Brochure Types: Research

Trick Photography

Trick Photography

Oscar Rejlander is perhaps the most famous artist in the area of trick photography.
He is considered by many to even be the ‘father of art photography’, his most famous trick being the creation of the headless portrait.

Spirit Photgraphy

Spirit Photography

Spirit or ghost photography is the attempt to capture the image of ghosts or spirits – an act popularised in the late 19^th century.

Magic Shows and Supernatural Séances

Magic Shows/ Supernatural Séances

Magic has been around for ages but it didn’t become a form of mass entertainment until Victorian times. Such entertainment featured: Illusionists, inventors, mesmerists, mediums, spiritualists, conjurors and comedians.

Freak Shows

Freak Shows

The term ‘freak show’ came about from the historic tour of the conjoined Colloredo twins in the 1930s but they really thrived during the Victorian era when people from all walks of life would crowd together to gawp at unusual looking people; be it those with ‘abnormal’ features or those who are simply able to perform what one would consider to be remarkable physical acts.

Mechanical Dolls and Automatons

Mechanical Dolls/ Automatons

The building of automatons (moving mechanical machines) flourished during the Victorian age and had a universal appeal.

One of the most famous and influential was designed and built by Wolfgang Von Kempelen, a specialist music box maker. His chess-playing Turk baffled and amazed Europe until it was revealed to be a hoax: the figure was actually controlled by a man hidden inside the box.

In London, Charles Babbage watched the Turk in action and also thought it a hoax, although it did make him think about how a real calculating machine could work; this eventually resulted in his creation of the ‘difference engine’ considered today to have been the world’s very first computer.

Victorian Zoos

Zoos

Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Humphrey Davy founded the London zoological Society in 1826 so to promote the study of ecology. In 1828 the London zoo was founded for the study of animal species in Regents Park but was only open to members of the ZSL. In 1847 it opened to the general paying public due the high maintenance costs

It was also at the London Zoo that Charles Darwin saw his first orangutan (Jenny) and watched in amazement as she had a tantrum over a withheld apple.

The circus

The Circus

The word ‘Circus’ was derived from the Latin term  ‘circus’ which translates to circle or ring. Circuses rose to massive popularity during the Victorian period as they would travel to reach their audience, from cities to the most remote towns so to perform in parks and public places.

Popular acts would include: Jugglers, battle scenes, aerial acts and clowns performed by skilled artists who often performing dangerous tricks to please and excite their audience.

Their popularity was so much that even theaters would have trapeze wires strung from their roofs and have high-wire artists perform their acts above the crowds sitting in the stalls.

The Victorian Era

The Victorian era is what we call the period of Queen Victoria’s reign; it ran from 20^th June 1837 until her death on 22^nd January 1901.

Great achievements of the time include the Houses of Parliament being rebuilt after a fire, the first photograph being taken (By Louis Daguerre in France and William Henry Fox-Talbot in Britain), the first postage stamps, the first free public library, the last public hanging, the great exhibition (Crystal Palace), schooling made compulsory (for children between 5 and 10), the railway train, the invention of the gramophone and the underground train.

With many more great achievements to name it’d be a great discredit to the era to not name at least a few of the most popular and fascinating forms of entertainment of the age after previously popular blood sports like bear baiting and cockfighting were banned.