The season finale of CSI (the good one) was on last night. One of the story lines involved a Civil War re-enacter. A heavily corseted US Civil War re-enacter. According to the show, Victorian men favored a small waist, and would often corset themselves to achieve an exaggerated hourglass figure. Not exactly. While it is true that there was a period in which men commonly wore corsets, the extreme wasp-waist was fashionable between 1820-1835, which preceded both the Victorian period and the Civil War.
The second point I’d like to take issue with is the claim that folks in old photos were stiff looking because of the long exposure times required by early photographic processes. While that is true, by the time of the Civil War there were newer processes, like ambrotypes, that allowed a much shorter exposure time. Most of the Civil War era photos I’ve seen–and the example depicted in last night’s CSI–were the classic 1/8 plate ambrotypes. My guess is that the serious expressions common in photographs from the period were due more to artistic convention than to the limitations of the technology.
red paper boat 