lizzieMoonlight wrote:I am here in the South of Brazil , and I can barely have tee shirt and shorts on. What did they do to survive with those long skirts. ...
In Victorian Times women wore brimmed hats in the summer, because the brim shielded their faces from the sun. If you recall Lizzie testified at the Inquest that she went into the dining room and laid her hat down.
Lizzie’s Inquest Testimony; questioned by District Attorney Hosea Knowlton, page 77 (34):
Q. When you came down from the barn, what did you do then?
A. Came into the kitchen.
Q. What did you do then?
A. I went into the dining room and laid down my hat.
Source:
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/wp-conten ... nquest.pdf
Victorian women frequently carried a parasol or a fan; parasols were handy for blocking the sun, while a fan was used to stir up cooling air. According to trial drawings, Lizzie not only wore a hat, she carried a fan. Below is a scene in the court-room before the acquittal - Lizzie Borden, the accused, and her counsel, Ex-Governor Robinson / drawn on the spot by B. West Clinedinst:
3c23237r.jpg
As we know, the Victorian Era women wore multiple layers of clothing, which covered them from neck to ankle, and would often cause them to faint or swoon due to becoming overheated; these outfits were heavy and hot resulting in many heat related illnesses. They also wore laced up corsets to make them thinner. Their corsets would be so tight that the women could hardly breath, so women would faint or swoon as a reaction to any excitement or when she became startled due to a lack of oxygen. Women also fainted as an extreme emotional reaction to a particular event, as it denoted that a woman was truly a lady. Therefore women, including Lizzie Borden, would carry smelling salts with them.
The Sourcebook, page 219 (Partial of a very long article) in the Boston Daily Globe, New Bedford, June 6:
"It was 11 o’clock when he ended his presentation of the Commonwealth’s case. The black figure of the prisoner had not attracted attention during the preceding half hour. She had been sitting with the great Japanese fan close against her face. Only the correspondent of The Sun and the deputy sheriff beside her could see behind the fan.
Two or three minutes passed and the fan and the arm that held it dropped upon the prisoner’s lap, Her head was back against the rail, her eyes were shut, her mouth was open, and her breast heaved with very long breaths.
“Lizzie Borden’s asleep,” was the whisper that galloped through the court room. Deputy Sheriff Kirby, who sat beside her, took friendly alarm at such disrespectful behavior, and tried to awaken her before the Court should see her. He shook her arm. He might as well have shaken a pump handle. Her head rolled over so that her cheek rested on the rail at right angles to the line of her body. A purple cast came over her face. Kindly Mr. Kirby looked alarmed and helpless. City Missionary Jubb of Fall River was sitting near by, and sprang to his feet and began to fan her.
A Deputy Sheriff came quickly with a glass of water. After a little she regained partial consciousness. Mr. Jubb ordered her somewhat sharply to find her smelling salts. Her hand went into her pocket mechanically and came out with a little cut glass bottle in it. Then she put both hands on the arms of the chair and fell back against the railing, not half over her faint. Mr. Jubb was applying the smelling salts, and was so much in earnest that her breath went from her and she put up her hand to push the bottle away. In another minute her eyes opened, and she heard Mr. Jubb advising her to drink some water, which she did. Sheriff Wright, in the mean time, began rapping on his desk for order. The people crept back into their seats, and the episode ended with Miss Borden leaning her head against the rail, with her eyes shut, while everyone wondered whether she was going to faint again."
(
Note: Underlining is mine.)
Source, scroll down to page 219:
http://tinyurl.com/hds3gvh
Here is an example of a Japanese fan:
Japanese Fan Undated Paper with wooden frame.jpg
Here are a few examples of cut glass smelling salts bottles:
ANTIQUE FRENCH CUT GLASS PERFUME-SCENT SMELLING SALTS BOTTLE CIRCA 1880.jpg
Antique Double Cut Glass Perfume Bottle Smelling Salts Victorian Scroll 19th Century. .jpg
Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, page 213:
The New York Times
LIZZIE BORDEN IN A FAINT
OVERCOME BY THE. PROSECUTION'S STORY OF THE MURDER.
Second Day of the Great Trial at New-Bedford-
The State Open's It, Case and Examines One Witness-Great Crowds About the Court House-
Jury Goes to Fall River and Takes a Careful View of the Borden House and Its Surroundings.
NEW-BEDFORD, Mass., June 6.-The trial of Lizzie Borden for the murder of her father and stepmother was continued to-day. A few spectators were admitted into the court chamber, but hundreds sought admission in vain. Today, as yesterday, when the trial opened, great crowds surrounded the Court House and gazed at the brick wall of the building, as though by so doing they might gain some slight information of the celebrated trial in progress within. There were no empty seats in the courtroom, though there was by no means a crowd.
The majority of the spectators were men, but a score or more of women were in attendance. After the reading of the indictment the outline of the Government's case was given by District Attorney William H. Moody, a young man with an earnest and impressive air.
The prisoner sat behind the Deputy Sheriff and listened to Mr. Moody's careful address with the closest attention, as calm and unmoved as ever. Her eyes looked straight toward the speaker. Indeed, the spectators seemed as much interested in the prosecutor's words as did Miss Borden, and but for the uniformed Sheriff sitting beside her she might have been taken by a stranger for one of those who had come to the courtroom with no greater interest than that of curiosity.
It was a great surprise, therefore, to everybody when just as Mr. Moody finished speaking Miss Borden fell back in her chair in a faint.
Mr. Moody's exposition of the circumstances attending the murder of the Bordens was clear and succinct, and he evidently left a favorable impression on the minds of the jury.
In reference to the cause of the murder, Mr. Moody said: "There was or came to be between prisoner and stepmother an unkindly feeling. From the nature of the case it will be impossible for us to get anything more than suggestive glimpses of this feeling from outsiders. The daughters thought that something should be done for them by way of dividing the property after they had learned that the stepmother had been amply provided for. Then came a division and ill-feeling, and the title of "mother" was dropped.
The prosecution would show, Mr. Moody said, that when a dressmaker of the family had spoken of the stepmother as "mother", Lizzie had chided her and said: "Don't call her mother; we hate her; she's a mean spiteful thing."
"When," said Mr. Moody, "an officer was seeking information from the prisoner, right in sight of the woman who had sunken under the assassin's blows, and asked, "When did you last see your mother?" the reply came from Lizzie: " 'She isn't my mother; my mother died when I was an infant.' "
It would be shown, continued Mr. Moody, that there was an impassable barrier built up between the daughters and the stepmother, socially and by locks and bars.
For two hours the attorney spoke, calling attention to the constant presence of the prisoner in the house that morning, of her careless and indifferent demeanor after the crime, and of the various incriminating incidents which marked her conduct.
Then calmly and deliberately he delivered his peroration: "The time for hasty and inexact reasoning is past. We are to be guided from this time forth by the law and the evidence only. I adjure you gentlemen to keep your minds in the same open attitude which you have maintained to-day to the end. When that end comes, after you have heard the evidence on both sides, the arguments of the counsel and the instruction of the court, God forbid that you should step one step against the law or beyond the evidence. But if your minds, considering all these circumstances, are irresistibly brought to the conclusion of the guilt of the prisoner, we ask you in your verdict to declare her guilty. By so doing, shall you make true deliverance of the great issue which has been submitted to you. "
As the District Attorney ceased speaking the prisoner, who, with her face covered by the fan, had sat motionless for the last hour, suddenly succumbed to the strain that had been put upon her nervous system and lost consciousness. The Rev. Mr. Jubb, sitting directly in front of her and separated only by the dock rail, turned to her assistance, and Mr. Jennings, the attorney, hurried to the place from his position. Smelling salts and water were brought into immediate requisition, and soon entire consciousness returned.
(
Note: Underlining is mine.)
Source:
http://tinyurl.com/hds3gvh
Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, page 220:
swoon.jpg
A fanciful illustration titled, “Lizzie Faints Away”, used in a story appearing in “The Police Gazette”, the man’s magazine of the 1890’s.
Source, scroll down to page 220:
http://tinyurl.com/hds3gvh
lizzieMoonlight wrote:... Does anyone knows if they had washing machines then? or some sort of mechanical washer?
I'm sorry, Moonlight, I don't know the answer to this question.
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I am not used to warm weather. New England summers would be like a heat wave up here. Summers in the American South would be like a super unprecedented heat wave to me. 
