July Book Tuesday

The next entry for our Book Tuesday feature.

Enjoy
Victorian Society of Alberta

The Cowboy Cavalry 
The Story of the Rocky Mountain Rangers
 - by Gordon E Tolton

When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, settlers in southern Alberta's cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia charged with ensuring the safety of the open range between the Rocky Mountains and the Cypress Hills. The Rangers were a motley crew, from ex-Mounties and ex-cons to retired, high-ranking military officials and working, ranch-hand cowpokes. Membership qualifications were scant: ability to ride a horse, knowledge of the prairies, and preparedness to die.

This is their story, inextricably linked to the dissensions of the day, rife with skirmishes, corruption, jealousies, rumour, innuendo and gross media sensationalizing . . . all bound together with what author Gordon Tolton terms “a generous helping of gunpowder.” Tolton’s meticulous research reveals unexplored perspectives and little-known details.

How to be a Victorian 
– by Ruth Goodman

Ruth Goodman believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves a sour bustling and fanciful guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From waking up to the rapping of a knocker-upper man on the window pane to lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics, from slipping opium to the little ones to finally retiring to the bedroom for the ideal combination of love, consideration, control and pleasure, the weird, wonderful, and somewhat gruesome intricacies of Victorian life are vividly rendered here. How to Be a Victorian is an enchanting manual for the insatiably curious.

Happy Dominion Day!

Or as we say in these modern times...

Happy Canada Day!

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and fun Canada Day, 

from all of us at the Victorian Society of Alberta.

 153 years looks good on you Canada!

New Feature Book Tuesdays!

Welcome to our new monthly feature!

BOOK TUESDAY

On the first Tuesday of every month(ish) we will be sharing books that have useful, entertaining, and interesting information on Victorian history.

Each post will have one book that deals with the History of Western Canada and one that deals with the greater Victorian World outside of Western Canada.

To get things rolling here are the first two books for you to check out.

Thanks for reading.
The Victorian Spectator.

~~~~~~~~~~ BOOK TUESDAY ~~~~~~~~~~

Ranching with Lords & Commons

By John Craig

 Ranching with Lords & Commons, originally published in 1903, tells the fascinating story of Alberta's famous Oxley Ranch from the perspective of John R. Craig, Oxley's former manager. Craig's passion and knowledge shine through in this overview of what the cattle business was really like when ranching got underway in the late 1800s. In writing about his experiences, Craig's intention was to provide "faithful reproductions of actual facts in the pioneer life of the western cattleman." This story—and the history it reveals—provides an entertaining and informative account of the early days of Alberta's cattle industry.

 

I feel I am justified in presenting a narrative which has the double merit of novelty and truth, and which at the same time serves to relieve me from responsibility for the shortcomings and eccentricities—to put it mildly—of the aristocratic cattlemen with whom it was my lot for some years to be associated, and who are indicated in the title as lords and commons.—John R. Craig

Available at AMAZON and fine used bookstores.

~~~~~~~~

The Victorian Internet:
The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers

by Tom Standage

 The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways.

Available at AMAZON



I am running a regular post "From the Wire" on our FaceBook page with interesting little bits of telegraphic history.
Check it out!
--Ed.
  

Happy Victoria Day!

From all of us at the Victorian Society of Alberta, to all of you, happy Victoria day!

Victorian Society of Alberta

Homesteaders

Another "Living History" series.
This one is set in Manitoba.
Participants have to live on the land for 1 year as if they were newly arrived homesteaders.
A fascinating look at how some modern couples handle the rigours of 19th C frontier in Canada.
The series is 9 parts here is the first one:

The remainder are available here on YouTube

Thanks for reading.
The Victorian Society of Alberts

24 Hours in Victorian England

This series of four videos from Britain are an entertaining, and relatively informative, look at how ordinary people lived and worked in Victorian England.

While conditions for most people in Britain at the time were pretty miserable it is because of those conditions that so many people came out to Canada to start over. For though the "primitive" and "frontier" life in Western Canada was rough, it was much better than being back home.

The rest of the episodes are available on Reel Truth History Documentaries channel on YouTube.

Thanks for reading.

Victorian Society of Alberta

The World is Changing...

And we, alas, must change with it.

The Global Covid-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of every single event that we would have held or attended this Summer. These cancellations are the right thing to do and we support the efforts of everyone to contain and defeat this pandemic.

However we know your interest in Victorian history has not gone away, and neither has ours, so over the course of the Summer we will be posting lots of interesting information for you to peruse. We hope that you will find these posts entertaining as well as informative, and we welcome your comments. Each post will have a label that will make it easy to search for later.

If you would like more information on anything we have posted, have interesting ideas to share, or questions for us to research, feel free to reach out to us on our Social Media pages or by email to victoriansocietyofalberta at gmail.com

Please be safe and we look forward to seeing you at events in the future when this is all settled.