mother

So who authors an important scholarly work on early Chinese jades; maps the main prison camps in Germany and Austria during WWI; writes biographies about Anna Van Schurman, Agnes Strickland, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Dickens; writes first-hand accounts of talks of rebel leaders during Ireland’s revolutionary period; and is appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire? That would be the scholar par excellence of Renaissance art John Pope-Hennessy’s mother. 

Birmingham, Englad was known as the first manufacturing town in the world and played a central role in the manufacturing and production of trade catalogs. Trade catalogs emerged as a new and effective way to market industrial design to the masses while competing with rival firms. This brass trade catalog used detailed engravings to sell a diverse group of mass-produced metal products.

The publisher cited the author of this illustrated history only as “a Lady of Rank.” We discovered that her name was Lady Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton, Countess of Wilton, who managed to produce this book despite having 11 children and being a woman in nineteenth century England. Perhaps Lady Mary was inspired to write this history of costume by her mother, an actress named Elisabeth Farren, the second wife of the 12th Earl of Derby.

This manual on homemaking, an important handbook for a 19th century homemaker, was co-written by the Beecher sisters (as in Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom's Cabin fame). By creating this manual, the authors were hoping to provide professional level instruction to women running a servant free household. The book educates on a wide array of areas that women encountered every day at home, including how to prepare and serve healthful foods, how to properly ventilate the kitchen, how to tastefully decorate the home, and how to properly play hostess to a variety of guests.