Craftsman vs. Victorian: What's The Difference?
Deleted scenes from the latest video
My new video essay, Craftsman vs Victorian, is out now!
I’m working on a longer thesis (perhaps video?) about ways “ai” has made my life harder, but for now, suffice to say that researching history on the Internet now involves wading through a sludge of garbage ai answers. Almost all of these “answers” are grossly misinformed, inaccurate, confused or imagined. For example, I ask “what year was the Pantheon built?”, and Google AI tells me the year it was consecrated by the Catholic church. Not the same thing!
There is a bright side: Books.
Before each video, I comb the shelves of the art section at my local library and pull as many relevant books as I can find. I get gorgeous photographs, cheeky writing, and fact- checked information, all ad-free! And no paywalls! I tell myself each book had to pass through editors, publishers and readers before making it to my desk. An Internet article barely has to pass spell check, maybe.
I am increasingly grateful for small, dedicated design blogs and avid historians (many here on Substack!). Now more than ever, I crave a personal touch to my Internet content. Thank you to everyone who makes content like that.
For the Craftsman vs. Victorian video I found two incredible sources: The Secret Lives of Victorian Houses by Elan and Susan Zingman- Leith, and Craftsman Style, by Robert Winter and Alexander Vertikoff. Craftsman Style magnificently captured the essence of the places I’d been and made me want to visit the places I haven’t. The Secret Life of Victorian Houses was like having a cheerful docent blow my mind on the Victorian era. Check out this toilet fact:
“People in the late nineteenth century often remarked on how much manners had improved in the past fifty years. Perhaps because the new middle class was just establishing its gentility, they outdid by far the real gentry of the early nineteenth century. In the I820s… after dinner, the ladies would retire to the drawing room, and the men would urinate in the pots stored behind the doors of the sideboard. By the late nineteenth century, even a middle class dinner was much more orderly and controlled.”
People used to PEE IN THE DINING ROOM??
Wow.
The book was full of bits like that. The photographs featured Victorian interiors looking as fresh and lived-in as if they were full color Kodak photos of the Victorian era itself.
I also discovered Michael Wyetzner, the New York architect behind AD’s Architect Breaks Down videos. I have no idea why it took the algorithm so long to serve me these gems. While I appreciate his perspective, I disagree fully with his statement “Victorian isn’t really a style, it’s more of an era.” I think Victorian houses are some of the easiest for an average person to identify. After over 100 years, it seems GINGERBREAD is the prevailing Victorian style. “Gingerbread Victorian” and “Victorian” are now almost synonymous. There are other styles; Queen Anne, Italianate, Victorian Row. I originally had a section of the video about house styles, but I cut it out. I’ve always been more interested in how people lived in houses than in nomenclature. Maybe I’ll make a separate video about Victorian house styles, though.
Here are some images that I absolutely adored, but couldn’t find a place for in the video.
From top: Venus Verticordia, painting by Dante Gabriel Rosseti; graphic of Medieval Revival/ Moorish objects; Gothic Revival stained glass; photograph of a Victorian woman with very long hair; Victorian hair accessories; I think this is William Morris; Manhattan circa 1900; a frosted glass gingerbread porch; a postcard of The Methodist Tabernacle on Oak Bluffs.