Lethal Leaves: Arsenic Greens

 By Monica Groth, Curator 

Green Bonnet, c. 1880
This bonnet may be colored with arsenic green pigments

In 1775, the young chemist Wilhelm Scheele discovered that copper arsenate (a copper and arsenic compound) made a gorgeously vivid green color. By mixing sodium carbonate, arsenious oxide, and copper sulfate, he produced a vibrant pigment. Immediately desired by customers and cheap to make from mining wastes readily available as the Industrial Revolution took off, Scheele’s Green was adopted by many manufacturers. The compound was used to color wallpaper, book covers, playing cards, and candy wrappers. As the 19^th century began, other green pigments with slightly different chemical compositions including Schweinfurt Green and Paris Green also appeared. The beautiful green was attractive –and deadly.  

Arsenic is very poisonous to humans. Early in the Victorian period (1837-1900) it gained a reputation as the poison of choice for murderers and the poison to avoid if you wished to commit suicide (it caused that agonizing of a death). But many arsenic victims weren’t poisoned by another person. Instead, they were unsuspecting consumers – victims of fashion.

Perhaps the most famous case of arsenical green pigments involves Paris Green wallpaper. Glue, damp, and mold would react with the wallpaper, which in addition to flaking off arsenic paint, would off-gas hydrogen cyanide into homes. Multiple people, Napoleon Bonaparte likely among them, died from such poisoning, and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s popular book The Yellow Wallpaper (arsenical greens were often a lime-ish yellow/green color) was likely inspired by these facts.

However, before doing further research on the topic I was unfamiliar with the knowledge that clothing was also colored with arsenical green pigments and gave off substantial clouds of the lethal stuff. In particular, women’s gowns, hats, and leafy headdresses were dangerous to make and wear. Investigating doctors concluded that a ball gown fashioned from 20 yrds of green fabric might contain 900 grains of arsenic, and that in an evening of dancing, 60 grains might slough off as the wearer spun. With 5 grains enough to kill a person, such a woman, deemed a “killing creature” by the British Medical Journal (this was slang for an attractive woman at that time), could take out a dozen people in one night!

Green Silk Bodice, c. 1832
 Possibly colored with Scheele's Green arsenic pigment

It wasn't often that a beauty left 12 dead in her wake because the full lethal dose of 5 grains would rarely reach a person after one encounter. However, prolonged exposure to the chemical was a death sentence. Workers in factories and shops were very susceptible, developing physical and neurological maladies from constant contact with arsenical dust. The death of artificial flower maker Matilda Scheurer was much publicized in London in 1861. Scheurer, who was only 19 yrs old at the time of her death, dusted artificial flowers with arsenical green powder, daily breathing in the toxic dust and often returning home with it on her hands and clothing. One of the things which makes the pigment so perilous is how loosely its bound to its substrate - it was dusted on and could easily dust off. In addition to painful convulsions, tremors, and vomiting, the whites of Matilda’s eyes turned the verdant shade of Scheele's Green before her death. She reportedly told doctors that everything she saw looked green! Fellow flower workers developed scabs and lesions on their hands and faces, and workers in many different industries using arsenic sickened and died in the 19^th century.

Orange Blossom Leafy Wreath, c. 1880:
Headdresses like this one often had leaves dusted with arsenic green pigments 

Word certainly spread that arsenic was present in green pigments and that it could kill. But the color remained fashionable through the decade. Artificial flowers or taxidermized birds (preserved with arsenic pesticide soaps) on hats and accessories were particularly in vogue. Today, I handle these items with caution to ensure no arsenic is inhaled or absorbed through the skin. 

By the 1880s, doctors, women’s groups, and reporters were lobbying for alternatives to arsenical greens. The use of the poisonous pigment slowly decreased, but arsenic was seen in a wide range of consumer products well into the 20th century. As you’ll learn if you visit our upcoming exhibition, Your Victorian House is Killing You, there were plenty of other dangers lurking in the 19^th century home. 

Fickle Fashion: The Bustle

by Erin Doane, Curator

Many fashion trends are loved by some and loathed by others. I’ve always been a big fan of the bustle; especially the outrageously large ones of the 1880s. The bustle, a pad or framework worn under a dress to support the back drapery of the skirt, became very popular in the early 1870s. It came back into fashion about ten years later and was at its most exaggerated around 1885. At that time, the perfect bustle was so prominent and substantial that a tea tray could be comfortably balanced upon it.

Fashion plate showing bustled dresses, mid-1880s, from Wikipedia Commons

 Until I began digging more into the social history of the bustle rather than just the fashion history, I did not realize how hated the garment was. It was the source of aggravation and embarrassment. Trolley conductors rejoiced when it began going out of style in the late 1880s. Fashion writers in the late 1890s and early 1900s, called the bustle “unsightly” and declared it unbecoming, ungraceful, and uncomfortable.

Portrait of an unidentified couple, 1880s

An incident dubbed “one of the most distressing of the year” took place in Elmira in 1888. The Elmira Telegram reported on a local lady living in the first ward who had a terrible experience with her bustle. The unnamed woman was the wife of a well-to-do gentleman. She was not obliged to do her own housework but she chose to because she was such a good homemaker. One day, she was in a hurry to run an errand and decided it was not worth getting all dressed up. She was already wearing a good calico wrapper so she put on her sacque coat and tied on her bustle underneath it to give it “the proper swing.” She returned home after a successful trip, took off the sacque, and went about her day’s work. When the milkman arrived at her door she greeted him then remained on her front stoop to enjoy a passing parade of young minstrels. She enjoyed the music but she wondered why many in the crowd look at her with so much interest. Upon going back inside, she caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. She was still wearing her bustle on the outside of her wrapper! “The lady will not be comforted,” the Telegram reported. “It is said that in her dreams she sees bustles of all sorts, shades and sizes floating around in space, and after each one is a crowd of grinning boys.”

Advertisement for Langtry bustles, for sale in Elmira at

Dey Brothers, Durland & Pratt, and B. Erlich & Son, 1888

TheElmira Telegram reported that conductors in Philadelphia were glad to see the bustle go as the trend began to fade in the late 1880s. Part of a conductor’s job was to efficiently fill the seats, making sure as many passengers as possible could ride. In the morning, that was a relatively easy task. Women who were up and on the trolley before 9:00am generally had work to do and were not wearing bustles. By mid-day, however, middle and upper class women came out to shop dressed in the latest, greatest fashions. One conductor observed that “some of the appendages [bustles] are so large that when eight or ten women are standing up not even a thin man can get a chance at a strap.”

Bustles in CCHS's collection, 1880s, left to right: padded bustle; bustle made

of three coiled metal springs with cotton cover; metal mesh bustle

One man who was not entirely pleased with the sudden decline of the bustle was a furniture maker who developed a new design for a sewing chair. An article in the Telegram in 1888 reported that the unnamed craftsman created a chair that extended out in the back to accommodate the bustle. He patented the design and built a stock of the chairs to display for sale just as the bustle went out of fashion. I searched for the ill-timed patent but, since the newspaper did not give the man’s name or any other specific information, I had no luck in finding it.

Cage crinoline/bustle combination, 1883

The bustle abruptly disappeared from fashion around 1890. An article in the Elmira Daily Gazette and Free Press on July 18, 1891 asked “What has become of the bustle?” The writer explained that “in their palmy days there were millions of the unsightly things worn by women in every station of life” but now the garment can no longer be found for sale. A Gazette article a year and a half later stated that “thousands of women protested that they would perish beside their bustles before giving them up but now the bustle is as extinct as the dodo or the plesiosaurus.”

Group portrait of ladies wearing dresses with bustles, 1880s

Rumors of the bustle’s return to fashion appeared throughout the 1890s and the early 1900s. The garment’s reappearance was not seen as a good thing. The Dress Gossip column in a 1906 issue of the Elmira Telegram addressed the newest round of rumors. “It does not seem credible that sensible women, women with an eye to her own personal appearance and grace of movement, would for one moment contemplate with any degree of patience an attempt to bring into vogue the unbecoming fashion of a past generation.” Nevertheless, the writer declared it was “just as well to prepare for the worst,” i.e. the return of the bustle to mainstream fashion, despite the opinion that “it always was an ungraceful, uncomfortable fashion, this bustle business, and partook considerably of the character of an absurdity.” Those who disliked the bustle so much were likely relieved that it never did return as a major fashion trend.