Fanny Chamberlain, ca. 1862.

Welcome to Fanny's Parlor: The 19th Century Brought to Life.

I was inspired to create this blog because every time I talked about life in the 19th century, people always wanted to know where they could find more information. I'm a teacher by nature and I believe in teaching through giving people things they can relate to and that makes history less of a dry odyssey through dates and names that mean nothing to most people now.

I chose to call this blog Fanny's Parlor after a nineteenth century woman by the name of Fanny Chamberlain. (Most of you who know me already know about her.) Born in quite humble beginnings, Fanny rose to become an artist living on her own, a music and voice teacher, a college professor's wife, onto a Civil War general's wife, the First Lady of Maine, and a college president's wife. She led a unique life for nineteenth century standards and witnessed things that most of her peers never dreamed of in their own lives.

Fanny was known in her lifetime for inviting students of Bowdoin College and people in the town of Brunswick, Maine, into her home for parties and social gatherings. She helped the students with their problems and cared for them so much that the habits were mentioned in her eulogy. It was said: "Then to the time Mr. Chamberlain was made president of Bowdoin College when she was still 'the same little Fannie Adams,' and the students came to her with their joys and sorrows, wrong doings and love affairs. Whatever happened, she always took the part of the student, being almost a mother to them." It was also said of her: "Mrs. Chamberlain had a fund of funny stories and of quaint sayings. She was young and bright in spirit, even to her last. She was cultured and intellectual and an artist in painting as well as in music. But better than all her versatile talents was her dear, true strong, loving heart."

She is the namesake of this blog and the point of reference for the things taught here. No subject will be off-limits. There will be everything from humor to seriousness, birth to death, Victorian oddities, sex, love, marriage, careers, fashion, architecture, furniture, incorporating Victorianisms into the present, and everything in between. In the spirit of Fanny's "fund of funny stories and of quaint sayings," this blog will be anything but a dry historical reference.

I hope to see all of you here in the evolution of Fanny's Parlor.