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Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts

Note: If you haven't already noticed from the title, there's a fair bit of Victorian nipples on this blog post. I toyed with the idea of censoring the images but, frankly, I don't much agree with the weighting of female chests as inherently unacceptable and it seemed ethically off as soon as I opened up photoshop to do it.
That said, take note that the images here are NSFW, rightly or wrongly.

 ~*~

They say there's nothing new under the sun...

Heck, in a way, this post isn't entirely new; I in fact looked into piercings as the very first post on this humble blog. But you would be forgiven for thinking that some of the edgier elements of body modification are quite modern inventions, at least in the European-American 'west'. 

 Victorian nipple piercing is a controversial slice of history, namely because it's difficult to verify. As with any of the more curious elements of history, typically very little is written about them and, when it comes to controversy, most things are hidden (as with the 'he's at home') or entirely destroyed after the owner's retirement or death for the sake of decency.

 The story is that from the 1890s through to the 1900s there was a short lived fashion fad of Victorians piercing their nipples, with references to this fad appearing in several history books on body adornment. 
Some of the benefits of nipple piercings were for fashion's sake, with the practice originating in Paris, or were thought to maintain a pleasant bust shape and even improve their size. For many, as now, the boost of sexual confidence and titillation was also an important factor in their choice. However, in a time before antibiotics there were serious risks of infection and some doctors even associated nipple piercings and the resultant scabs with the development of cancer. Nevertheless, this didn't necessarily deter people and the practice was increasingly fashionable.

 But is there any evidence to back up the rumours?

 As mentioned, primary sources are hard to come by and certainly there does not seem to be enough to justify a very widespread fashion trend as some historians are excited to suggest. There are several detailed references to nipple rings specifically though, and you can find the most extensive description in Charles la Fave's brilliant three-part article on the BodyArtforms blog. This source was also highlighted in Anatomy and Destiny  by Stephen Kern. 
Here, they tracked down the Victorian magazine English Mechanic and the World of Science, which outlines the whole piercing experience of two sisters who were headed out to the "World's fair" in Paris in may 1889. They entered into a long correspondence with other readers of the magazine who openly and frankly discussed their own experiences with nipple piercings. But for a doctor's warnings of cancer and possible impairment of breastfeeding, the responses they received were overwhelmingly matter-of-fact and positive. There was no outrage or even stunned curiosity, and women who also wore piercings were happy to frankly tell them about their own successes with breastfeeding their children while wearing the piercings. They, as now, simply advised that they seek out someone experienced and skillful. The sisters decided to go ahead and when they went to Paris they immediately sought out the services of a Madame Beaumont to make an appointment.
“We found her occupying an elegantly-furnished apartment in a street leading from the Rue de Rivoli…Madame B’s business is to minister to the little wants and requirements of ladies, such as hair-dyeing, enamelling, corn doctoring, piercing their ears, and occasionally their nipples. She has quite an assortment of gold rings made expressly for this purpose, and she showed us that both herself and her daughter were at the time wearing them
…Madame B has invented an instrument for the purpose of insuring that the perforation is made in the proper direction through the nipple, and without any chance of failure. It is something like sugar tongs in form, but instead of spoons at the ends of the legs there is a pair of small tubes about 1 inch long, and in a straight line with each other, so that when the nipple is grasped between the inner ends of the tubes by means of a screw in the handle, a piercer can be passed through the whole without any chance of deviating from its proper course…
I partially undressed and seated myself on a couch by the side of Madame B, who passed her arm round my neck and held me steadily. Madame B then bathed my right breast for a few minutes with something which smelt like benzoline, and seemed almost to freeze it. She then adjusted the instrument to the niple, and screwed it up securely, and then, almost before I was aware of her insertion, she plunged the piercer through the tubes…
She then unscrewed and removed the tongs, leaving the piercer still sticking through the nipple, the point of the ring being then put into a hollow in the base of the piercer, the ring was passed through the nipple and closed…we spent the next few hours bathing our breasts with camphorated water, which Madame B had recommended us to use…after a time subsided we were able to dress and go about.“
Clearly Madame Beaumont was an experienced professional, working to keep the ladies sanitary and in comfort. Overall, it was a very positive experience for the two of them.
So was this truly a fashion trend?

It's unlikely that this was a widespread fad and is more likely to have been at least as niche as it's regarded now, though well understood in the right circles and very fashionable. In the end, the fact that it exists at all, and that many 'prim and proper' Victorians may have enjoyed it is really quite the eye opener. As we've often said around here, throughout history people are people and are just as creative and 'naughty' as we are nowadays.

 If you're interested in the wilder side of victorians and don't mind adult NSFW content, the tumblr blog 'Those Naughty Victorians' is a fantastic archive of Victorian porn that is sure to put a smile on your face. In fact, all the images I've used are from the blog


Sources


We Don't Hear Nearly Enough About The Epic Female Leaders of the Past, So Today I Wanted to Share the Story of the Warrior Queen Tomyris....
By Mark Skalinski

 Tomyris lived in the 6th century BC and, following the death of her husband, became the widowed leader of the Massagetae: a nomadic warrior-like tribe who lived by cattle herding and fishing along the River Araxes in Central Asia (close to modern day Kazakhstan). According to the ancient historian Herodetus, her people were monotheists who worshipped the sun god and held the unusual custom of offering up their elders to the sun god as sacrifices and even meals "and those who thus end their days are reckoned the happiest". They were said to fight on horseback and foot and favoured battle axes as weapons. The tribe were awe inspiring to behold: "their arms are all either of gold or brass...[with]..belts and girles of gold." Their horses were similarily armoured with breastplates of brass "but..gold about the reins, the bit, the cheekplates."
It is little wonder that her people attracted the attentions of another covetous ruler: Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia.
Cyrus had a fantastic reputation in war and his contemporaries warned his enemies that "'wherever Cyrus directed his attack, [the] people could in no way escape.;" He was keen to conquer the lands of the Massagetae, but he decided first to feign diplomacy by offering Queen Tomyris' hand in marriage. She was suspicious and scoffed at what she saw as an attempt to steal her lands, rejecting his proposal. incensed, Cyrus declared war on the tribe and began a frenzied effort of bridge-building to cross the river Araxes into Tomyris' lands. Seeing this, the queen attempted a last piece of diplomacy;
" '[Cyrus] be content to rule in peace in your own kingdom, and bear us to see reign over the countries that are ours to goven.'" Tomyris declared, "'However, I know you will not choose to hearken to this counsel, since there is nothing you less desirest than peace and quietness, come now, if you are so desirous of meeting the Massagetai in arms, leave your useless toil of bridge-making...'"
She suggested instead that either they would come to him or he to her to fight the battle. 


-Croesus' Crime-


 Initially Cyrus saw the advantages of fighting the Queen's army on his own grounds, but his advisor Croesus instead had a more cunning plan that violated all rules of ancient warfare at the time. He suggested that they send out the weakest section of Cyrus' army to fight the section of the Queen's army she would in turn send out. The Queen's victory would be assured and, jubilant, her army would then have Cyrus' cooks to create a huge banquet for them. The Massagatae would be unused to the foods and - most importantly - wines of Cyrus' culture as they were instead accustomed to drinking only milk. Thus intoxicated and with their guards down the rest of Cyrus' forces would rush forwards in the night and slaughter their way to victory. Keen not to be outdone by a woman, Cyrus approved the plan and it went off without a hitch. Tomyris' own son - Spargapises - was even captured.
Tomyris demanded revenge and sent out an ultimatum:

 "'You bloodthirsty Cyrus, pride not yourself on this poor success: it was the grape-juice ---which when you drink it, makes you so mad, and as you swallow it down brings up to your lips such bold and wicked words -- it was this poison by which you ensnared by child, and so overcame him, not in fair open fight. Now hear what I advise, and we sure I advise you for your good. Restore my son to me and get you from the land unharmed, triumphant over a third part of the host of the Massagetai. Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the sovereign  lord of the Massagetai, bloodthirsty as you are, I will give you your fill of blood.'"

 Before hearing of the ultimatum, Spargapises, realising his predicament, committed suicide. The furious and grieving mother vowed revenge.

-The Furious Battle and the Fallen King-
By Jason Porath
The battle that followed was a long and punishing one that made use of arrows, spears, daggers and battle-axes, crushing thousands under its weight on both sides. The Massagatae gained the upper hand and slaughtered the Persian soldiers without mercy, counting Cyrus himself among the dead.
Hearing of Cyrus' death the Queen pushed ahead to seek out his body on the battlefield and performed a very personal revenge that would forever place her in the hsitory books. It was said that she cut off King Cyrus' head and thrust it into a wineskin filled with blood.

"'See now, I fulfil my threat.'" She declared, "'You have your fill of blood.'"

Apparently Tomyris kept that wineskin with her for the rest of her life in memory of her dead son.
Tomyris has become a legend and it is not known what happened to her after this fateful battle. But she was, and always will be, a key figure in Iranian history.





Other Preludes Posts on Extraordinary Women Throughout History:





  • The Wicked Women of History





  • The Golden-Eyed Lady of Sharh-e Suketh





  • Mary Toft's Rabbits
  • A Cukold By Consent 





  • Fantastic Female Inventors 





  • Bess of Hardwick: The First Lady of Chatsworth 





  •  #herstory

    •









    Sources
    History has a long culture of hoaxes, and perhaps one of the most bizarre is the monstrous births of Mary Toft.


    Mary Toft with one of her 'children'
    In 1726, in Goldiming near Surrey Mary Toft went into labour. She was 25 and illiterate, working as a servant and married to a clothier and has suffered a miscarriage a month earlier. nevertheless she still seemed to be pregnant and, as she struggled through the labour, she apparently gave birth to something resembling a liverless cat.Apparently confused, her family asked the local obstetrician John Howard to attend Mary and it became clear that she had given birth to yet more animal parts. Things came to a remarkable head when, in one day, she claimed to have given birth to nine baby rabbits.

    Howard was stunned and sent out word to England's greatest doctors and scientists and even to the King to ask for assistance in investigating the seemingly miraculous case. Intrigued, the king sent out some of his best men and the infamous hoax of Mary Toft's rabbits began in earnest.


     Why on Earth did people believe it?

     Monstrous births and miracles had been a culture in of itself since time immemorial. Monstrous births could be items of horror or entertainment which could produce a profit but also act as portents from God. Science - proper empirical science - was still in its infancy and, in Mary's case, the idea that rabbits (and dead animal parts) could be generated in the womb was not one that was entirely fanciful. It was believed, for example, that the emotions and imaginings of the mother could be transferred to the foetus and this had in the past been used to explain monstrous births or in cases where a child developed a unexpected genetic trait, such as babies with darker skin when infidelity was ruled out of the equation. As in the case of the 'mooncalf', it was even thought that the moon itself could affect the development of the foetus. 

     Mary's story for the births, which took place after a miscarriage a month earlier, was that she had been working in the fields and was startled by a rabbit. When she and a friend tried and fail to catch it and another rabbit she returned home and, when she went to bed, dreamt that she was sat with those two illusive rabbits in her lap. When she woke she fell ill and, for some months, had a very strong desire to eat rabbits, which she could not afford. For the science of the time, it was entirely possible that such a strong maternal impression could influence the development of the foetus, and Mary made sure to physically 'give birth' to more dead rabbits in the presence of scientists to secure her story. So it was, on the whole, taken seriously.

     When Mary handed over the dead rabbits as evidence it was here that science started to

    make some in-roads to exposing the hoax. King George himself sent the German surgeon Cyriacus Ahlers and Mr.Brand to investigate, and on investigation of the rabbits, Ahlers found that dung pellets still inside the rabbits contained corn, hay and straw. Clearly these had not been created inside the womb. The eminent Midwife Sir Richard Manningham and Sir James Douglas were also called to attend her 'births' and observe them in controlled settings, and also had serious doubts. The reputations of all of the doctors involved were on the line for even entertaining the idea of this being true, but opinions were divided.

     The whole situation came to a head when finally Toft's accomplice was caught trying to sneak a rabbit into her room. The doctors waited to see if Mary would incriminate herself and sure enough she went into a dramatic labour that produced nothing. Mary was finally taken into custody and, being threatened with painful medical experimentation, finally admitted to the hoax, explaining that she had inserted dead rabbits into her own birth canal and allowed them to be removed as if she was giving birth. The hoax was exposed, Mary's fame only increased and, despite spending a small amount of time in custody Mary was largely pardoned and was released to avoid further attention and embarrassment. For a long time afterwards the medical profession as a whole was mocked for its gullibility.


    Sources
    -The curious case of Mary Toft (University of Glasgow Special Collections)
    -Mary Toft and her extraordinary delivery of rabbits (The Public Domain Review)
    -Notes of Karen Harvey's presentation of 'Rabbits, Whigs and Hunters: Rethinking Mary's toft's Monstrous Births 1726' (10 Dec 2014)
    -Mary Toft Image


    Women in science are often really under-represented.

    Mayim Bailik, who plays Amy Farrah-Fowler
    in The BIg Bang Theory
    The Big Bang Theory has received popular acclaim for how it humanises and brings female scientists to its main cast of characters. Although it wasn't always quite as progressive (originally bringing in the ladies as only somewhat stereotypical girlfriend material), in the more recent seasons the women have their own respected careers and accomplishments that at times even surpass their male counterparts.
    It may seem to be over exaggerating to call this an 'accomplishment', but in a time when so many movies still fail the Bechedal Test  and when in the UK men are six times more likely to work in science, it's easy to see why having realistic female role-models for potential scientists is important.

    Today, I hope to bring you ladies and gents a few inspiring role models. While we all know the stories of the pioneering Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale,they are not the only women of history who made a difference with their ideas. 

    Below is a list of some fantastic female inventors that really deserve more recognition.




    mary anning
    Mary Anning and her dog Tray
     The Discovery of Dinosaurs: Mary Anning (1799-1847)

    In the early 1800s very little was known about dinosaurs, and some of the greatest discoveries of the ancient creatures came from an unlikely source.
    Mary Anning was born in 1799 and was one of nine children of a poor family. As was sadly the case with many families in this period, death surrounded her. Only Mary and one other brother survived childhood, and Mary herself even had a lucky escape: while at a fair as a baby a thunderstorm struck and lightning killed the lady who was holding her as well as two other people but, miraculously, Mary was unscathed. Her father died when he fell from the cliffs at their seaside home and life became a struggle for the family. Mary grew accustomed to combing the beaches for seashells to sell to holidaymakers. Despite her limited start in life, Mary was an educated woman in that she could read and had taught herself geology,

     One day in 1811, when Mary and her brother were poking around the cliffs to try to find small fossils to sell alongside their seashells, they came across an amazing find. Sticking out of the rock was a crocodile-like skull. They unearthed the stunning creature and in doing so found the very first complete fossil of a Ichthyosaurus. The fossil was brought by the local lord of the manor - Henry Hoste Henley - who in turn sold it to the Museum of Natural Curiosities in London.
    Mary went on to discover more Ichthyosaurs as well as the Plesiosaurus in 1823, a flying Pterodactylus in 1828 and the fish-like Squaloraja in 1829. Braving the dangers of the crumbling cliff faces that had caused her father's death, Mary was able to unearth a remarkable number of quality fossils, which she went on to sell and which turned up in many academic works and collections of the day.

     Unfortunately, due to the sexism of Victorian England, and her lowly social status, Mary rarely got credit for her finds, even if she was frequently sought out as an advisor and was well respected. When she died of breast cancer at age 47, the Geological Society (which didn't accept women as members until 1904) recorded her death and her local church commissioned a new stained glass window in her honour. It's rumored that the popular rhyme 'She sells sea shells by the sea shore' was about Mary. So try to remember this remarkable lady when you next wrap your mouth around that tongue twister!
    Mary Anning's sketch of Plesiosaurus bones


    The Birth of Bullet-Proof Vests: Stephanie Kwolek (1923-2014)
    Stephanie Kwolek
    Science really is a mixed bag. Sometimes, when researching seemingly innocuous new discoveries something with a truly horrendous application is found and exploited. We need only look to TNT and nuclear fusion for this. But, thankfully, the universe is ultimately rather balanced and sometimes unusual things are found that also have unique potential for actually saving lives.So it was with Stephanie Kwolek's discovery of Kevlar - the main component in bullet proof vests.
    Kevlar is a lightweight fiber that is stronger than steel and, through this, has the capacity to stop bullets in their track as a body armor. But, in 1965, when Stephanie and her colleagues at the DuPont Laboratory in Delaware were researching, body armor was far from their minds. Instead, they were looking for a strong lightweight fibre that might replace the steel in car tires so that fuel economy could be improved. Kwolek discovered a solvent that could dissolve long-chain polymer into a thinner and more watery solution than most solvents. Despite skepticism from her colleagues, she convinced them to let her put the solution on a spinneret that turned this liquid polymer into a fibre. When they happened upon the discovery they were thrilled by the new creation and the sheer volume of possible applications and Kwolek praised the teamwork that made all of these possible
    Today, those police officers that have been saved by Kevlar have joined Dupont to form a 'survivor's club' that numbers over  3,100 members. Her legacy lives on in the thousands of lives saved by the buletproof vests, but kevlar also exists across the globe in the materials of cars and even in space through their inclusion in spacesuits.

    "I don't think there's anything like saving someone's life to bring you satisfaction and happiness." Kwolek enthused as she claimed her award at the Royal Society of Chemistry.


    Young Ada Lovelace  - by Kate Beaton at Hark! A Vagrant

    The Invention of Programming: Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852)
     
    Computers have been lurking around history for hundreds of years in some form or another, whether through programmed weaving machines, ancient greek 'programmable' robotics and more. However computers as we know it are largely recognised as getting underway when Charles Babbage invented the machine in the mid 1800s. A computer would be nothing without proper programming, and we should turn to the remarkable Ada Lovelace as the pioneer of this vital invention.

    Ada was a world class mathematician and the daughter of the infamous Lord Byron. When she worked as an occasional research assistant (and frequent pen-pal) to Charles Babbage, she envisioned using the new computer for more than just number-crunching. Instead, she was interested in creating a model for how the brain creates thoughts and emotions. She created the first algorithm for the Analytical Machine and so secured her place in history.

    She now lends her name to the Ada Initiative, which supports women (including trans and genderqueer women) in the development of free and open technology software. In this field women are woefully unrepresented - making up only 2% of developers - and the Ada Initiative takes its inspiration from Ms Lovelace to push forwards in changing this and to promote feminism in technology and culture.
    Creating the Circular Saw: Tabitha Babbitt (1784-1853)

     
     Necessity is the mother of invention and often it will pull you out of traditional gender roles as you search for a solution. One day, around 1813, Tabitha Babbit was watching a pair of men use a pit saw. This was a traditional saw, pulled back and forth over a piece of lumber. The saw, due to the angle of the teeth, could only ever cut when it was drawn forwards, but had to be pulled back in order to be used again. Tabitha was not impressed by how 50% of the effort was entirely wasted, so decided to come up with an alternative.
    As a weaver, she used her knowledge to suggest an answer: she invented a circular saw and attached it to her spinning wheel so that it was controlled by a spinning axel. 

    The clever invention increased productivity in her community and was widely used, but Tabitha received very little financial benefit due to the Shaker community's belief that no patents should be filed.

     Tabitha went on to be similarly inventive and practical in more unpatented devices: she managed to come up with a double spinning head for her spinning wheels, and developed a way of processing multiple cut nails at once rather than the tradtional cutting of one at a time. When she died in 1853, she was mid-way through developing an idea for a false-teeth manufacturing process.


     Weathering the Storm with Windshield Wipers: Mary Anderson (1866-1953)

    Another lady who leant her mind to a very practical solution to a widespread problem was Mary Anderson in her invention of the widescreen wipers that you can see on every car today.

    Mary Anderson
    One wintry New York day in 1902 Mary was riding in a streetcar, clinging to the edge of her seat as the driver tried in vain to navigate through the blinding rain and snow. She exclaimed to her travelling companions why no one had developed a way of clearing the wind-shield so that people could actually see where they were going and they replied that many people had tried and failed to invent such things: it simply couldn't be done. Not a woman to take 'no' lightly, she set about creating sketches and plotting out her invention of windscreen-wipers and, once she had the concept designed, hired a company to make the model and filed a patent.

    Seeing how valuable this invention would be, she wrote to a large Canadian company offering to sell her rights, but she was turned down when they decided that her invention had no commercial value. Unfortunately for Mary, she had little further endurance for pitching the idea and, over several years, decided to forget about the invention and let the patent expire. As so often happens in history, at a later date someone revived her idea, went to the right people, and proceeded to make a fortune.


     The Beginning of the American Red Cross: Clara Barton (1821-1912)
    Not all inventions are of the type that can be patented, but they can still reach across the world to save and to change thousands of lives. The  Red Cross - a global charitable organisation that focuses on helping people in crisis, who ever they are - is one such life changing invention

    Clara Barton
    The Red cross was originally launched in America by Clara Barton. Clara was a young woman when the American civil war broke out and did her best to look after the floods of wounded soldiers that came to Washington, despite having had no prior nursing experience.

    Like Florence Nightingale, Clara saw that the greatest dangers to the wounded were poor medical supplies and substandard care. She mustred the organisation needed to fix this problem, advertising for charitable donations to purchase these supplies and supplied them herself. When the war died down, she went to Switzerland where she became aware of the international Red Cross movement and decided to bring this formula back to America, establishing her own branch of the Red Cross in 1881. She focused on emphasising that the Red Cross was not only associated with the war efforts as they arrived and passed, but also with humanitarian relief from natural disasters. Her tireless work, speeches articles and petitioning ensured the lasting establishment and as a result, she has saved many, many lives all across the world.




     Nowadays, there are many institutions and scholarships put in place to make sure that we nurture the spark of female invention in the scientific communities of the future. But, as we have seen, often some of the most innovative inventions come from unusual places.

     I'd like to leave you with two young and enterprising women to watch for the future who prove that invention has no age limit.


    Kylie with her Invention
    Kylie Symonds and the Chemo Backpack

    Cancer is never something that should be inflicted on children, but the sad reality is that many suffer from it. Kylie Symonds, at just 11 years old, found herself battling cancer and relied upon chemotherapy to try to fight the disease. One of the necessary elements of chemotherapy is a set of large and unwieldy IV poles. The poles not only restricted her mobility but, she noted, also were very intimidating to many children. Necessity is the mother of invention and Kylie decided to invent a way around this problem. She created a backback adaptation that would carry the IV medicine instead so that patients could keep mobile and, through the backpacks's colourful designs, feel less frightened by the normally stark medical equipment and feel more, well, normal. The design is practical as well, with the IV drip back being kept in a protective metal spiral cage.

     Now, well on the way to full recovery, Kylie is trying to raise funds to put the innovative backpack into production so that other children can benefit from it. If you'd like to help fund her invention, check out her page on Crowdrise.com.



    Deepika with her invention

     Deepika Kurup and her Low Cost Water Purification

     Deepika, at only 14 years old, is bound to have a fantastic scientific career ahead of her. The inventive young lady from Nashua, New Hampshire, entered The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge  and secured the $25,000 prize with the fantastic water purification system.

     After seeing children in India drinking dirty water directly from a stagnant pool she was motivated to find a low cost way of solving the global water crisis. Spending 3 months of her free time and leafing through PHD papers on water purification methods, she found that the popular water purification methods were substandard because they required electricty to power UV lamps. Electricity, naturally, is in short supply in places where clean water is a challenge and is necessarily expensive. Other methods, such as using chemicals, lave a foul taste in the water. Under the support of her mentor from 3M, Deepika instead suggested a solar powered method and tested her machine in her back garden using contaminated water from the Nashua wastewater treatement facility. Her invention uses a system that exposes titanium oxide and inc oxide to sunlight that creates a cheical reaction to generate hydroxyl radicals which, in turn, kill harmful bacteria. Within a matter of hours, under this system, the water had significantly fewer coliform units and E.Coli colonies.

     Deepika plans to work with 3M to develop her solar powered water filtration unit and will speak with other companies to try to gain funding and charity support. With such a passion for science, I doubt that this will be the last that we hear of her.
    Sources
    -F***k yeah female inventors
    -How the big bang theory got good women in Science
    -Five Female Scientists Who are Missing from the New 'Cosmos'
    - The Inventor of Kevlar...Dies
    - 11y/o girl invents Chemo Backpack
    -15 Trailblazing women and how they made the internet
    -Hark! A Vagrant 298
    -19 Things you might not know were invented by women
    -Herstory Network: Tabitha Babbit
    -Trota: Cool chicks from history
    -10 famous films that surprisingly fail the Bechedal test
    -Why has the UK got so few women scientists?
    -Bechedal Test Movie List
    -BBC Primary History: Mary Anning
    -Mary Anning: The Natural History Museum
    - 10 useful inventions that went bad
    -Creative Innovation
    -The Red Cross
    -Deepika Karup

    Evil, or at the very least villainy, has never been confined to one gender.

    There's a reason why fairy-tales so often centre around a wicked witch or a sorceress: the juxtaposition between beauty and wickedness is certainly compelling, and if you add a dash of great power they are frightening indeed.
    Like it or lump it, women  have often been associated with the roles of caregivers and as holding sensitivity to the point of subservience as mothers and wives. As 'the fairer sex' they were seen as physically and emotionally weaker. While they may be affected by 'hysteria' at times and become unpredictable, on the whole one knew what to expect from them. Women that went against these predictable roles were therefore alarming, and these infamous women's memories live on because of this.

     Below is a collection of some of the wicked women of history. Some of these are straight-up evil through violence, and some were seduced by the Machiavellian tactics of politics as surely as Lady Macbeth herself.


     Mary Ann Cotton - The Victorian Serial Killer

    Sometimes a serial killer is caught by being altogether too enthusiastic and repetitive.

    Picture from the Watford Observer
    Born in 1832 in County Durham, Mary Ann Cotton (née Robson)  is throughout to be Britain's first convicted serial killer on record. She was described as 'small and frail' and worked as a dressmaker and was charged for the murder of four people (including children) and convicted of one: the murder of her stepson. However, it was thought that she killed many more members of her own family.

     Her job and marriages caused her to travel across the country which, it is thought, is part of the reason for her not being discovered for so long.

    Her first marriage was to William Mowbry who brought four children from a previous marriage and Mary Ann produced four more. They lived in Plymouth but five years later, when they returned to County Durham, five children were dead from 'gastric fever and stomach pains'. When they moved to Sunderland two more children died, and William Mowbry was also struck down in 1865. Because he and all the family were insured with Prudential, Mary was able to collect the sum of £35 . 
    While currency conversions are always difficult, this would be about £21,000 in today's money. Alternatively, a skilled seamstress employed in 'the best class of work' could hope to earn 22-26shillings -£1 - per week in 1897, which would mean that this was worth at least 35 week's work. (To compare, modern minumum wage at £6.31 an hour for 40 hours a week would be £252.40. So 35 week's work could come to £8,834. But, of course, the price of living was quite different in Victorian Britain.) Needless to say, it was no small sum, but was it large enough to murder a whole family for?

     Mary's second marriage came after she took up work as a nurse in Sunderland infirmary, where she met George Ward. It wasn't long before 'gastric fever' struck him down too.

    Next, she moved on to the shipyard foreman James Robinson and married him within six months, getting rid of his own three children of a previous marriage as well as one of her own remaining offspring. The couple remained together and Mary gave birth to two ore children, one who died within the hour of perhaps natural complications. When she finally broached the subject of Robinson taking out life insurance, her husband grew suspicious. Mary, it seems, had run up large debts and he confronted her about her possibly sinister motives. Mary fled, leaving her surviving child behind. Robinson, it seems, let things slide rather than inform the police.

     Estranged from her husband, she returned to her mother who - unsurprisingly at this point - died and left an inheritance of her furniture.


    Picture from rarenewspapers.com

     In 1870 she met the widower Frederick Cotton and they entered into a bigamous marriage, living in North Wallbottle. Mary Ann's poisoning began to come to light when a number of pigs were found dead in mysterious circumstances. While the circumstances of this remaining unclear, Mary and the family were soon on the move again to West Aukland. Two month later her husband was dead again of 'gastric fever'.

    She moved in with Joseph Nastrass, who had lived with the couple for a while, but soon she was asked to care for a higher-class man named Quick-Manning who was suffering from smallpox. Mary and Quick-Manning quickly became lovers and, with alarming speed, within three weeks more members of Mary Ann's family were stricken with gastric fever: Cotton's 10 year old son, her own baby Robert and her former lover Joseph Nastrass who had made out his will to her. Mary at this time became pregnant to Quick-Manning, who had no interest in marrying her, and raised Cotton's sole remaining son, the 7 year old Charles Edward.

    Due to Quick-Manning's disinterest, Mary Ann had to get by on a pittance of allowance as income. It was reported that when the assistant overseer of the village -Thomas Riley- came to see her about asking her to care for another smallpox patient, she refused due to having to take care of Charles Edward. She refused to go into the work house and Riley wouldn't accept the child there without her. She said that she would not be able to marry Quick-Manning because of the 7 year old, but added  "'t won't matter, I won't be troubled long". The following Friday the boy was dead and Riley was understandably suspicious.

     Riley went to inform the police and Dr.Kilburn who in turn refused to issue a death certificate for the boy. This meant that there was no payout when Mary went to collect the £4 10s in insurance money. While a post mortem was carried out nothing was found, but Dr Kilburn decided to secrety take the boy's organs to his own house for closer study. Here, to his alarm, he found that the boy had been poisoned with arsenic.This was soon matched to witness statement saying that Mary had sent her stepson to buy arsenic and soap for the common practice of rubbing down the bedposts to kill bedbugs. When Dr Scattergood of Leeds also confirmed the arsenic poisoning (without the dodgy practice of stealing organs that had so harmed Kilburn's credibility) Mary was arrested. Several bodies were exhumed and more arsenic poisoning was found.

     Mary Ann was hanged at age 41 in County Durham on March 24th 1873. Deliberately or not, she died slowly due to the hangman not issuing a long enough drop-rope.
    Isabella the 'She Wolf' - Wife to Edward II and Invader of England
    Picture from HistoricalHoney
    In 1308, and at 12 years old, Isabella of France arrived in Boulogne for her wedding to Edward II of England - a tactical move set in motion to end England's War with France over the territory of Gascony. Isabella and Edward were a neat match on paper - both were handsome people from great families and Isabella knew well her rights - but there was already trouble at hand. 

    When Piers Gaveston entered the royal household the king was instantly enamoured with him, and the king's favourite was promptly married to a niece to make him a member of the royal family. Gaveston became, in many ways, a guest of honour at the coronation of the royal couple: tapestries bore only the coat of arms of the king and Gaveston at great insult to Isabella's family, Gaveston had been given the honour of carrying the coronation crown and, to make things worse, Gaveston had been put in charge of the coronation planning and the organisation of the festivities turned into a shambles. Wedding gifts and lands that were intended for the new queen were instead given to Gaveston and her financial allowances were overlooked. It is rather unsurprising that rumors circulated that Gaveston was Edward II's lover.

    Isabella put up with the relationship for another four years, which won her much popularity, but soon the barons decided that they had had enough of the king's head being so easily swayed. They exiled Gaveston but, when the king brought him back, they soon conspired to execute Gaveston instead. After his death the royal couple reunited, bore children, and Edward II allowed Isabella into his court and to attend council meetings. However trouble was soon on the horizon again as the susceptible king was soon wooed by another charismatic man: Hugh Despenser. Despenser was ambitious, ruthless and cunning, using the king to climb politically. Jealous of Isabella's influence, Despenser convinced the king to limit her powers and voice and, it is rumoured, sexually threatened the queen. Isabella finally managed to get Despenser banished, but he was recalled again the next year by the king.

     In 1325 Isabella's brother Charles IV of France seized the England's territory in France and so she had the opportunity to get some distance by going with her son to negotiate a peace treaty. There she met an old acquaintance - Roger de Mortimor, Baron Wigmore - and soon the two became lovers. The two began to make plans to invade England themselves and put her son on the throne instead of Edward II. Sick of her husband's disrespect, Isabella was ready to take action. While Edward soon heard of the affair and demanded that his son be returned, she refused to concede until Despenser, and his family's influence, was removed.
    Edward II
    Isabella and her supporters soon invaded England and Edward II and the Despenser family fled only to be captured. She had Despenser hung drawn and quartered after a quick trial and her son was crowned Edward III with herself and Mortimer named as regents. The deposed king became an increasing threat as public option started to return to him now that the Despenser family had been eradicated, and multiple escape attempts were carried out.


     This was a problem that needed solving. In September 1327 Edward II died in a famously horrific manner: supposedly by a red hot poker thrust rectally into him, which would leave little to no marks on the body. It is widely believed that it was Isabella herself who arranged this murder.

     Of course, all things come full circle. When Edward III came of age he was aware that Mortimer had grown more poisonous and promptly had him executed, though Isabella intervened so that he would not suffer a traitor's death. Isabella was spared and welcomed back into court. While she reacted to often humiliating circumstances out of her control, the history books are loath to forgive her for permitting regicide.


    Iise Koch  'The Witch/Bitch of Buchenwald'

    By far the most difficult aspect of the Third Reich and the Concentration Camps that followed is that such evil could be enacted by so many normal and, we assume, formerly balanced people. Not every Nazi was a cackling Indiana Jones villain, so what was it that made people, including women, want to be the guards of the anguished and toxic concentration camps?
    Sarah Helm studied this phenomenon and found that naturally not all women are the same. Many were 'pathetic creatures' who fell into guard duty almost absent-mindedly. For them, compared to jobs such as munitions work, there was better pay, more comfortable conditions, travel, a new well kept home and new people to court. In Ravensbruck, for example, there were on site hairdressers and boating trips on a lovely lake.Sometimes they were housed in pretty villas with beautiful views. All they had to do was turn their heads a certain way or draw the curtains, and the ashes of the crematoriums might as well be a dream.When it came to the job, it was a necessary duty that had to be done and the Nazis had enough words and brainwashing ideology to make viewing the inmates as subhuman chillingly easy. All it takes are a few steps over a line that should never be crossed and, in the end, it is impossible to go back.

     While these crimes will always be unforgivable, we can at least make an effort to understand how the majority of guards in the camps did what they did. But for some, they took the monstrosity to the next level, and one of these was Iise Koch.

     Koch was a secretary and joined the Nazi party in 1932. In 1936 she married the head of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp -Karl Otto Koch - who was assigned to build a new camp in Buchenwald in 1937. She joined him and became the 'queen bee' as the overseer of the camp. She soon gained her nickname as the 'bitch of Buchenwald' for her viscous sadism. It was said that she rode her horse around, whipping and beating whichever prisoners took her interest. She was said to have an affinity with poetry, but her taste in 'art' had a vile nature. Koch was reported to have also been on the look out for prisoners with interestingly tattooed skin. When she found them, she would have them murdered and their skin preserved, tanned and stored for later use to be fashioned into lampshades and 'other ornamental household articles'. Sickeningly, this was not altogether an isolated incident and similar 'souvenirs' was found as being owned by other SS officers. The cruel indignity she inflicted on her victims carried on even after death.

     At the end of the war Koch was arrested for war crimes due to the atrocities at Buchenwald and in 1947 and American Military tribunal sentenced her to life imprisonment. After serving only two years the military governor of the American zone in Germany - General Lucius D Clay - pardoned her. Though, unsurprisngly, there was a huge public backlash at this decision. In 1949 Koch was re-arrested and put on trial for 135 cases of murder. in 1951 she was sentenced to life imprisonment, and in 1967 she committed suicide while incarcerated.

    Victoria Dryer the Baby Farmer
    Picture from executedtoday.com

    She told her own daughter, when the young girl enquired as to why babies would enter the house and then soon disappear, that she was an 'angel-maker'. She was sending the children to Jesus, she said, who wanted them far more than their mothers did.
    This, of course, was not true. In Victorian England many women gave birth to illegitimate children or had far more children than they had the resources to feed. (The wealthy Charles Dickens, for example, had 10 children and felt the stress of the burden keenly. Many people were in a similar situation without his advantages.) While some women were glad to advertise and pass on their children, others were weeping, reluctant and aimed to see them again. One such woman was the 25 year old Evelina Marmon: a farmer's daughter who has gone to work as a barmaid in the city and had the misfortune to fall pregnant. After giving birth, she put an advertisement in the paper asking for someone to care for her new daughter Dolly. To her surprise and joy there was also an ad in the paper from a couple who were looking to adopt a child for the fee of £10. When she went to meet 'Mrs Harding' she was surprised by her age, but the woman seemed to want to care for the child and would allow Evelina contact. She passed over her baby girl and 'Mrs Harding' rode away in the train. Afterwards Evelina wrote letters, but they were never replied to.
    'Mrs Harding' had been the pseudonym of Victoria Dryer, who was part of the wicked occupation known as baby farming. All too common in a period of time where no reliable contraception mixed with a double standard of sexism that led to pregnant unmarried women being shunned and fired from their jobs, it was common for people to try to make a living from taking in babies. A high class woman might pay as much as £80 for the privilege or a working class girl perhaps £5. Some would pay in weekly instalments and some would pay all at once. Many babies would often be hoarded by these opportunists and stuffed into drawers and cots in groups and drugged to stop them from crying. Often the money would begin to dry up after a period and, when this happened, the babies who were unfortunate enough to have no income were slowly starved, their 'owners' waiting for them to die. As a former midwife Victoria Dryer was well aware of the trade and over her time in this profession either a warped compassion or simple greed and impatience caused her to take to killing the babies more directly. Soon, after a close call with a suspicious doctor, she didn't even bother attaining death certificates and would dispose of the bodies in secret. Dolly, Evelina's daughter, was dispatched as were the other children, with a cord of tape to strangle her.

     Dryer was finally found out thanks to a bargeman's keen eye when he saw a brown paper parcel lying in shallow water near the bank. Inside contained the body of a baby girl aged six to twelve months with white tape knotted around her neck. One piece of brown paper had a railway label on it from Temple Meads Station, Bristol and the faint outline of the name 'Mrs Thomas' and an address in Reading. Police soon raided that address and while the stench of human decomposition hit them, no body could be found. Nevertheless they matched the murder weapon to white tape in a sewing box, and in the cupboards were bundles of telegrams arranging adoptions, pawn tickets for children's clothing, receipts for adverts and letters from the mothers who had given up their children. In a few months alone, 20 children had been placed in 'Mrs Thomas', Amelia Dryer's, care. The body found had turned out to be Helena Fry, the illegitimate daughter of Mary Fry, a servant girl from Bristol.

     The river was dredged and five murdered babies were discovered. Dolly was inside a carpet bag with Harry, her last victims. Evelina was called in to identify the body of her daughter and the evidence against Dryer was assured. The jury only took four and a half minutes to reach their conclusion and Dryer was sentenced to hang.

    Sources

     Historical Honey
    Wonderlist
    Buzzle
    Watford Observer: Mary Ann Cotton
    Historical Money calculator
    Victorian London - Wages
    National minimum wage
    Scandalous Women - Isabella of France
    Daily Mail: 'Bitches of Buchenwald: Which death camp guard is the evil inspiration behind Kate Winslet's role in The Reader?'
    Clay souls and glass hearts:Ilse Koch
    Daily Mail: The Baby Butcher
    Executed Today -1896