Figure 1.--Beautifully lithographed cutouts called scraps were popular inclusions in Victorian and Edwardian scrapbooks. |
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The parlor was often at the center of the 19th century home. Families varied on how the palor was used. Some used it for company and the children often did not have free access to it. In other families it was used more of a family room. In such cases the children were more welcome--but on their best behavior. Interesting features of many Victorian parlors were screens where "scraps" (cutouts), greening cards, and postcards might be used to decorate. The Victorians, both children and mothers also loved to keep scrapbooks in their parlors. A variety of items might be included in these scrapbooks, including photographs, "scraps", lettters, postcards, clippings. ptrssed flowers, and much more. The formal 19th century parlor is the fore-runner of the more relaxed 20th century living room. The primary difference is formality. The modern living room is in addition to wear guests are entertained also an entertaiment center, where the television is commonly locted. Anhd the children tend to have much more access to the living room than they duid the 19th century parlor.
The Victorian Era was a beautiful and enchanting period of history. Ladies were elegantly dressed in their best clothing...from their corsets and buttoned shoes to their hats and gloves and the bustles on their dresses. It was a decorating era of excess...each room being "over done"...everything of value placed in view of the guests. Decorative touches of roses, ribbons, tassels, pillows and fine lace.
Beautiful lamps, fine art, exquisite linens... every small detail taken into account. Far too indulgent? Perhaps... but nonetheless an absolutely beautiful period of history.
When we think of "Victorian", we think of elegant rooms....full of color...red, gold, burgundy, black...full of roses.. perhaps a crazy quilt tossed across a high backed chair...marble topped tables....vanities adorned with sterling silver dresser sets... lying alongside vintage hats, paintings across the walls... still life roses...perhaps Queen Victoria's coronation..parchment fans lying on the coffee tables...or the more elegant fans created with peacock feathers and fine silks. It's a beautiful vision..
Victorian interiors were filled with an assortment of family memorabilia, sentimental keepsakes from their suitors, knickknacks and finely decorative furnishings.
The parlor was in many ways a Victorian creation. Before the Victorians few individuals could aford a house with formaized rooms like parlors. The parlor is the creation of the middle class and it was the tremendous wealth creation in the 19th century that created a substantial middle class. The parlor to the Victorians was perhaps the most formal room of the house. But it was also the center of family life, especially once the children emerged from the nursery. View of the Victorian parlor come to us through drawings and paintings. After the turn of the 20th century snap shots of home life begin to appear probiding up many more glimses into the parlor, including what it looked like and the activities conducted there. Many of these glimses suggest rather formal dress until rather recently--but they also look rather staged. Of course since World War II, informal dress is worn in the modern living room--except for special occassions.
The parlor was often at the center of the 19th century home. Families varied on how the palor was used. Some used it for company and the children often did not have free access to it. In other families it was used more of a family room. In such cases the children were more welcome--but on their best behavior.
Interesting features of many Victorian parlors were screens where "scraps" (cutouts), greening cards, and postcards might be used to decorate.
The center piece of any Victorian parlor was the sofa and chairs. They were often referred to as a Victorian parlor set. A common arrangement was a sofa and 4 Chairs. They usually had matcjing upolstry fabric. They might include armchairs, often pairs of matching desisn but in the same fabric.
Parlor Domes and Shadowboxes
For the middle-class Victorian family, domes and shadowboxes were a common item in a well furnished parlor. These impressive display pieces could range from six inches in height to over four feet. The contents might include elaborate bouquets of flowers or abundant arrangements of fruit-all hand-crafted from materials such as wax, sea shells, wool, glass, feathers or even human hair. Nothing encapsulates the Victorian character better than the dome. The Victorians put the things they loved most under glass for all to see. By the 1860"s, the use of human hair as decoration took on a new dimension. Hair wreaths, or framed floral bouquets made from the locks of several members of the
family were enclosed in glass, framed, and hung in the best parlor. Hair was also used to create family trees. The hair of the oldest family member making up the trunk, with the rest of the family contributions adorning the branches as leaves.
An American magazine described the following decoration of a Victorian parlor:
"Now," says the housewife, "I must at least have a parlor-carpet. We must get that to begin with, and other things as we go on..." ...she buys the Brussels carpet, which, with all its reduction in price, is one third dearer than the ingrain would have been, an not half so pretty. Now let us see what eighty dollars could have done for that room...Thirteen rolls of good satin paper [buff]...A maroon bordering, made in imitation of the choicest French style...Cover the floor with, say, thirty yards of good matting. ......Select some one tint or color which shall be the prevailing one in the furniture of the room. Shall it be green? Shall it be blue? Shall it be crimson? To carry on our illustration, we will choose green, and and we proceed with it one side of the fireplace there be, as there is often, a recess with a rough frame with four stout legs, one foot high, and upon the top of the frame have an elastic rack of slats. Make a mattress...or ...get a nice mattress...made of cane-shavings or husks. Cover this with a green English furniture print [glazed English or glazed French, and French twill]. With any of these cover your lounge. Make two large, square pillows of the same substance as the mattress, and set up at the back...feather pillows...shake them down into a square shape and cover them with the same print... Cut out of the same material as your lounge, sets of lambrequins (or, as they are called, lamberkins,) a kind of pendent curtain-top, as shown in the illustration, to put over the windows, which are to be embellished with white muslin curtains. White curtains really create a room out of nothing. ...Let your men-folk knock up for you, out of rough, unplaned boards, some ottoman frames, stuff the tips with just the same material as the lounge, and cover them with the self-same chintz.... ...broken-down arm-chair, stuff and pad and stitch...and cover it with the chintz like your other furniture... Presto--you create an easy chair. If you want a centre-table...any kind of table, well concealed beneath the folds of handsome drapery, of a color corresponding to the general hue of the oom, will look well.
Wall-paper and border..............................................$5.50
Thirty yards matting.................................................$15.00
Centre-table and cloth.............................................$15.00
Muslin for three windows..........................................$6.75
Thirty yards green English chintz, at 25 cents.............$7.50
Six chairs, at $2 each..............................................$12.00
Total......................................................................$61.75Subtracted from eighty dollars, which we set down as the price of the cheap, ugly Brussels carpet, we have our whole room papered, carpeted, curtained, and furnished, and we have nearly twenty dollars remaining for pictures [varnished chromos in rustic frames].
....American Woman's Home, 1869, by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Catherine E. Beecher.
One of the most popular activities in the Vicvtorian parlor was reciving visitiors. It might be used for tea when friends and family visited. The almost required scrapbook was also kept in the parlor. It was not alace for c hildren to plsy, although they might be brought into be presented to the viitors.
One of the most popular activities in the Vicvtorian parlor was having tea when friends and family visited. The children were usually not invited for such events. Rather they had their tea in the nursery.
The Victorians, both children and mothers also loved to keep scrapbooks in their parlors. In the Victorian and Edwardian era, wasn't unusual to find the family scrapbook sitting prominently on a table, in a Victorian parlor. Children also kept scrapbooks, but theirs were not kept in the parlor. A variety of items might be included in these scrapbooks, including photographs, "scraps", lettters, postcards, clippings. ptrssed flowers, and much more.
Some interesting theatrical productions have provided interesting insights furnishing and activities in the Victorian parlor.
"Life with Father" is a wonderful family film set in 1880s New York. Through a series of reminiscences, a man recreates a childhood spent with his eccentric Victorian father. A financier rules his numerous family, consisting of his wife and his four sons, with the meticulousity of a bookkeeper.This comedy's plot is simple: get Father baptized. It was quite a well done film about a large New York family in the 1880s. The family was an affluent one. It was a well done period costumed film, with a lot of different period outfits shown--especially for the two younger boys.
This show depicts a modern family that spent several weeks living like a family of 1900. The son appeared once in a sailor suit and straw hat. He only appeared in the saior suit once. Boys did wear long pants sailor suits in the 1900s, but HBC believes that kneepanrs suits were more common. This was the only time he appeared in the sailor suit. Most of the footage concentrated on the boy's precocious older sisters who appeared to enjoy wearing their elaborate Edwardian costumes. Their brother, on the other hand, seemed to be a rather unhappy Edwardian. In the picture he is accompanying his mother on a shopping expedition. The time depicted was the same time that the future George V's children were widely photograhed. They almost always wore either sailor suits or kilts. They wore both kneepants and long pants sailor suits.
Here are some views of Victorian homes and floorplans. Usually the parlor looked out on the front of the home. The same is true of the modern living room whoch is why it is also called the front room. The bedrooms and nursery was commonly on an upsatirs floor. There were, however, many variations from home to home.
The formal 19th century parlor is the fore-runner of the more relaxed 20th century living room. The primary difference is formality. The modern living room is in addition to wear guests are entertained also an entertaiment center, where the television is commonly locted. Anhd the children tend to have much more access to the living room than they did the 19th century parlor which would be kept for formal activities. Living room is an American term. Sitting room was once used, but is now not very common. Front room (because the living room is usually at the font of the house) is another American term that is still used. The British (and former British colonies) call it as the lounge room or lounge. The living room has many of the same functions as the 19th century parlor such as entertaining adult guests. When guests are not being enteryained, the living room is often used for arange of informal activities. The children might play there in the afternnon and early evening. Famikly members might read there, although beginning in the mid-20th century it became more of an entertaiment center. The phonograph and then the radio were generally placed there. And of course this usage only increased with the appearance of television. American living rooms commonly have sofas, stuffed chairs, occasional tables, and bookshelves, nd lamps. Fire places are popular, but optional. The living room for many middkle-class families is a mukltiple purpose room. More affluent families might have other rooms (dens and recreational rooms) that take on some of the finctions of a basic living room.
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Created: October 21, 1999
Last updated: 9:48 PM 6/18/2011