I found a great book in the library discard pile called “Art, Society, and Accomplishments: A Treasury of Artistic Homes, Social Life and Culture” edited by R. Barry Blackburn of the Blackburn Company, Chicago. It is an illustrated Victorian-era etiquette guide, cultural treasury, and “self-help” book focusing on social skills, upper-class lifestyle, and decorum for the elite and wanna-be elite of Chicago society. It was edited and distributed just before the start of the historic Chicago World’s Fair (World’s Columbian Exposition). I thought R. Barry Blackburn was a furniture company or something, but no, this was it! He sold books on society, arts, and culture by subscription. He employed door-to-door traveling agents and salesmen who used prospectus sample books to secure orders from middle- and upper-class families across the country before final delivery.
So this book has multiple chapters on reciting things, putting on plays, magic tricks, flowers, chinese art, how to dress for a fancy ball: all the things you need to do in order to pass the time in an upper-middle class house before the invention of radio. My two favorite chapters though are the one on phrenology and the one on fencing. The one on phrenology is priceless because it takes it at face value as a science and a branch of psychology/sociology. Phrenology tells us that you are not fat because of genetics or eating habits but because you have an overdeveloped cerebral “organ” called Alimentiveness, combined with specific structural imbalances in their bodily “temperaments.” The skull is scientifically mapped out and the lumps and fissures in your skull reveals all.
The fencing chapter is a hoot because there is NO protective equipment mentioned in the text or included in the illustrations. I guess they are wearing a gauntlet of some kind but someone is definitely losing an eye! This is an example of a chapter where I am asking myself “why?” – why fencing instead of tennis, badminton, croquet? I think even lawn darts or running with scissors is safer than this.
I have to admit that I admire this selling books by subscription business. It is much like what happens today with Lulu.com and Lightning Press and other print on demand services. I think it would be a great piece of performance art to have a novelist go door to door with swatches of the novel and order forms. A lot of books used to be sold that way: encyclopedias, dictionary sets, illustrated family bibles, home remedy manuals, instructional texts for farmers outlining soil management, crop cycles, and veterinary care, cookbooks, richly illustrated volumes documenting the Civil War or the Spanish-American War, which were heavily marketed to veterans and their families. And the whole cultural project of what we expect ourselves to do and think as “civilized” people extended into the whole “Great Books” sets that were heavily marketed from door-to-door in the 50s. They swore to parents that if their child read the set of books that it would almost guarantee their admission into elite colleges. The tactics from the “Great Books of the Western World” sales force were so aggressive and shady that it led to FTC legislation that basically killed the sales method. Still, my next novel will be guaranteed not to rust, bust, or collect dust and will soon be available in your choice of three deeply religious colors.
