There I was, enjoying a scene between Mary Crawley and the maid Anna when suddenly the pause button was employed. "Is that a curling iron?" "A curling iron with an electrical cord?" What?!" Too bad no one was watching the episode with me at the time to prevent me from talking to myself.
Electricity, as everyone knows from the hub-bub in season one, has entered Downton in the form of lights. But with it, I forgot came the possibility of other electrical gadgets.
Modern hair curling irons have been around since the 1860s. Credit is given to Hiram Maxim's patent who apparently enjoyed creating beauty products and machine guns (I haven't figured out the connection yet). By the late 1910s-1920s, ladies were working on perfecting the Marcel Wave (which swoops back and forth curl-wise), most commonly remembered now a days by being flaunted by Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago.
 |
| To the left- a Victorian curling iron with a wooden handle and a plug that can draw electricity from an light bulb socket. To the right- I think I prefer the safety added into our current day curling irons. I can see the family resemblance. |
