Factory Gothic / Bridget Marshall
Sharing 19th-century Gothic industrial research
Dr. Bridget Marshall (she/her), Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Book: tinyurl.com/h79c3epk
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- I like to think that this establishment billing itself as "practical hatters" is distinguishing itself from all the "mad hatters." (from Adair's 1860-1 Belfast Directory)
- Gave a little talk today for a colleague's class on historic images of mills & factories and was surprised again by the fact that this image is from 1881. It's a watercolor by Joseph Pennell depicting Bethlehem Steel Works in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a place I called home for a few years.
- "The Factory Girl" as she appeared in The Sunday School Hive & Juvenile Companion 1 June 1878: "factory girls, although labouring under many disadvantages, compare favourably with any other of the working classes of young women for thrift, for intelligence, and for religion."
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- Just found a new factory girl serial: "Salome Price, the Gipsy Factory Girl" by R. T. Casson in Illustrated Chips from 6 Oct 1894. Salome opens by triumphing in a knife fight with a man who has "bought" her as his wife, and runs off to Preston to earn her living as a weaver.
- Staying inside today due to threatening weather. Currently prepping my talk for tomorrow about two nineteenth-century industrial Gothic places: Cottonopolis (Lowell) and Linenopolis (Belfast). Wed 28 Jan at 4.15, Wolfson Room, Seamus Heaney Centre. If you're at Queens, you're very welcome to join!
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- A beautiful story from a church graveyard well worth a read. Thank you @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social for sharing and for your great care with these remains.
- Found a new (to me) "factory girl" poem in the Irish newspaper archives -- printed in the Derry Journal 11 Dec. 1895 but attributed to the Illinois Trades Unionist which I guess I'll now have to track down.
- This bar insisting that it is indeed open during construction with multiple signs saying "business as usual" and "open as normal" really should consider re-creating Dante's "I assure you; we're open!" sign.
- Thackeray in #Belfast in 1842: He sketched a girl working in a mill: "They work in huge long chambers, lighted by numbers of windows, hot with steam, buzzing and humming with hundreds of thousands of whirling wheels." "There is something frightful in the vastness as in the minuteness of this power"
- Home from a day at Special Collections & now turning to fun reading: "The Queen of Clithorly Mill: A Tale of Lancashire" from Bow Bells of Wednesday July 17th 1867. It's a serial featuring factory girl Alice Gowerland who has gotten herself into trouble with a fellow thanks to her friend Judith.
- I love that the "Big Fish" statue in Belfast has a sign that reads: "In the interests of safety climbing onto the big fish is prohibited." The gentle tone (it's not "keep off big fish!") suggests that the sign writer understands our deep yearning to climb on big fish.
- Enjoyed a terrific 2-hour walking tour of #Belfast street art. HIGHLY recommend! Sharing just two of my favorites: "Deep Love" by ADW and "Pretty Little Thieves" by Friz, but there are so many more! Book the tour here: www.seedheadarts.com/street-art/w... See map: www.seedheadarts.com/street-art/map
- Carrickfergus Castle showing up rather nicely today. Take need of the many warnings.
- Belfast City Hall looking gorgeous in the early morning dark and damp. Heading out on the tour bus to Giants Causeway.
- Friday afternoon seems a good time for this important reminder about "Leaving work before Stopping Time," as outlined in this handwritten book of notes for the No 2 Room of an unknown linen mill in 1883. "Workers are not to be seen, grouped in the long pass of the room, before the engine stops."
