout history. Centuries ago, people couldn’t stay away from the idea of domesticating animals. While the purposes have changed, the desire for companionship hasn’t, and we owe a lot of how pets are viewed and treated today to some of the changes that took place in the Victorian era.

How Hurricane Responses Have Changed Since The Victorian Era

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Today, people tend to think of hurricanes as horrible natural disasters. And, there’s no denying the damage they cause and the lives they can destroy. But, they also have had a huge impact on our country’s formation and course of history.

Even in the 16th and 17th centuries, strong storms and hurricanes caused problems like capsizing ships and rerouting settlers. As we know it, our country could be vastly different if it weren’t for these storms taking place.

During the Victorian era, hurricanes changed the course of agriculture and slave labor in America. One major hurricane in 1893 was the most damaging to ever strike South Carolina and the second most deadly in the U.S. 

Hurricanes might not be shaping our history as much these days, but they still get a lot of well-deserved attention. So, from Galveston to Katrina, and every major storm in-between, how have hurricane responses changed since the Victorian era?

The Major Hurricanes of the Victorian Era

The largest and most devastating hurricane throughout the Victorian era was undoubtedly Galveston. In fact, it remains the worst hurricane in U.S. history, often referred to as The Great Storm of 1900.

Some of the staggering statistics to come from this catastrophic event are still difficult to believe, including:

  • Over 6,000 deaths
  • $35.4 million in damage costs (over $1 billion today)
  • 15-foot storm surges that flooded the city

One interesting fact about this hurricane is that a seawall was supposed to be built before 1900 to protect the city. But, a respected meteorologist at the time dismissed the idea by saying the city could never be hit by a powerful enough hurricane to do any damage. Had that wall been built, Galveston may not have seen as much damage or flooding.

The biggest problem with this hurricane and other storms in the Victorian era was that people were ill-prepared. The U.S. Weather Bureau (now known as the National Weather Service) was only 10 years old when the Galveston hurricane hit, and its communication policies were lacking. They weren’t able to adequately give people time to evacuate or prepare in any way. Efforts were focused more on cleaning up after the disaster than preparing for before the storm made landfall.

Changes Over the Years

So many advancements have been made over the years to better equip those living in hurricane-heavy areas. Some of the old Victorian homes that have survived can be staged with their original charm, but given upgrades to help them withstand strong winds and rain. More modern houses in those areas are often built with more structural integrity, including features like:

  • Concrete fortification
  • Steel framework
  • Quick-drying construction materials
  • Square or hexagonal roofs that can withstand strong winds

Many homes in hurricane-affected areas also have hurricane windows, which were originally developed in the 1930s. Hurricane windows are strong and durable, meant to withstand harsh winds better than any traditional window. So, you won’t return home to an exposed house and shattered glass everywhere. You’ll also often see people boarding up their windows before a hurricane hits. That isn’t always necessary with hurricane windows. But, it can provide greater peace of mind if you’re going to be gone from your house for a while.

The most important change over the years is the use of technology. Obviously, it has come a long way since the 1800s-1900s. But, it’s being used to give people plenty of time to get to safety and take care of their homes. Hurricanes will always be devastating. But, the more you know about them ahead of time, the safer you can be.

The Impact of Hurricanes Today

Studies have shown that the hurricanes of today are more intense than those in the Victorian era. A lot of this has to do with changing weather patterns, and even climate change. But, the general patterns and timeframes of hurricanes have remained the same. Depending on where you live in the country, you know there is a “hurricane season”, from June to November every year.

Thanks to modern technology, we can now better detect hurricanes long before they reach landfall. That gives people in the path of the storm an opportunity to evacuate or prepare their homes.

Still, hurricanes are nothing to take lightly today. We might have better technology and more solutions to keep our homes safe. But, hurricanes are still deadly. Galveston remains the worst in U.S. history. Maria and Katrina aren’t far behind, both occurring in the 2000s and claiming more than 2,000 and 1,000 lives, respectively.

Hurricane season will continue to come to the U.S. every year, leaving destruction in its path. While you can’t prevent it, you can be grateful for the ways you can protect yourself and your home now that simply weren’t available during the Victorian era.