Jack the Ripper in Popular Culture

Jack the Ripper is the most legendary terror of late-Victorian London. I've written about him before, and it's the legacy that the ripper case left upon the imagination that fascinates me the most.

If the Ripper Case didn't actually invent crime journalism and detective fiction, it certainly changed the shape of them. Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer to attract worldwide media attention, which was, in part, due total reforms that enabled the wider circulation of inexpensive magazines and newspapers, including the Illustrated Police News.

The Illustrated Police News, 15 September 1888.

"Whatever information may be in the possession of the police they deem it necessary to keep secret ... It is believed their attention is particularly directed to ... a notorious character known as 'Leather Apron'." - Manchester Guardian, 6 September 1888.

'Leather Apron,' 'Jack the Ripper'... adopting a nickname for a murder suspect became standard media practice with these words, and would soon be followed by 'the Axeman' of New Orleans, 'the Boston Strangler,' 'the Düsseldorf Ripper,' and many others.

Public frustration with the inability of the police to solve the case opened the public's hearts to freelance detectives, like Sherlock Holmes and Sexton Blake. The public obsession with this horrifying unsolvable mystery directly captured the imagination of writers as well.

Fiction that was directly inspired by the case began to appear as soon as October 1888. John Francis Brewer wrote a short gothic novel that featured the murder of Catherine Eddowes, The Curse Upon Mitre Square (1888). These stories immediately had an international appeal because the whole world was watching London for clues at the time.

The Spanish-language 'Jack El Destripador' was published soon after the murders, and sent a comedic version of Sherlock Holmes after a similar killer.

Indirectly, Jack the Ripper influenced the popularity of other works, like Dracula, which definitely gained popularity through the public's obsession. But in terms of those that dealt most directly with Jack the Ripper, Marie Belloc Lowndes' 'The Lodger' (1913) was the most influential work. In this novel, Mr. and Mrs. Bunting suspect their lodger is a wanted serial killer, called "the Avenger." Alfred Hitchcock adapted the story to film, and the theme became as popular as Holmes versus the Ripper.

Today there are hundreds of books that try to solve the mystery, and works of fiction that still feed a public interest in the story. Lowndes' novel has been made into five films.

The movie Time After Time (1979) lets Jack the Ripper escape from 1890s London to 1970s San Fransisco, followed in hot pursuit by H.G. Wells.

And Jack the Ripper made it into comic books.

And of course, Ripper Street, the TV series.

In 2011, Madame Vastra from Doctor Who claimed to have eaten Jack the Ripper. As you can see (in the picture below), the construction of Madame Vastra's character is partially built on a framework, pre-established by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the halloween-themed stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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Photos of Victorian Dead People

WARNING: This post contains images of dead Victorian babies. This is a terribly sad collection of photos.

Taking pictures of dead people was a classical Victorian art form that lasted well into the twentieth century and is more politely referred to as 'post-mortem photography,' or 'memorial portraiture.' The photos themselves were called 'cabinet cards,' or 'mourning portraits.'

While we may consider them creepy, they were a normal part of American and European culture, and are still used today by many families who lose a baby during childbirth. Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is the name of one organization that provides this service to grieving families.

In the 1890s, grieving families commissioned the photos of lost loved ones of all ages. The pictures were, in many cases, the only visual remembrance they had of their lost loved one.

Before 1839, mourning portraits were expensive endeavors that involved hiring a portrait artist. But the daguerreotype was invented in 1839, making a new kind of portraiture more accessible to the rising middle class. The practice reached its peak at the end of the nineteenth century, and faded away during the twentieth.

Post-mortem photography faded away as medical services increasingly became a part of everyday life. In the nineteenth century, most people died in their homes, frequently during childhood. Children would often be photographed with a toy, or with another relative, usually a sibling, or the mother. High childhood mortality rates were part of why so many of these photos are of infants and children.

The most significant differences between post-mortem photography in the 1890s, and what organizations, like Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, do today are where the photos are taken, and the stigma that is attached to them. I originally wrote this post as part of my halloween series, but am editing it now to encourage greater sensitivity toward this art form and its history, which is as long as the history of photography.

Infant 1890

Montreal 1890

Metta Jones, age 2 months, April 1890.

Germany 1890

Boy photographed by G.W. Barnes,
Rockford IL, 1890.

Mom and triplets, 1890.

Rosita Quintero 1892

A young girl in West Newton Massachusetts, 1893.

The Keller Family, 1894.

A priest, 1897.

5 year-old Flora Hoffman, 1897.

Miss Grace, 1898.

One of the most common misconceptions of post-mortem photography is that metal stands were used to pose the dead as if they were still alive. Dead subjects were usually posed in coffins, in beds, or as if napping in a chair. Brady stands, which people commonly think were used to pose the dead, were actually used to assist the living in staying still long enough to have their photos taken. If you spot one of these stands in a Victorian photo, it's a good indication that the subject was alive at the time the photo was taken.

Which raises the question: What the heck is happening in this photo???

This post was edited on 24 November 2014.

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Scary Toys

Complete Game of Authors - McLoughlin Brothers, NY (1887)

Toys form the subject of many horror movies. These 1890s examples give us some indication of why.

McLoughlin Brothers, NY (1890).

Cat Holes is a combination tiddlywinks game with points marked on each of the holes. My guess is that the object of the game is to get tiddlywinks in the holes, aiming for the most points.

Scientific American, 26 April 1890.

Back of doll.

Dressed.

Edison's Phonograph doll contained a 2 1/2" ring-shaped wax cylinder. A child could engage the cylinder by turning a small crank in the doll's back. A spring mechanism reset the phonograph.

1893 World's Fair bank.

Put a coin in by Columbus's feet and an Indian Cief pops up!

"Black Dandy" made in Germany (1895).

A ball toss toy in black face. I don't think I could sleep well after looking at that, and I certainly want to piss it off by throwing balls at it.

This papier-mâché version from the same year makes it seem that this was a popular motif. Through modern eyes, I look at this and see horrifying racism.

William Tell Iron Bank (1896)

With this iron bank, you can watch mechanical William Tell shoot an apple off his young son's head, as the boy stands in front of a castle tower. Place your coin on Tell's gun, and Tell will take aim. Put down the boy's right arm, and the apple moves to his head. Press Tell's right foot, and the gun fires the coin, which knocks the apple down, as the coin falls into the castle. Tell's head then falls back in relief! For more pics, click here.

1899 pull toy.

And then there were pull toys...

The above may also be an example of the grossest style of Victorian plaything, taxidermy toys. In those days rocking horses used real horse hair, so I'm sure the above is not a vegan creation to say the least.

Just imagine being tucked into a nursery, surrounded by these playthings, and sweet dreams!

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the halloween-themed stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please consider supporting my Victorian Dictionary Project!

Dens of Debauchery

Without kids to take trick-or-treating, we've been talking about going out for Halloween, but no one wants to spend too much money, which got me thinking of what writers in London in the 1890s feared most: poverty and debauchery.

"There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new." - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).

East End Den etching (1870)

Addictions were killing writers, like Wilkie Collins, at the end of the Victorian era. Decadence was paired with degeneration in the imagination, and the adventurous upper classes secretly enjoyed 'slumming.'

"It was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they were determined to discover his secret." - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891).

William Ewart Gladstone was the only PM to physically walk the streets, trying to rescue fallen women, and make London a safer place (however duplicitous Gladstone's interest in prostitutes may have been). Like most Victorian Londoners, he was probably both fascinated and terrified by the path that poverty and vice could lead one down.

"Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamy—with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo?" - Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897).

Stories, like Dracula, make it clear that no one was really safe from the horrors of vice.

"...it is only recently that I have come to the den where I live now. But that is the humour of Absinthe! — It leads one down in the social scale so gently, step by step, — so insidiously, — so carefully — that one can- not see the end. And even for me, the end is not yet." - Marie Corelli, Wormwood: A Drama of Paris (1890).

Poverty in Victorian London was the 1890s writer's greatest fear. The specter of poverty lived in a den, some dark, smoky place, filled with opium and thieves. Dens of thieves turned boys, like Oliver Twist, into "fogle-hunters." Loose women would be killed by the Ripper.

While socially-conscious middle-class Londoners worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the poor, the media often portrayed the oppressed classes as monsters.

Workers in a textile factory.

Phantom stalking Whitechapel, as an embodiment of neglect.

Consequently, it may be argued that the thing Victorian Londoners feared the most was other Victorian Londoners.

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the halloween-themed stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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The Chamber of Horrors (Waxworks)

Melted and damaged mannequins after fire in
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London, 1925

Marie Tussaud's great-grandson, Louis Tussaud opened his own wax museum at 207 Regent Street, London, on Christmas Eve 1890. The establishment would compete with his great-grandmother's more famous Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Though the waxworks at Regent Street were destroyed in a fire on 20 June 1891, Louis ran a successful venture and his museums around the world are now owned by Ripley Entertainment.

The viewing public's approach to the figures in wax museums has always varied from judgmental mockery to silent horror, the latter of which Madame Tussaud's capitalized on by making lifelike figures of the most infamous murderers on trial. A court case, involving murder and a wax museum established the the principle of "libel by innuendo" in English law, and Monson v Tussauds Ltd has been used to draw up defamation laws in many countries since.

From House of Wax (1953) to House of Wax (2005), waxworks form the basis of horror movies, and often included (still do) other attractions, like the hall of mirrors, chamber of horrors, and mock torture chambers. Although they are open year round, they've always tempted those who are in the mood for aa fright, as on Halloween Night. Suitably, the wax figure originated with funeral practices.

House of Wax (1953)

During Royal Funerals in the Middle Ages, mourners traditionally carried the fully-dressed corpse on top of the coffin, so that everyone could see it. Hot weather and the condition of the body sometimes made this practice unappealing. Gradually, was effigies began to stand in for the role of the corpse, and because the figures were fully dressed, only the head and hands needed to be sculpted out of wax.   When the funeral ended, the church would often put these figures on display for paying visitors.

The funeral effigy
(without clothes) of
Elizabeth of York,
mother of King
Henry VIII, 1503,
Westminster Abbey

Gradually, sculpting lifelike figures out of wax became a profitable art form. Figures were created for viewing by those patrons of the arts, the European aristocracy, especially in France.

King Louis XIV's court painter and sculptor, Antoine Benoist exhibited forty-three wax figures that resembled Louis XIV's Royal Circle at his home in Paris. After this exhibition, Louis XIV permitted the figures to be viewed throughout the country, which attracted the attention of King James II, who invited Benoist to England in 1684.

In England, Benoist made figures of the English Royal Court. Soon, Benoist was making wax figures of living royals all over Europe.

Mrs. Mary opened London's first wax museum in 1711. The 'Moving Wax Works of the Royal Court of England' included 140 lifelike figures, some of which used clockwork to create moving parts.

With London's location established on Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street, Madame Tussaud's is still the most famous name in wax museums.

Wax head of Mary
Pearcey (1890) from
Madame Tussaud's
Chamber of Horrors.

As in the Murder of Mrs and Baby Hogg, Madame Tussaud's would often purchase the actual evidence from horrifying crimes to accessorize the figures in their Chamber of Horrors. In 1893, they tried to do the same thing with the Arddlamont Murder Case, but were sued for defamation the following year, when the accused killer was found not guilty. This didn't stop the Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors from carrying on as it always had. The Chamber of Horrors went on to exhibit: George Chapman, Hawley Harvey Crippen, Henri Landru, Buck Ruxton, Bruno Hauptmann, John Christie, John George Haigh, George Joseph Smith and Charles Manson.

Brisbane Courier, 31 May 1895.

As in this article from the Brisbane Courier (31 May 1895), the best waxworks became a place to meditate on the worst aspects of human life. Without access to television news and full-color crime reporting, the figures in the waxworks' Chamber of Horrors became a place to look killers in the eye, while everyone was still terrified of Jack the Ripper and obsessed with Sherlock Holmes.

By the 1890s, most major cities had a wax museum, but the popularity of these went into decline during the twentieth century, as waxworks had to compete with other attractions.

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the halloween-themed stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please consider supporting my Victorian Dictionary Project!

A London Ghost

The following story appeared on the front page of the Evening Post, 21 April 1894.

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the halloween-themed stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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English Horror Story: Asylum

Patients in a Victorian Asylum (from the BBC).

Part of Dracula is set in an insane asylum because they were definitely scary! Bram Stoker used to visit them with the actress, Ellen Terry. She was studying for roles, or something, but visiting the asylum to look at the lunatics once a week was a disturbingly popular Victorian pastime, as evidenced by the portraits Henry Hering took of patients in the late 1850s.

Eliza Camplin

Eliza Camplin's portrait is decidedly posed. She didn't like the dress she was wearing, and insisted on sitting with a book (which she is holding upside-down).

The photos of Harriet Jordan are also interesting.

Harriet Jordan, diagnosed with mania.

Harriet Jordan, a few months later.

I wonder if Jordan was pulling herself together because she wanted to get out of there.

Hering took his photos at Bethlem Hospital, and Stoker gives us the impression of a great big asylum, but most people 'diagnosed' with Victorian mental conditions were simply locked away in the private homes of non-medical men, who set up to profit from these arrangements. Families paid for secrecy and discretion.

Hospitals used padded rooms to keep patients from injuring themselves.

Photo by Henry Hering.

Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the Victorian mental asylum was how easily women could end up there. London's most successful female journalist and newspaper editor wound up in one after her husband died because her family didn't like her and wanted her money.

Women were thought to be at particular risk of mental illness caused by supposed disorders of the reproductive system. Cases of melancholia associated with the menopause were treated with leeches to the pubis. The male doctors of the day saw ‘hysteria’ – from the Latin for womb – everywhere; almost any form of behaviour, such as excited chattering with other women, could be diagnosed as hysteria. - Wendy Wallace

Photo by Henry Hering.

I must admit that I felt a bit hypocritical selecting these photos to share, after mocking Stoker for his asylum tourism. In a way, we are all becoming asylum tourists by scrolling through this blog, but the images haunt me because of the deep sense of empathy and sadness I feel for each of the patients portrayed.

I'd venture to say that these people were lucky to end up in Bethlem - not in some fake doctor's private home.

More photos by Henry Hering

Though not all of Hering's photos are women, women were the primary subjects of psychiatric care that focused on sexual disorders.

Treatments included: calomel (which was really just mercury); antimony (a chemical we now use in fire retardants) to keep patients in a constant state of nausea (if they were nauseous, they were less likely to be violent); cold baths; cold showers; cold applications to the uterus (I don't even want to think how that was arranged); I personally prefer cycling for the insane. Electric shock therapy, and the lobotomy were both also invented during this time as a form of treatment for mental patients.

Cycling for the Insane' was an article published in a late-Victorian medical journal about the benefits of cycling for mental health patients. It reflects a movement to treat medical problems with moral solutions, a trend also reflected in the number of institutions established and constructed during the nineteenth century.

Doctors working in these mental institutions exaggerated the success of their methods. More patients poured in. By the 1890s, most died there.

Many mental hospitals closed in the 1970s and 1980s. This was due to pressure from the antipsychiatry movement, feminist criticism, ex-patient activism and political suspicion of large, unaccountable institutions. - The Science Museum

Throughout October 2014, I will be sharing the horror stories of 1890s London. Check back often!

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If you have enjoyed the work that I do, please consider supporting my Victorian Dictionary Project!