Victorian's sure didn't travel light!

Yesterday at lunch time I drove over to the local community college to listen to Mary Jeanne Bialas give her interactive presentation called "Trunks and Travel: A 19th century Journey.

It was very interesting. The premise of the show was 2 families, of a man and a woman, were each going to a family wedding and would be gone 3 days. One family was from the 1890s and was traveling by canal boat and train. The other family was modern day and traveled by car.

The modern family had one overnight bag (and presumably the man a suit somewhere on a hanger) The 19th century family each had huge trunks. Mrs. Bialas would remove from the modern suitcase an item of clothing and then remove the same item (or quite often items) from one of the trunks. It was really amazing what well-bred middle class folks were expected to wear summer and winter! No wonder women were "delicate". If they could even breathe after putting on their corsets, they certainly would be roasting to death under layer upon layer of clothing!!! Evidently, these restrictive clothes were a way for men to "control" their women! Did you know that?

It was a very interesting talk and well worth the drive over. I highly recommend checking out your local college for open to the public lectures and learn something new. Never to old to learn, right??