Gwen Tuinman

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Dinner Party Rules or Social Shackles: A Peek at Victorian Etiquette

“I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared… or even noticed…”  Rose DeWitt Bukater, Titanic

That line still evokes the same visceral response as the first time I watched the mother-daughter dining scene in Titanic that drove Rose (Kate Winslet) to nearly jump from the ship’s stern. Maybe you felt it too witnessing the critical maternal oversight and fussy rules about how to sit or use a dining utensil. 

Constrained behaviours and expected self-censorship must have been suffocating for independent-minded women.

As a historical fiction author embarking on a new novel set in the 19th-century, I’m exploring the etiquette pressed upon women in high society. I write about women navigating the patriarchy and social restrictions of their era. Economically challenged and disadvantaged women draw my imagination, but this time, a few society women join the story.

For the next few paragraphs, we’ll perch inside their gilded cage.

The holiday season approaches, so upper-crust Victorian for dinner-party etiquette seems like a good place to start. I’ll reference an antique book from my collection, Social Etiquette: or Manners and Customs of Polite Society published in 1896. These are just a few of them in the words of author Maud C. Cook.

·         Learn to govern yourself and to be gentle and patient.

·         Be exquisitely neat in your attire.

·         Remember that, valuable as is the gift of speech, silence is often more valuable.

·         Avoid moods, and pets (petulance), and fits of sulkiness.

·         Learn to deny yourself and prefer others

·         Be careful to guard against over much laughing.

·         Nothing gives a more favourable impression of good breeding than a voice, musical, clear, low in its key and careful in its articulation. A harsh voice, or shrill, high-pitched tones, or a source of discomfort to all who hear them.

·         When you talk, keep your hands still.

To satisfy men’s expectations, Mrs. Cook suggests that “[women’s] civilities, their self-sacrifice, their thoughtfulness for others it is that oils the wheels of domestic life.” She mentions nothing of  what women wanted.

By now, we understand why Rose climbed over the ship’s railing. Here follow more of Mrs. Cook’s vexing gems in her own words.


·         Try to be sensible; it is not a particular sign of superiority to talk like a fool.

·         Avoid causing irritation in your family circle; do reflect that home is the place in which to be agreeable.

·         Be reticent; the world at large has no interest in your private affairs.

·         Sometimes, at least allow your mother to know better than you do; she was educated before you were born.



Table etiquette is a must in order that we don’t show signs of ‘ill breeding’ according to Mrs. Cook. This small sampling of rules is sufficient to put a kibosh on carefree enjoyment of a social occasion. The last point reinforces the separateness of classes.

·         In the use of the knife and fork daintiness should be cultivated.

·         In using napkins do not spread over the entire lap, nor fasten under the chin bib-fashion, nor in the buttonhole. All these are fashions that should have been out use since the nursery. Simply unfold and lie carelessly in the lap on one knee, use to wipe the lips lightly or the fingertips were necessary.

·         Never, unless requested so to do, pass a plate on to a neighbour that has been handed to you. It is supposed to be that the carver knows what he intends for each guest. When dishes are passed, help yourself as quickly as possible and never insist upon someone being served first.

·         A lady should never look up in a servant’s face up while giving an order, refusing wine, or thanking him for any special service.

Mrs. Cook has advice for after dinner, as well. “If you consent to play or sing, do not wear your audience. Two or three stanzas a song, or four or five pages from a long instrumental piece are sufficient. Remember, it is only the lady of the house who has the right to ask you to play or sing, and to all other requests give a smiling refusal.”

Letter writing was the customary follow up to thank the holiday hosts for a lovely party.  The Victorian woman was sure to sign the card using her husband’s name. 



Thank you for so graciously hosting last evening’s festive gathering. We truly enjoyed your company and that of your other guests.

From  Mrs. (Insert Husband’s Name Here)

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The History of Women’s Bodies in Four Parts: A Look Inside Helen King’s “Immaculate Forms”

If you haven’t heard me say it a million times already, I’m a podcast fan. There’s always something playing in my ear while I’m preparing dinner. History is my go-to topic, especially when the focus is on women. When I found an episode on Vulgar History podcast titled Author Interview: Helen King (Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Parts), I was all in.

I listened to the episode two or three times and bought the book. What follows comes from the book flap.

“In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping the key organs that have been used to define “woman,” … The way we understand the body … is still shaped by human intervention and read according to cultural interpretations.” 

These histories, she tells us, explore how “medicine and religion worked together as gatekeepers of bodies.” They shaped our beliefs about gender and sex, and who is good or evil. These stories are being used to support actions and beliefs being promoted in modern times.

To which four body parts does the author refer? Breasts, clitoris, hymen and womb. King conveys deeply researched facts drawn from medicine, religion, and art histories—and does so in a way that is bops along in a narrative that doesn’t become overly heavy.

No matter which direction I turned to, a past-to-present link, or a revelatory fact that left me gobsmacked, frustrated, or indignant on behalf of women who came before us.

There are so many fascinating facts and findings I could share. (I was underlining and circling through my entire read!) But I’ll share a standouts, categorized of course, under King’s four parts.

Breasts:

As far back as Egyptian days, wet nurses were hired to nurse children. Contracts were signed and included a code of conduct to ensure that her milk was not tainted. For example, during the term of service the wet nurse may be prohibited from having sex, becoming pregnant, or nursing another child. Diet and daily physical activity may also be dictated in the terms.

Breast size flagged sexual experience in medieval Europe and made girls and women the target of unwanted attention. To protect unmarried young women from harassment and assault, their breasts were constrained and treated with vinegar and herbs.

During the 1700s, small breasts were considered to be sexy. Some women opted not to nurse their babies, or were forbidden to do so by their husbands, in order to preserve their small breast size.

Clitoris:

Credit for ‘discovering’ this part of female anatomy was claimed by Matteo Realdo Colombo of the University of Padua in 1540. He dedicated his find to the Pope. Colombo’s student, Gabriel Falloppio (for whom fallopian tubes are named) contested the claim and insisted that he was the true discoverer.

 In the early 1900s, a British lord asked during a court trial if Clitoris was the name of a Greek chap. The trial was addressing a fear of “unbridled female sexuality” that may result if privileged medical information about the body became public. (A woman’s morality was questionable if she knew anything about her anatomy.)

Women’s agency in seeking sexual pleasure, especially through self stimulation, was unacceptable. A French surgeon in 1839 stated that clitoridectomy was “so simple, so completely free of any danger, that it is necessary.” In England, clitoridectomies were performed to cure a number of ailments like hysteria, fits, piles, and cancer.

Hymen:

Women’s virginity has historically been important because men required their virginity for the purposes of “property and inheritance transactions” conducted relative to marriage.

When defloweration mania spread across Britain, so did “counterfeit maidenheads”. (Where there’s will, there’s a way!) The obsession with blood at time of intercourse turned sex into a violent anxiety-inducing business for women.

The rape of young girls increased in 18th century England and early 20th century Scotland because it was rumoured that intercourse with a virgin would cure venereal diseases.

Womb:

The origin of all women’s diseases was the womb, according to fourth-century-BCE Hippocratic treatises. It was believed to migrate to different areas of the body. “If [the womb] goes up in and turns around and causes a blockage…the womb causes pain in the hips and the head.” Expose a woman to sweet smells, and the womb will return to its appropriate position.

An eighteenth-century Dutch gynecologist wrote that women on their periods gave off “menstrual toxins” that prevented jam from setting and bread from rising.

Hysteria is Greek for womb. Many illnesses such as suffocation of the womb or hypochondria were categorized under hysteria by the close of the 18th century. After the French Revolution, some aristocrats begged for hysteria diagnoses so they could be admitted to nursing homes, thereby avoiding the guillotine.

For a broad sweep of the Immaculate Forms: A History of the Female Body in Four Parts, I highly recommend listening to the podcast episode I mentioned earlier. But if you want to really dig in, pick up the book. It’s so darned interesting!

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When Storytelling and Art Intersect: In Conversation with Author Gwen Tuinman and Cyanotype Photomontage Artist Wes Peel

I’m a big believer in synchronicity. Many times, I’ve seen how it contributes to my writing. I plan stories in advance but always leave room for magic to happen. The gifts come—sometimes in the form of an unexpected book quote or a reader’s shared anecdote. While writing the closing chapters of Unrest, my 19th-century feminist adventure novel, I encountered the inspiration of Wes Peel’s cyanotype photomontage Horse Tamer.

Our mutual friend, Angela, invited me to view a series of Wes’s works being featured at the local art gallery. When she noticed me admiring Horse Tamer, she asked if I’d rather be the horse, the trainer, or the girl observing. A few weeks later, she gifted me a print of that piece, which I promptly framed and hung in my office.

At the same time, my character Mariah was at a turning point in her life. What road forward would she take? I reflected on Angela’s question. Horse, trainer, or observer? Then I asked Mariah how she’d answer, and her response guided me through the ending of the story.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Wes Peel in person for a discussion about the forces of creativity. What follows is our interview with each other. It’s been such a pleasure to extend our conversation.

WES PEEL

Gwen, I really like the map illustration of Bytown at the front of the book. Perhaps it’s the visual artist in me. Describe the creative process of making the map. Did you design it? Is it a digital or analog drawing? In what ways do you think the story benefits from having a map for readers to reference?

GWEN TUINMAN

Part of my research involved visiting Ottawa and walking the distances between locations where scenes take place. I paid close attention to maps and locations when working out my characters’ movements, so it felt natural to include an actual map in the book.

I created a hand-drawn Bytown map based on a historical one from the Library and Archives of Canada. Then I marked significant locations, both real and fictitious. My editor forwarded the drawing to the book cover designer, Talia Abramson, who worked her digital magic to create the version you see in the book.

Including the map spared the story from lengthy descriptions of Bytown’s layout and its position relative to the Ottawa River, which helped the narrative pace. Readers—especially spatial thinkers—can experience the setting in another dimension by referencing mapped locations as they read. Ottawa readers in particular are intrigued to see how historically significant locations connect with modern-day streets and landmarks.

WES PEEL

I like how the prose of this novel is historically grounded without being overly burdened by detail. Having obviously researched a lot of 1830s Ottawa history prior to writing, was it a conscious decision to resist putting in too many historical references that might slow the story down? Were you tempted to add more?

GWEN TUINMAN

Not overwhelming the story with excessive information is a deliberate artistic choice. I aim to show only details that are remarkable to the characters or that could impact their lives. Otherwise, my work would read like nonfiction, and when people buy historical fiction, that’s not what they’re signing up for.

Dense descriptions and language can definitely weigh down a story pace and test reader patience. When the prose has room to breathe, the words take on a pleasing rhythm. Because I understand this about fiction, I never wrestled with whether or not to wedge in details that didn’t serve the story.

WES PEEL

Was Peter Aylen a real person? Historically, what do we know (or not know) of him?

GWEN TUINMAN

Peter Aylen was real—though he was born Peter Vallely. In 1815, he jumped ship in Québec and changed his surname to Aylen. After a single year in the timber trade, he mysteriously amassed great wealth, which he used to buy properties and timber concerns throughout the Ottawa Valley.

By 1835 he had harnessed the anger of 200 disenfranchised Irishmen and formed a gang known as the Shiners. Under Aylen’s direction, they punished anyone who spoke out against them through beatings with oak cudgels and by destroying homes and businesses with fire or explosives. Aylen also opposed the British gentry’s attempts to replicate the political or social organizations they’d enjoyed in England.

By the spring of 1837, the Shiners’ grip on Bytown had weakened, and Aylen sold his Upper Canada properties. He expanded his timber holdings north of the Ottawa River, moved to Aylmer, Québec, and married into a prominent timber family. His three sons became doctors and lawyers. Aylen went on to serve many years in public office—as property assessor, superintendent of roads, and township councilman—all while enriching his bottom line. In 1848, he was awarded the title of Justice of the Peace.

WES PEEL

The character of Biddy feels disturbingly real and unlikeable; she oozes misplaced confidence and rationalized malice. How did you channel inspiration to write from her perspective?

GWEN TUINMAN

After I formulated Biddy’s role in the story and developed her psychological profile, I chose a vintage photograph that reflected her back to me. The person in that photograph became an “actor” I imbued with her voice and personality. While I’m writing, she was on a stage in my mind—saying lines, making choices, and delivering actions that cause her sister Mariah such agony.

Over my life, I’ve known less-than-ideal people. In a past relationship, I experienced domestic abuse in the form of gaslighting, isolation, erosion of confidence and self-worth, withholding of finances, and other undermining strategies. While I didn’t consciously set out to draw on that past experience to choose Biddy’s words and actions, I realized after finishing the book that aspects of her were eerily familiar.

WES PEEL

Many of the characters, especially Mariah and Thomas, are in tune with their physical senses, making the story feel real. Tell us more about the recurring physical elements of smoke, blood, poteen whiskey, or the smell of damp winter clothes.

GWEN TUINMAN

As living creatures, we experience the world through our senses. Every sensory detail we encounter sparks warning, memories and associations according to on our own lived experience. In 1836, when Unrest is set, Mariah and Thomas, would’ve been more keenly aware of their environment since there was no overwhelm of manmade smells and sounds etcetera.

Smoke, blood, whiskey, and damp clothes suggest destruction, violence, rebellion, and poverty. When readers encounter these details on the page, they know they’re entering a gritty and dangerous historical setting.

How characters react to sensory detail also reveals much about them. Mariah’s senses are often heightened by fear, while Thomas’s are stirred by curiosity and wonder. The body odours of timbermen skyrocket Mariah’s anxieties, but for Thomas the same smell in a tavern suggests camaraderie and he’s drawn in. For Mariah, whiskey represents temptation and male aggression; for Thomas, it’s a rite of passage and a chance to bond with other men.

GWEN TUINMAN

First off, Wes, please tell us about your art form, cyanotype montage. What drew you into this kind of self-expression?

WES PEEL

I learned the cyanotype process in a photography class at university. I distinctly remember being captivated by its deep blue colour that was so different than the black and white film prints I was making at the time. I was also fascinated by the cyanotype’s history and simplicity. It’s one of the first 19C photography processes invented and involves brushing light-sensitive liquid onto a surface (like paper or fabric), exposing it to the sun or UV light, and washing it in water. I loved the look of the brush marks on the edges of the paper, blending photography and painting together, like the Pictorialist photography aesthetic of the 19C.

The collage and montage aspect of my work came later when I started teaching high school photography. I wanted to develop an introductory unit for my students, a historical process that did not require a camera. Someone had recently donated a massive number of National Geographic magazines to my school, and they were sitting on shelves in my classroom—rows and rows of those yellow spines—a veritable treasure-trove of images spanning decades. With fervour, we started going through them, cutting and pasting with scissors and glue sticks. It was a messy affair; I didn’t envy the custodians who were assigned my classroom to sweep the floor. We ended up creating theme-based collages and/or fantastical imagery made from multi-sources. Then, I photocopied the students’ collages onto overhead transparencies (in reverse), and we used them like film negatives, placing them on top of cyanotype-prepared paper.

As an artist, I adopted this multi-image, cut-and-paste approach, and this is how the Horse Tamer, was inspired!

GWEN TUINMAN

2.Is there a core theme you explore through your art? Or are there commonalities in the images that generally pull your interest?

WES PEEL

Much of my photography is a series of images, and that’s a recurring theme in my work. For example, in 2006 I exhibited a series of “Roadside Memorials”—those arrangements of personal objects like a cross, stuffed animal, flowers, or bicycle by the road to memorialize someone who died there. I wanted to convey how we drive by these things so quickly in cars that we take them for granted and don’t stop to look at the details. More than just tombstones, they are a deeply personal collection of items to honour the life of a real person. By showing these images in a series, with shots at distance and close-up, I wanted to reveal more of the “truth” of this social phenomenon. I try to move beyond photographic artifice and the mere surface quality of a single image to tell a story by assembling many parts. I suppose this is what you’ve done with Unrest, building a story with the viewpoints of multiple characters.

GWEN TUINMAN

 Please share your journey to creating Horse Tamer.

WES PEEL

Horse Tamer is part of a series of large format cyanotypes entitled “Oshawa Assembly” from a 2019 exhibition at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario. The gallery contacted me to create an exhibit that would use images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection, a photographic archive of Oshawa that spans 100+ years. This was exactly in my proverbial wheel-house—creating photographs from multiple sources! So, I got busy and scanned dozens of old photographs, mostly older ones that interested me from the 1920s to 1950s.

The Horse Tamer is three different photographs combined to make one image: a photo of an open field, a schoolgirl outdoors, and a trainer and horse—all from the early 1920s in Oshawa, Ontario. I scanned each photo, “cut-and-pasted” the parts I wanted to combine in Photoshop, and then printed a cyanotype negative on transparency film. It was made in my photography studio where I have darkroom with running water, chemistry, and a UV exposure unit.

By the way, someone told me later that the man in the image holding the rope isn’t trying to “tame” or break in the horse. This is what I originally thought. Apparently, it’s a dressage maneuver whereby the horse is prompted to rear up on its hind legs in a full upright stance called a levade. It requires balance and strength of the horse to hold the position.

GWEN TUINMAN

What inspired you to draw on historical images in this piece?

WES PEEL

That’s a good question. I could’ve used photographs from any era in the Bouckley Collection. A couple of things influenced this decision. First, I had already done a series of cyanotype collages prior to this entitled “Old School” that used 1950s National Geographic magazines. So, I was comfortable working with old images to make new stories. Second, the older images in the Boukley Collection really suited the cyanotype. Combining older, dated looking images with an older, analog process just felt right. And, of course, the blue tones of the cyanotype harmonized everything and brought the different pieces together.

GWEN TUINMAN

There must have been a moment during your reading of Unrest where you recognized the influence of Horse Tamer. How did seeing your work as an influence in someone else’s art this way affect your view of the original story you were telling with the montage?

WES PEEL

Yes, absolutely! I saw the exact moment. So much of Mariah’s journey comes full circle, and it was exciting to see my own art embedded into the fabric of the story.

In this montage, I was trying to make a connection between the tamer, horse, and girl. The original schoolgirl photo was facing the other way, so I flipped it (in Photoshop) to bring her gaze toward the horse and trainer. I liked that she was holding something near her mouth; it created a sensory connection to the horse with a rope and bit in its mouth. It feels as though the girl is tuned into everything the horse is feeling. The original horse and trainer photo was also changed. Part of the horse’s tail and back leg were cut off, so I edited the photo and extended those parts to create a full tail and back leg. If you look closely, you can probably see evidence of this. In my opinion, it made the girl-horse connection stronger, as her hair and the horse tail look similar.

What I didn’t expect was a heightened sense of emotion and wonder. Your story added this layer, and I didn’t see it coming. I worked with this image for so long, editing for hours on my computer and making dozens of test prints. I was immersed in technical things. I forgot about the emotional aspect of the piece and its magical sense of possibility. I didn’t expect to feel like I was standing beside Mariah and witnessing her courageous and life-changing decisions. Rather than being outside a photograph, detached and observing from afar, I was now inside, experiencing and feeling things from her point of view.

Continue reading “When Storytelling and Art Intersect: In Conversation with Author Gwen Tuinman and Cyanotype Photomontage Artist Wes Peel” →
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Women Writing: What Diaries Say About History and Erasure

“This is a female text, composed while folding someone else’s clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores.”

 ~ Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

A Ghost in the Throat, by award-winning poet and essayist Doireann Ní Ghríofa, is a book I highly recommend for its insightful prose that flows seamlessly between memoir, poetic verse, and historical inquiry. It tells the story of turbulent motherhood and Ní Ghríofa’s compulsive re-envisioning of an eighteenth-century woman, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, all but erased by history.

Continue reading “Women Writing: What Diaries Say About History and Erasure” →
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There’s Gas Lighting, and Then There’s Gaslighting: History & the Personal Collide

The dead of night evoked a fear in our ancestors that’s hard for us to imagine today. Most of us would be hard-pressed to recall when we were last engulfed by absolute darkness. Imagine a corner with shadows so dark that a stranger could lurk there without our knowing. With access to manmade illumination around the clock, we don’t worry ourselves. Our ancestors nightly locked doors and barred windows against wild creatures and things that howled at night—or against rough folk who waited in alleyways to do them harm.

Terrible things happened in the dark. Conversely, some monsters hide in dazzling light.

Continue reading “There’s Gas Lighting, and Then There’s Gaslighting: History & the Personal Collide” →
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Female Husbands & Saltblood: A Perfect Pairing of Defiant Histories

I discovered Jen Manion’s powerful book, Female Husbands: A Trans History while perusing a feminist book club’s reading list. The history of anything piques my interest. As a citizen of the world and as someone with dearly held trans people in my life, I want to learn more.

Manion (Associate Professor of History at Amherst College) writes that, “as a historian, it is my mission to try to understand how female husbands understood themselves and were perceived by others in the terms of defining gender and sexual difference than were available to them in their lifetimes.”

Continue reading “Female Husbands & Saltblood: A Perfect Pairing of Defiant Histories” →
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Wandering Wombs, Births and Pessaries: Women’s Health Mansplained Throughout History

Whether we’re anxious about a potential illness or expecting a baby, being cared for by a professional who’s empathetic and inspires our confidence is a comfort. My experience with women healthcare practitioners has been positive. There’s a built-in understanding when I explain how I’m feeling. They’ve never invalidated my concerns.

Women practitioners have treated me as a whole person, not a jumble of body parts.

As a historical fiction author who’s interested in women’s lives, I’m always thinking of the past. This leads me to wonder about the care and understanding that women did—or didn’t receive—from male physicians before the prevalence of licensed female doctors.

I recently read Lisa See’s historical fiction, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, a story inspired by Tan Yunxian (1461–1554). Tan was one of a few women physicians during China’s Ming Dynasty and the first to publish a medical book. Women doctors and authors faced credibility issues. In the prologue, Tan wrote, “I beg readers’ indulgence and ask that they do not laugh at me.”

In the novel, I was struck by an account of a male doctor caring for a pregnant patient. Male doctors weren’t allowed to touch female patients, nor could married women be treated in the absence of their husbands. With the doctor seated on one side of a screen and the woman on the other, her husband acted as a go-between, posing the doctor’s questions to his wife and then repeating her answers to the doctor.

What quality of treatment did women receive under that kind of restriction?

Continue reading “Wandering Wombs, Births and Pessaries: Women’s Health Mansplained Throughout History” →
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Growing Empathy Through Historical Fiction

In the summer of 1975, I was a shy, awkward girl obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I couldn’t get enough of her stories about 19-th century settler life.

Her books were my gateway into historical fiction.

Wilder’s writing opened my eyes to the hardships that people experienced on the frontier. She introduced me to homesteading women who faced life-and-death struggles and who diligently, with resourcefulness and hope, safeguarded their families.

She also showed me examples of quiet strength, resilience, self-advocacy, inquisitiveness and how individuality and community can co-exist. She immersed me in her characters’ world and made me care about them.

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Pioneer Life: Making Candles

Two hundred years ago, coal oil lamps were a rarity in the backwoods home. Hearth fires and candles were main sources of light. In heavily settled areas, a chandler might pass through once a year to sell their candles made with moulds.

Most pioneer women preferred to make their own candles. They saved tallow (animal fat) from butchered cows, sheep, and wild game like deer and bear. The tallow was boiled in water several times to rid it of impurities. Once tallow took on a waxlike consistency, it was strained to further ensure pureness. These processes help to prevent the animal fat in the candles from turning rancid. To camouflage the unpleasant odour of burning tallow, wild ginger or pleasant-smelling herbs were mixed in. Sweet smelling beeswax was sometimes added for a honey scent. Pure beeswax candles were reserved for special occasions as the wax was difficult to obtain.

Continue reading “Pioneer Life: Making Candles” →
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