Hello, and welcome to the Season 1, Episode 12 of the Bones & Bobbins Podcast!
If you’re looking for this episode’s show notes, options for listening, and ways to connect with us, you’re in the right place. Welcome, creepy, vintage-y friends!
Listen:
The Bones & Bobbins Podcast, Season 1, Episode 12: Flowers, but Not in the Attic?
S01E12: The Victorian Language of Flowers (Floriography), Victorian Botanical Scrapbooks (Herbariums), and Seaweed Hunters.
This week, we learned that you can, in fact, send death threats to your enemies by way of harmless-looking flower bouquets. (Who knew?! Well, apparently the Victorians.) Then we meandered through the colorful world of botanical scrapbooking, which, for upper class Victorian women, turned out to be an unexpected pathway to independent adventures and a subtle way for them to be exposed to science at a time when they would otherwise be completely barred from that knowledge.
We also learned that seaweed collecting was an actual Thing. Because, apparently, it was. And one should always wear men’s boots while doing it.
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Show Notes:
Here are links to the sources and resources we used while researching this episode:
Links to research materials:
Victorian Language of Flowers
- Floriography, by Jessica Roux: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50898143-floriography
- Le langage des fleurs, by Charlotte de la Tour (English translation): https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_language_of_flowers_by_L_Cortambert/YW1oXtSG3CIC
- Flower Meanings: The Language of Flowers: https://www.almanac.com/content/flower-meanings-language-flowers
- Victorian Flower Language: http://victorian-era.org/victorian-flower-language.html
Victorian Botanical Scrapbooks
- Merchant House Museum Article: http://merchantshouse.org/blog/seaweed-pressing/
- Smithsonian Garden: https://smithsoniangardens.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/botanical-scrapbooks/
- Victorian Scrapbooks From the Holy Land: https://hyperallergic.com/317793/victorian-scrapbooks-of-flowers-from-the-holy-land/
- VSC flower pressing episodes:
- The Very Serious Crafts Podcast, Season 3: Episode 15 – Quilts and Flowers. Just Quilts and Flowers: https://www.veryseriouscrafts.com/2020/08/31/the-very-serious-crafts-podcast-season-3-episode-15/
- The Very Serious Crafts Podcast, Season 3: Episode 16 – Teeny Tiny Aprons, a Crafty Botanist, and Why Kindness Matters! https://www.veryseriouscrafts.com/2020/09/14/the-very-serious-crafts-podcast-season-3-episode-16/
Victorian Seaweed Hunters
- The Forgotten Victorian Craze for Collecting Seaweed
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-victorian-craze-for-collecting-seaweed - Seaweed Hunting in Petticoats
- https://underthecblog.org/2014/02/20/seaweed-hunting-in-petticoats/
Further Reading:
- Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences Victorian Era Scrapbooks: https://collection.maas.museum/object/191815
- George Ranch Historical Park- How to Press Flowers Victorian Style: https://www.georgeranch.org/blog/victorian-flower-pressing/
- National Museum of Natural History: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/botany/overview-us-herbarium
- I want to go to here! Royal Botanical Gardens Herbarium: https://www.kew.org/science/collections-and-resources/collections/herbarium