victorian bedroom 1850-1875

This Victorian bedroom is much brighter and lighter than the corresponding parlor downstairs. The classic floral design fitted carpet, the wall paper and delicate lace window curtains are reproductions made from original designs of the period.Gertrude and Adelaide Parry, daughters of Richard Randolph Parry, were very young sisters during this period and so the room has been arranged as if young sisters inhabited it.

Abraham Lincoln was President during the Civil War and was assassinated shortly before it ended in 1864. He was fond of this type of high back rosewood bed and the style became known as the "Lincoln Bed". The dress on the bed is a lady's riding dress. It looks like an outfit that Scarlet O'Hara would wear.

The artwork of the time is sweet and sentimental. A pair of Victorian Chromos or lithographic prints on either side of the bed depicts the theme "My Favorite Playmate". The marble topped dresser and washstand suite is what A. J. Downing, a renowned architect of the period, referred to in his writings as "cottage furniture".

The fireplace has been blocked and a rococo cast iron bedroom stove installed to provide heat near the crib, mother's rocker and sewing table. The table belonged to Ellen Parry, Richard's wife. The Parry family bible, dated 1856, has a flame stitched cover.

Victorians loved their trinkets as seen in the small gold porcelain slipper, the bisque figures, the Staffordshire lamb and figurines and the Parian figure of a man ice skating (a Parry possession). The United States celebrated its Centennial in 1876 and the velvet-beaded pincushion commemorates that event.