Emigrants' death voyage recalled

This photo and the quotes below are from BBC News

This is an interesting little corner of Highland emigration history. I've read about the emigration to Canada and the US, but I had not read of this. St. Kilda is a small, remote island, the westernmost of the Outer Hebrides. Today it is no longer inhabited by anyone.

""The deaths of 18 islanders on a voyage to Australia was a factor in ending large-scale emigration from the Highlands," historian Eric Richards, professor of history at Flinders University in Adelaide, has said. ...

""The 36 who went represented a third of the population of St Kilda. On the course of their journey to Australia half of them were to die not from smallpox, or influenza but measles.""

"The St Kildans were so badly affected by measles because their remote island life meant they had not previously been exposed and built up any immunity to it.

The survivors, many of them orphaned children, were quarantined on arrival in Port Phillip. Prof Richards said the authorities were also frustrated that most only spoke Gaelic and no English."

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Prince Albert's Prince Albert

From the Archives:

Yes, we're back to piercing again.

This is sort of a tangent off of my Victorian Breast Piercing Research - it's male piercing. If you don't know what a Prince Albert piercing is ... try Wikipedia.

You will find many websites - and even books - declaring that this type of body piercing was so named because Prince Albert (married to Queen Victoria) wore one. You will find them saying that these circular piercings were also known as "dressing rings" and that they were used to secure oneself to the left or the right leg.

Dude. Seriously?

I mean, think about it, what would it be tied to? Your thigh? And it would have to be a slip-knot because, really, just think if the string got caught on something.... [rrriipp] That's painful just contemplating it.

And we haven't even addressed the fact that, in the real world, if you need to be tied down to your thigh, then perhaps you're having one of those episodes the Cialis commercials warn about and you should be proceeding to a hospital at once.

The British Victorian period may have been more risqué, but in the US, you couldn't actually say the word leg because it was too inflammatory - you had to say limb. Cereal was invented because, the belief was, giving a man steak and eggs for breakfast was just asking for him to be aroused all day. The same for Graham crackers - non-arousing steak substitute.

In that climate, how could a gentleman possibly face his needs-to-be-protected lady wife with a piercing amidst his unmentionables and expect remain considered a gentleman?

Another thing: according to The Piercing Bible by Elayne Angel (p. 156), the healing time for a Prince Albert is "4 to 8 weeks or longer". Now, in a time when infection could not be reliably controlled, who is going to pierce themselves anywhere - let alone somewhere that delicate?

Are you beginning to smell a hoax?

In her book, Angel confirms my suspicions that Prince Albert did not have a Prince Albert, as does Matthew Sweet in Inventing the Victorians.

So why do so many people think he did? Where did this "dressing ring" thing get started?

According to Angel, these stories were made up by a man who called himself Doug Malloy (real name Richard Simonton). He is considered the father of modern piercing culture in the US.

He also made bags of money franchising Muzak. Not three words you'd expect to find in the same sentence are they, "body piercing" and "Muzak"? Go figure.

(Muzak, by the way, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Feb 10 2009).

I can hear you asking, why? Not why the Muzak bankruptcy, but why would someone make something like that up?

Apparently, the answer is: Because it makes a great story.

If you are promoting a new fad, it helps with promotion to have that fad possess a fun historical background. It gives it roots. Validity.

And stories are the bedrock of culture. It doesn't matter how unrealistic a tale is, as long as it makes a great story. Think of all the urban legends you've heard.

This seems to be why the Prince Albert story has legs - why it has spread so far for so long.

We humans love to tell each other a good story.

More on Victorian Nipple Piercing

From the Archive:

Okay, I've found another book that mentions the "bosom ring" - it says that Victorian English women would go to France to get their nipples pierced.

This book is from the same era (1970s) as the other book that referenced Victorian nipple-piercing. It does not contain any direct quote from a first-hand source, but it does footnote where this bit of info came from:

a GERMAN text from 1912.

And even that is not a primary source - it is referencing ANOTHER GERMAN article.

So I have yet to find a primary source document!

Wouldn't it be funny - since this seems to stem from a German article about English and French women - if this were all a bit of pre-war propaganda on the part of the German press?

Victorian Nipple Piercing

From the Archives:

That got your attention, right?

I've been off doing research for a Victorian short story I'm writing. I luuvvvv doing research. This is one of the books I read. Tell me what you think:

A history of make-up by Maggie Angeloglou

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book - it was interesting as well as helpful for research. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because some of the more ... controversial? ... statements had no citations to back them up.

For example:
Did you know Victorian women engaged in nipple piercing?
There is a quote which backs this up, saying how pleasurable it is, from what is described as a primary source magazine, but the name of said magazine is not given (nor the date of the issue).

Maybe it's just me, but for something that shocking, I would have at least given the name and date of the source material - in a footnote if nothing else.

It is difficult to believe that a middle-class, Victorian lady (who was, I believe, the target audience for such magazines) would do such a thing, or that a publisher would encourage her so to do.

Maybe a Victorian prostitute would, but why would a Victorian prostitute be writing in to a magazine?

I would love to get my hands on whatever the primary source material was. If anyone has ever come across references to nipple-piercing during Victorian times, please let me know.

It would be fun to use in a story, but I'm afraid the reader would throw the book against the wall, shouting No Way!