Don’t Try This at Home—Glass-Blowing as a Profession

Glass-blowing is a big deal around my neck of the woods. Tacoma just to the north of us is home to the Glass Museum, one of the only working glass-blowing museums on the West Coast. It began as a way to honor Tacoma native, internationally renowned blown-glass artist Dale Chihuly. And you can reach it from the Washington State History Museum via the Bridge of Glass, a structure housing dozens of pieces of blown glass, with end posts boasting huge blue-green pillows of the stuff.

Somehow, I doubt the glass-blowers of the Regency period had such an illustrious and beautiful setting.

According to the Book of English Trades from 1811, glass-makers only worked in the cold months. The high heat of their furnaces would have been unbearable otherwise. These furnaces were made of giant cones of brick, about two-stories tall, with several openings. The ingredients—flint or sand, salt, and metal oxides—went in one opening; fuel in the form of wood or coal in another. The metal oxides were for color. Leave them out, and you had clear glass. Add a little lead, and you had very clear glass (the famed English lead crystal was developed in that way). Iron or copper oxide yielded green glass, cobalt oxide blue, and a sprinkle of gold a beautiful red.

Once the ingredients fused together in a runny molten mass, a glass-maker would scoop some out with a hollow tube about two and a half feet long. The glass-maker rolled the mass on an iron plate to smooth it, then began blowing into the tube to form a bubble. Blowing and turning both increased the size of the bubble and shaped it. The result would generally be some form of vessel—a bowl, a cup, a lamp cover. But the bubble could also be blown and rotated quickly to form a large disk several feet across. Where the glass-blower cut off the disk from the pipe left a little nipple. These plates would be used to create the panes for windows like those below.

The art was not for the faint of heart. Burns were common, and clothing or gloves might catch fire. But the beauty created is still amazing, whether you live in Regency London, or modern-day Pierce County.

Pictures of glass from the Museum of Glass and Bridge of Glass by Kira Picabo.

What’s a (Poor) Lady to Do?

We have, over the years, discussed the activities and challenges of the young lady of the Regency period, as well as her somewhat limited career choices. Novels abound of gently reared ladies having to make do when circumstances conspire against them. My Fortune’s Brides series features gentlewomen down on their luck, so I’ve been doing some pondering as to what the actual choices were for such women, particularly those who are not looking to marry and would prefer not to lower her status terribly. Here are a few ideas:

• Governess—The old standby. If you’ve survived a Season or two, if you learned some history and science along the way, perhaps another language such as French, you probably have what it takes to teach other young ladies. A slight variation on this would be a finishing school teacher, but those were somewhat rare in the Regency (even though I’ve given my heroines that profession in at least two stories 😊).
• Nanny—I see this frequently, and I’ve certainly used it myself, but I haven’t found too many contemporary sources claiming a young lady who had been raised for finer things took it upon herself to become a nanny. Still, if you had a motherly instinct, if you were raised with many brothers and sisters, and if you were willing to be seen as a servant, you might be able to handle this position.
• Housekeeper for a relative—this is a difficult one. Technically, a housekeeper is a servant position, although higher on the servant food chain. But if you served a relative who was willing to treat you more like family so that the role was more of chatelaine, this one might do.
• Lady’s maid—another difficult one. Again, you are a servant, and chances are you won’t be mixing socially with the upper crust. But if you are a dab hand at sewing, know your way around a cosmetic jar, and have a good ear, you could do well here.
• Companion—another old standby. Families seem to have a plethora of aged female relations who require someone to fetch and carry, to share confidences, to help with daily care and entertainment. And there’s always the off chance that said relative will be kind in her will.
• Assistant—I’ll be using this one in my fourth Fortune’s Brides series, but it is a challenging one as well. Secretaries and personal attaches were generally men serving men. A lady really cannot spend time alone with a gentleman. But say a prominent lady, who doesn’t want to claim her age requires a companion or needs specialized skills? Perhaps.
  
• Sponsored artist—Sometimes your gift could be your livelihood. Wealthy patrons might sponsor a painter, a musician, or a composer. Most of these sponsored positions went to men, and it would look odd for a lady to be sponsored by a gentleman. But, under the right circumstances, I could see a woman sponsoring another woman.

So, what do you think? Have you heard of other ways for an impoverished young lady to keep her head and her dignity above water?

Not Quite Heroic Occupations?

Dukes, landowners, gamblers, pirates, and highwaymen. Romances set in early nineteenth century England have a host of intriguing occupations for a dashing hero. But there are three you don’t see so often, and I think you’ll understand why.

Sawyer. Remember, this is a time before the steam-powered sawmill. Loggers might bring down a tree and peel off bark and limbs, but it was the sawyer who cut it into planks and beams for use in buildings. Apparently, a suitable tree was dragged to span a pit or propped up high as in this picture. One sawyer climbed down into the pit, so he was under the tree. The other stood on top of the tree. Starting at one end, they worked a two-person saw up and down, cutting through the wood to create the desired width. The man on top might not have it too difficult, but woe betide the man below, who was shoving a heavy metal blade up over his head constantly. Says A Book of English Trades, published in 1802 to give youths career guidance, “This is a very labourious employment.”

Stocking weaver. Doesn’t sound so terrible, does it? You sat and worked a loom that created wool or silk stockings of all sizes. Unfortunately, there were a few challenges. One, the looms supplanted hand-sewing, replacing skilled labor with unskilled. Some folks took that badly, and, in some cases, violence resulted. For another, the work was long and boring, and you barely made enough to get by. But, notes A Book of English Trades, it was clean work, indoors. There was something to be said for that.

Ratcatcher. Did I notice a wince? Unlike our tech-savvy exterminators today, ratcatchers in the nineteenth century were more hands-on. While they did wield poison when needed, they were more likely to employ traps and deal directly with the vermin. And the vermin were particularly verminous back then. Remember, fleas from rats have been linked to the plague.

So, what do you think? Could you find it in your heart to root for any of these gentlemen as a hero in a romance novel?