Victorian life

Simply visiting the Molly Brown House Museum is one way you can learn about Margaret “Molly” Brown’s incredible life, however, to gain a deeper understanding of how she lived and even what she held dear, you can view her private collections, The Brown Family Collection, online on the museum website. Looking into Margaret’s life, she…

Everyone who comes to the museum undoubtedly has their favorite room, favorite picture, or favorite artifact.  But what about the staff? We challenged our curator to answer this for Ask a Curator Day. We decided that our curator shouldn’t be the only one who got in on the fun, so we asked several members of…

In 1932, after Margaret Brown’s death and during the Great Depression, what we know today as the ‘Molly Brown House Museum’ was sold to a private buyer. Throughout the years, various owners altered the house dramatically, including creating twelve separate rooms for renters and redesigning the appearance of the house to reflect modern styles.  In…

One of the outlandish things that women in the Victorian era did was to adapt the cage crinoline as a way to achieve the sought after full skirt. Made of wood, steel, or horsehair, the crinoline was a stiff underskirt that made a woman’s skirt a force to be reckoned with.  While women reveled in…

Christmas in Hannibal, Missouri-Margaret’s Childhood Margaret Tobin (later Brown) celebrated her very first Christmas in Hannibal, Missouri. She was born in 1867, just after the Civil War, to hard working Irish immigrants John and Johanna Tobin. When Margaret was three years old, Christmas became a United States holiday. Christmas trees became popular in England and…

Giving thanks for a special event, for home and for family has a long tradition in the cultures across the world, but the American idea and tradition of Thanksgiving Day for Margaret Brown’s family and for many of us has evolved from simple proclamations of thanksgiving to God to an event centered around the home,…

Victorians were curious people interested in nature, the sciences, anatomy, botany, and morbidity. For upper-class citizens, collecting scientific objects showed that they were sophisticated and educated. The Victorians were interested, some even to the point of obsession, in beauty, death, and finding rare items that were visually appealing. Some collections were so extensive that they…

Anyone who has ever received a rose knows that the giver is likely expressing a feeling of love toward the recipient. The idea that flowers can represent different feelings and emotions is nothing new and can be traced back as far as the ancient Egyptians. Flowers were used in religious ceremonies and festivals, found in…

In the United States, Europe, and many other parts of the globe, St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, and Father Christmas bring gifts to all the good children on Christmas Eve. The book, T’was Night Before Christmas, was written by Clement Clark Moore in 1823. This was the first time St. Nick appeared in America in a…

In Henry J. Wheman’s how-to guide The Mystery of Love, Courtship and Marriage Explained, advice on various activities are presented for men and women alike such as “Pet names,” “Wooing,” “How a lady should manage her Beau to make him propose Marriage,” “Twenty Ways of Popping the Question,” “The Etiquette of Engagement,” “General Remarks to…