Yesterday's London Times

As the leaves continue to crisp and the air becomes even brisker, our study of the Victorians takes another somewhat unsettling turn as we explore their obsession with spiritualism,  superstition, and the supernatural.  As industry, technology, and communication evolve exponentially, countless Victorians are searching for comfort and explanations; many believe they find answers through mesmerism, seances, hallucinations, and mediums.In this episode, we will learn why so many Victorians were looking beyond the earthly realm for answers, and the impact of that exploration on Victorian London society as a whole. We will also ponder, discuss, and question:            -  The deep-seeded superstitions that have thrived in London for centuries, and the the city’s legendary connection to hauntings and unusual phenomena           -  How the rigid social mores of the era created an environment conducive  to a subversive subculture, one willing to embrace taboo supernatural monsters and terror              - Why more advanced communications methods inspired many to attempt to communicate with the dead            - The emergence of the supernatural in literature, and the imagery that is still referenced today            - How the road was paved for ill-intentioned charlatans to take advantage of society’s desperation for answers Were the Victorians naive and gullible, or were they everyday citizens just trying to cope with a rapidly changing world by any means possible? Like so many other aspects of Victorian society in London - it’s complicated. It’s also intriguing: we will examine one celebrated, reputable  Victorian who predicted the disaster of the Titanic in great detail - not just once, but twice - and the cruel irony that awaited him at the end of his life.  Join us! There’s still so much to talk about as we begin to wind down our dedicated series on the repressed, exotic, and maddeningly contradictory Victorians.Photos and links can be found in our show notes HEREArthur Conan Doyle episode cover art: https://www.conandoyleinfo.com/life-conan-doyle/conan-doyle-and-spiritualism/*Do you like what you hear? Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website:   https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

Some stories just feel like OCTOBER stories.We know that Victorian Londoners enjoy a good craze. But what will they make of a social panic? Today our story begins in 1837, the first year of the Victorian era.In this episode, someone - or something - is assaulting Londoners; springing out at them.  Was it a ghost?  A devil? Maybe bear, bull, or baboon? Who would be next? We’ll hear the facts behind what became the legend. Then, we’ll consider…·       How does a true story become a legend?  What elements are retained, and which are contrived?·       What does this story tell us about the culture of Victorian London, and maybe our own lives today?·       What ae the elements of a social panic?  Or there certain conditions that give rise to public scares?·       What is our relationship to urban spaces, especially women in cities?We’ll deconstruct the story and look at rumor, press, suspicion, vigilantes, elements that influenced this story, and that this story later influenced?We’ll consider the most recent recorded rise of this tale, withing the last decade.Finally, we’ll examine a plausible theory of who the culprit may have been.How did a short string of incidents so embed themselves into the popular culture and the psyche of a time and place?Photos and links can be found in our show notes HERE. *Do you like what you hear? Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Our website:   https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on: Twitter @YLT_Pod Facebook @Yesterday’s London Times Podcast Instagram @Yesterday’s London Times Podcast CounterSocial @YLTPodcast

Wow, what a year it’s been! It’s our first podcast anniversary, and we are so grateful for YOU, our YLT community! In this episode, we will take a moment to remember our past, reflect on our present and dream about the future. Specifically, we will:  * share our origin story, and talk about the fun and challenges we encountered along the way as we launched the podcast into being  *  take a quick look at our past episodes, and reflect on how an episode comes to life  * drop some new Victorian era stories - social clubs and drag kings, oh my!  * give a sneak peak into what we are working on and planning to share this autumn and winter  * introduce our new media company, Collective Good Productions!As always, we will also dig more deeply and question:  * how classism, racism, and suffrage shaped the iconic social clubs of the Victorian Era  * how Victorian women challenged the social and sexual mores of the time through drag and cabernet in the legendary music halls  * our overall objectives and values as a podcast as we move forward into Year 2Photos and links can be found in our show notes HERE.*Do you like what you hear? Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website:   https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

Cheers! Did you know that cocktails as we know them today have their origins in the Victorian Era? It’s true! But the Victorian relationship with alcohol  is complicated - it’s a lot more than just booze; it is also an examination of class, equality, opportunity, and values.  In this episode, we will explore: what motivated the middle class temperance movement, and the hypocrisy that surrounded it  why many in the working classes began to embrace teetotaling how unsafe living conditions and unfair labour practices pushed other working class men into the comforts of the Victorian pubthe connection of temperance to suffrage why the UK failed to embrace total prohibition the inventions and innovations that transformed the oily rotgut of the Georgian Era into the purified spirits we know todaythe showmanship that began to permeate cocktail culture the rise of the iconic London hotel bars, where one can still enjoy spirits, culture, and ambiance todayWe will also dig more deeply and question:how classism and  societal mores shape the values and overall culture of the Victorian Era * Jen lovingly dedicates this episode to Mary G., with whom many spirits were toasted, countless laughs shared, and infinite memories made - all beginning in London. Rest easy, dear friend - this one’s for you ♥️Photos and links can be found in our show notes. Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website: https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

The Great Exhibition of 1851, the brainchild of Prince Albert and Henry Cole, had the loftiest of goals: the unity of humanity moving forward together via a merge of science, technology, and the arts.We’ll think about…Prince Albert’s unexpected progressive viewsHow to design an event as massive as the Exhibition with no guidebook from which to workHow powerful entities like the press and politicians can screw up the best laid plansA new heyday of excursion travel based on Victorian novelties of leisure time and railroadsThe awe inspiring Crystal PalaceA few of the 100,000 Exhibition artifacts, with an emphasis on the iconic and quirky The legacy of the ExhibitionPhotos and links can be found at our show notes HERE.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website  https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

In this episode, we remain in Victorian London and will examine the events of the summer of 1858, the moment in time that serves as the bridge from medieval to modern London. We will explore:how The Big Stink served as an impetus for change in regards to water qualitythe contributions of Sir Joseph Bazalgette and his gift to public health: modern sanitation the beginnings of a notable British politician, Benjamin Disraelithe unintended distraction from the heat and stench: the drama of Charles Dickens’ personal lifethe problematic issues of imperialism in Colonial Indiathe spark that jolted Charles Darwin to action and accelerated the publication of what would become On the Origin of SpeciesWe will also dig more deeply and question:if the Victorian era is the bridge between medieval and modern London, might we still be crossing that bridge? Are we currently in a separate era, or are we in the next chapter of that modernisation, as technology pushes us into an even more global society?Photos and links can be found in our show notes.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website: https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

This is a companion episode to last week’s Exotica Mania. In that episode, we considered the Victorian plant frenzy, especially for exotic plants from faraway lands.But how did the plants come to Britain?  Enter the PLANT HUNTERS. The Indiana Joneses, and sometimes the Jack Sparrows, of their day. Plant hunters were sent off to explore in every direction in search of specimens that might have potential.  They faced weather extremes, illness, thieves, shipwrecks, violence, imprisonment, piracy, disease. In this episode, we’ll unearth some stories of:- best laid plans that go awry at high altitudes, - a noted plant hunter who ends up dead, and maybe murdered, in a bull pit,- high level corporate espionage for the British East India Company,- what happens when you run into fifty mules on a narrow mountain trail, - encounters with vampire bats and other creatures,- when plants attack, and- being buried in style, with a crate of whiskey and a complete set of Jane Austen.Photos and links can be found at our show notes HERE.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website  https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Email us at yesterdayslondontimes@gmail.comCan you guess our mystery song?  Contact us!Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times Podcast

How can something as mundane a plant tell us about a culture?We may start talking about plants, but soon we will be in mired in a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, imperialism, exoticism, Darwinism, social order and class, surreptitious societal coding, a rising middle class, the concept of leisure time, and a culture caught up in the allure of seeking and getting. Phew!We’ll look at:the rise in London’s public parks, squares, and gardensa Whitechapel physician who catapults Britain’s economythe complicated daily life of Victorians and their plants a teenage girl centuries ahead of her timehow plants provided women with a foot in the door of careers in scienceplants that influenced the creators: designers, authors, illustratorsan Amazonian lily pad that inspired an architectural marvela secret form of communication: social coding through flowersOscar Wilde and his green carnationNote: Next week, we’ll be adding a bonus episode that acts as companion to this one. Stay tuned for the thrilling adventures of The Plant Hunters.  Photos and links can be found at our show notes HERE.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website  https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times Podcast

In this episode, we will explore the emerging concept of mega cities and Victorian London’s biggest epidemiological catastrophe: cholera.  We will learn:what it was like to suffer from cholera in Victorian Londonwho was affected most by the pandemic and whyabout some of the heroes of the era and their contributions to science and humanityWe will also dig more deeply and question:how misinformation and the refusal to reconsider assumptions and preconceived notions worsened and elongated the pandemic, and the similarities between the Covid-19 pandemic in the 21st century and the 19th century cholera epidemic - what have we learned, what should we have learned, and what can history teach us as we navigate modern threats to our collective health?Photos and links can be found in our show notes.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website: https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastCounterSocial @YLTPodcast

In this episode, we look behind the romanticized glow-up of the iconic Victorian child chimney sweep.  We'll wonder:what can we learn about a culture by examining a mundane occupation?what were the structures that put this practice in place?what would a typical day in the life of a young sweep be like?And most importantly:how can a bad practice become undone? andhow can you persuade a public who benefits from a bad practice that it needs to stop?This is our YLT opportunity to give a voice to some children who never had one in their lifetime, and to shine a spotlight on some of the advocates, patrons, and reformers  who followed their consciences on behalf of the vulnerable. Photos and links can be found at our show notes HERE.Do you like what you hear?  Please help us find our audience by spreading some good cheer with a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Our website  https://yltpodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on:Twitter @YLT_PodFacebook @Yesterday’s London Times PodcastInstagram @Yesterday’s London Times Podcast