EDWARDIAN FASHION

Edwardian Fashion refers to the clothing that was in style between the late 1890's and 1914 or the beginning of  World War One. Also called La Belle Epoque (the Beautiful Era), and the Gilded Age, this was a time when women's fashions took on a new opulence and extravagance, inspired by the hedonistic lifestyle of Britain's King Edward VII. The design trends of the Edwardian Era revolved around the "S" curve when corsets created an S shaped female silhouette, a change from the Victorian hour-glass figure. The "S" bend corset forced the hips back and the bust forward. The ideal female figure was a mature woman with a pigeon shaped monobosom.

 The Royal family were the trendsetters of the day. British high society reigned as the cultural elite and Edward VII's extravagance ruled fashion and set the tone for behaviour and fashion. Middle class women looked up to the elite for inspiration and hoped to emulate their "betters."

1921 INSULIN

Insulin is central to the treatment of diabetes, as all types of diabetes occur due to the body's inability to use blood sugar efficiently as a result of insufficient, ineffective, or nonexistent insulin supplies.

The discovery of Insulin occurred in 1921 following the ideas of a Canadian orthopedic surgeon named Frederick G. Banting, the chemistry skills of his assistant Charles Best, and John MacLeod of the University of Toronto in Canada.

They received a Nobel prize for this.

THE EDWARDIAN ERA THE INFLUENCE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ON LADIES FASHIONS

By the late 1890's, the Industrial Revolution had created new technologies that changed the way people lived. The growth of factories spawned a large middle class as large corporations generated new wealth and an upwardly middle class.

Sewing machines enabled the production of ready made clothing and made it easier for women to sew their own clothes. An increased literacy in the new middle class gave women access to information. 

The inventions of the typewriter, telephone, and telegraph offered women increased employment opportunities when previously, women's jobs were restricted to domestic servitude or factory work.
Fashion changed accordingly !

Despite the fact that a large majority of working women labored long hours for low pay in dimly lit, poorly ventilated factories and mills, a new kind of woman was beginning to emerge. The new women of the early 1900's was educated and informed, with an interest in politics and social causes. The opposing concept of an educated middle class woman was active and outgoing contrasted with the urge toward luxury and hedonism to create the culture we call Edwardian.

1906 STENOTYPE MACHINE BY WARD STONE IRELAND

A method of recording speech by using machines became commercially feasible around 1906, when the Stenotype machine was invented by Ward Stone Ireland, an American Stenographer and Court Reporter.

At present, the Stenograph and Stenotype machines are used in offices to some extent, but they are principally employed for conference and court reporting. Both machines have keyboards of 22 keys.Because the operator uses all fingers and both thumbs, any number of keys can be struck simultaneously. The machines print Roman letters on a strip of paper that folds automatically into the back of the machine.

The operator controls the keys by touch and is thus able to watch the speaker. Both left and right fingers print consonants, the thumbs control the vowels.

There are not separate keys for each letter of the English alphabet; thus, those letters for which there are no keys are represented by combinations of other letters. Abbreviations are used for some of the most frequent words, giving the operator the ability to write two or three words in one stroke.
(Information from the Encyclopedia Britannica)

THE ELECTROCARDIOGRAM By Willem Einthoven 1903

Willem Einthoven (1860 - 1927) was a Dutch doctor and physiologist. He invented the first practical electrocardiogram (ECG) in 1903 and received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1924 for it ("for the discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram.")

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the oldest and most commonly used cardiology procedure. It is noninvasive, simple to record and its cost is minimal. No other medical invention has had greater impact or is so universally used all over the world and despite competition from many new procedures, it has remained in continuous use for 100 years. The year 2002 marked the centennial of Willem Einthoven's first recording of the ECG.

1908 W H HOOVER

The first upright vacuum cleaner was invented in June 1908 by Canton, Ohio department store janitor and occasional inventor James Murray Spangler (1848 - 1915). Being asthmatic, and suspecting the carpet sweeper he was using at work was the cause of his aliment, Spangler created a basic suction-sweeper by mounting an electric fan motor on a Bissell brand carpet sweeper then adding a soap box and a broom handle.

After refining the design and obtaining a patent for the Electric Suction Sweeper, Spangler set about producing this himself, assisted by his son and daughter.

Spangler gave one of these to his cousin, Susan Hoover. Being so impressed with it, Susan told her husband. William Hoover (1849-1932) bought the patent in 1908 and founded the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. When Spangler died, the company name changed to the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company. (Info from Wikipedia)