19th Century facts
While investigating facts about 19th Century, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Pencils are yellow because in the 19th century, the best graphite came from China. Because yellow was a royal colour in China, pencil companies began to colour their pencils yellow to show both high quality and an association with China.
Nellie Bly, a 19th century female journalist who went around the world in 72 days, pretended to be insane in order to expose the deplorable conditions in mental asylums, patented two designs for steel cans and ran a million-dollar iron manufacturing business, all before the age of 40.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about 19th Century I managed to collect.
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The giant silverware company Oneida Limited started out as a 19th century free love comune. Both older men and women were chosen to be sexual mentors to adolescent members of the opposite sex. And they also made silverware.
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Ida Craddock, a 19th century sex educator, wrote pamphlets that advised couples on the importance of foreplay, complications of having too big of a penis, and how to properly rupture the hymen. She later committed suicide after being sentenced to prison for breaking obscenity laws.
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Emma Morano, the last survivor of the 19th century. She died in 2017 at the age of 117.
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In the 19th century, obstetricians did not wash their hands before examinations. In 1861 a guy called Semmelweis recommended hand washing to decrease very high mother mortality rates. He faced fierce opposition, had a nervous breakdown and died in a mental hospital 4 years later.
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Up to 25 percent of cowboys in the West during the later 19th century were black. Former slaves or born into a formerly enslaved family, they worked in an industry that despite facing inevitable racism was a generally less discriminatory than other industries at the time.
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The Can-Can was originally considered scandalous as it became popular in the mid-19th century because many women of that time wore pantalettes, which had an open crotch, meaning that a high kick could be unintentionally revealing
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Due to China’s early discovery and love of ceramics they didn’t produce any glass between the 14th-19th century. This meant they didn’t have mirrors and windows etc, leaving them behind in sciences, as they didn’t make lenses and other things fundamental to science.
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Chicago was raised over 4 ft with screw jacks in the 19th century in order to install the first sewer system in the US.
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Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who died at the age of 101 in 2002, had an older sister, Violet, who sadly died at the age of eleven, eight years before the Queen Mother's own birth. Which means that one sister died in the 19th century while the other died in the 21st century.
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It became illegal to sell ice-cream sodas on a Sunday in the American town of Evanston during the late 19th century. To get around the problem some traders replaced the soda with syrup and called the dessert an "Ice Cream Sunday." Today, we cherish them as "Sundaes".
19th Century data charts
For your convenience take a look at 19th Century figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.
What is true about 19th century?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
In 19th century Germany there was a man who was both the local tax collector and caretaker of the dog pound. Since tax collecting was a dangerous job, he used the pound to make a new breed a dog that would protect him while collecting. His name, Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann.
When scientists found harpoon tips from the 19th century in bowhead whales, they got curious about how old they were and discovered they are one of the oldest vertebrates in the world, living to be over 200 years old. - source
The word 'bus' is actually short for 'omnibus' meaning "To contain many things" and didn't originate until the early 19th century - source
H.H. Holmes, a 19th century serial killer in the US, opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind. It included soundproofed bedrooms, trap doors, walls lined with blowtorches and two incinerators.
We say "pardon my French" after swearing because in the 19th century, English-speaking people would drop French phrases into conversation to display class, apologizing because many of their listeners wouldn't know the language. Then people hid swear words under the pretense of them being French. - source
Hebrew essentially died between 200 and 400 CE, and was revived in 19th century Germany, now having about 9 million speakers
William Halsted, a pioneering surgeon from the 19th century who discovered anesthetic properties of cocaine, eventually got addicted to it. He signed himself up in a sanatorium where his addiction was "treated" with morphine. He remained a morphine addict for the rest of his life
About Havelock Ellis, a 19th century English sexologist, who thought he was impotent until age 60, where he discovered he was "aroused by a woman urinating". He also co-authored early medical textbooks on homosexuality, pioneered investigating psychedelic drugs and married an open lesbian.
All the "ancient" crystal skulls of Central America were actually created in Europe during the 19th century. The Brazilian quartz deposit the skulls are made of was unknown during ancient times and likely crafted in a 19th century German workshop renowned for crafting objects of Brazilian quartz
A 19th century governor of Greece introduced potatoes to the country. Initially, he tried giving seed potatoes to skeptical farmers. When this failed, he piled them in public under guard, convincing people of their value. They stole the potatoes and planted them.
In the late 19th Century, a woman named Nellie Bly became an investigative journalist, had herself committed to expose poor conditions at mental institutions, traveled the world in under 80 days, married a millionaire, and became an industrialist.
