Victorian Skating Party Dec 3 2022

 We will be there.

Come say Hi!

.

Enjoy

The Victorian Society of Alberta

November Fashion Friday

This month it is all about MONICLES!

Very posh what?

Enjoy

The Victorian Society of Alberta

Louis Riel Day

 

 From Wikipedia

Louis Riel (/ˈluːi riˈɛl/; French: [lwi ʁjɛl]; 22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885) was a Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis people. He led two resistance movements against the Government of Canada and its first prime minister John A. Macdonald. Riel sought to defend Métis rights and identity as the Northwest Territories came progressively under the Canadian sphere of influence.

The first resistance movement led by Riel was the Red River Resistance of 1869–1870. The provisional government established by Riel ultimately negotiated the terms under which the new province of Manitoba entered the Canadian Confederation. However, while carrying out the resistance, Riel had a Canadian nationalist, Thomas Scott, executed. Riel soon fled to the United States to escape prosecution. He was elected three times as member of the House of Commons, but, fearing for his life, he could never take his seat. During these years in exile he came to believe that he was a divinely chosen leader and prophet. He married in 1881 while in exile in the Montana Territory.

In 1884 Riel was called upon by the Métis leaders in Saskatchewan to help resolve longstanding grievances with the Canadian government, which led to an armed conflict with government forces: the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Defeated at the Battle of Batoche, Riel was imprisoned in Regina where he was convicted at trial of high treason. Despite protests, popular appeals and the jury's call for clemency, Riel was executed by hanging. Riel was seen as a heroic victim by French Canadians; his execution had a lasting negative impact on Canada, polarizing the new nation along ethno-religious lines. The Métis were marginalized in the Prairie provinces by the increasingly English-dominated majority. A long-term impact was the bitter alienation Francophones across Canada felt, and anger against the repression by their countrymen.^[1]

Riel's historical reputation has long been polarized between portrayals as a dangerous religious fanatic and rebel opposed to the Canadian nation, and, by contrast, as a charismatic leader intent on defending his Métis people from the unfair encroachments by the federal government eager to give Orangemen-dominated Ontario settlers priority access to land. Arguably, Riel has received more formal organizational and academic scrutiny than any other figure in Canadian history.^[2] The trial and conviction of Louis Riel has been the subject of historical comment and criticism for over one hundred years.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day...

Lest we forget.

Photo by Neil Zeller

It is important to note that today as we remember those who sacrificed themselves in service to Empire and in response to the commands of their Kings and countries, that we must also remember that ALL the men and women who participated in WWI were "Victorians" and those who served in WWII were mostly "Edwardians".

These two titanic conflicts changed the worlds of these people in unimaginable ways. For the world of neither the Victorians nor the Edwardians, as we tend to study and re-create it, remained when the smoke and dust settled.

Not only did hundreds of thousands of them die, but the very cultural structures in which they had grown up were swept away.

In 1914 a farmer in Western Canada, a fisherman on the Coasts, a labourer in the factories of Eastern Canada, or a miner in the far north, went when their King called because that was what one did.
104 years ago when the guns fell silent at 11:00 am on November 11th, 1918, they did not know that everything had changed forever but they hoped that at least war was done with.

Alas their children found that was not true.

There are none alive now who remember the world of WWI and few indeed that remember WWII.
We owe it to them that WE remember, we also owe their World, the Victorian and Edwardian World we celebrate, that it not be forgotten either.

Lest we forget.
God Save the King!

 

November Book Tuesday

This month's Book Tuesday* is a series of annual collections of the British "Boy's Own Paper". This paper came out on Saturdays and cost one penny. Filled with adventure stories, games, puzzles, projects and articles of interest for "Boys", which seems to include anyone from age 5 to young adults!

The papers were collected and published in "Annuals" thick hardbound volumes. These are gold mines of information on late 19th Century Britain. The first annual was published for the papers in 1879. Weighing in at 618 pages it is a densely packed time capsule.

Hathitrust has online scans of all the annuals from 1879 to 1896.

The Internet archive has many full scans available for download as well. 

To give you a taste the 1891=92 edition of the annual is available for down load here.  It is a hefty PDF file clocking in at almost 490 MB of dense text.  

Enjoy
The Victorian Society of Alberta

*Well technically last Tuesday was the first Tuesday of November but I was recovering from Halloween 😁