Dreaming of Steam
Jul. 16th, 2008 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kialioLast night I found myself sitting in front of my vast collection of Victorian books. I pulled out one hard cover titled "At Her Majesty's Request" about an African girl named Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the Egbado princess. A gift to the Queen of England from an African king Sarah instead became the protégé to Victoria, unheard of for nonwhites in that era. Sarah was tutored, prepped, fawned over, and played with the royal children on equal terms. The Queen became her godmother and protector.
So I thumb through the book. It’s short and really written for a much younger crowd but the pictures are lovely and the tale is warming. There are a few paintings and photographs of Sarah tucked among the pages. Dark and lovely, with the scars that mark her rank a symbol of beauty rather than the disfigurement they would have been regarded as during that time period. I wonder what it must have been like for Sarah, caught between two worlds and trying to live her life as any woman would do.
Slowly images of the Fisk Jubilee Singers spring to mind. Clothed in the well-to-do trappings of the time but unapologetically black. Just a short while ago there was a conversation of Steampunk and different ethnicities taking the standards and making them uniquely theirs. The images of the book and of the black Diaspora intermingle, Bantu knots and bustles mix and compliment. A fantasy world of steam arises based on a careful sample of an ignored history. Women weighed down by hoopskirts and dreadlocks fly gleefully through the air on wild contraptions. Afro puffs are bedecked with burgundy feathers. In silver and crystal dining rooms crimson legumes with wild rice are followed by dried plums in port with a puffed pastry crust (gold star for naming these two dishes.) In dark corners of the slums vile deals go down while the virtuous are silenced.
It’s an interesting world. One I had never fully thought of piecing together. Steampunk and history seem at odds at times in philosophy and social mores. But maybe that’s what makes it fascinating. I may have to put much more thought in this otherworldy setting.
So I thumb through the book. It’s short and really written for a much younger crowd but the pictures are lovely and the tale is warming. There are a few paintings and photographs of Sarah tucked among the pages. Dark and lovely, with the scars that mark her rank a symbol of beauty rather than the disfigurement they would have been regarded as during that time period. I wonder what it must have been like for Sarah, caught between two worlds and trying to live her life as any woman would do.
Slowly images of the Fisk Jubilee Singers spring to mind. Clothed in the well-to-do trappings of the time but unapologetically black. Just a short while ago there was a conversation of Steampunk and different ethnicities taking the standards and making them uniquely theirs. The images of the book and of the black Diaspora intermingle, Bantu knots and bustles mix and compliment. A fantasy world of steam arises based on a careful sample of an ignored history. Women weighed down by hoopskirts and dreadlocks fly gleefully through the air on wild contraptions. Afro puffs are bedecked with burgundy feathers. In silver and crystal dining rooms crimson legumes with wild rice are followed by dried plums in port with a puffed pastry crust (gold star for naming these two dishes.) In dark corners of the slums vile deals go down while the virtuous are silenced.
It’s an interesting world. One I had never fully thought of piecing together. Steampunk and history seem at odds at times in philosophy and social mores. But maybe that’s what makes it fascinating. I may have to put much more thought in this otherworldy setting.