Ackermann's Online, in Full

The cover of the first issue. Talk about a long name!

Yes, friends and readers, it's online. From 1809 through, well, you need to go look for yourself. As with Gallery of Fashion, this famous Regency-era journal is at at the Bunka Gakuen University Library Digital Archive of Rare Materials, in Japan. You can find Ackermann's itself here. Do recall that "Ackermann's" is common shorthand for the real title of the journal, which I believe changed over time. When it launched in 1809, it was actually titled very wordily. Click on the photo to the right and you will see.

If you lose the link, here's one easy way to browse to it. On the library homepage, choose "Place" from the left bar, and then from the list of items, select "United Kingdom". The library site may take some time to respond, but when it does, browse to the last page, and select the item that starts with "Repository of Art, Literature, Commerce...". Eh voila.

Because fashions are only a part of what the journal reported on, in the library's Search Results - Images screen, you can hit the "Plates Only" button at the lower right corner, and get just the plates. However, I believe that the journal also published descriptions of the latest fashions. You'll have to hunt for those the old-fashioned way, by reading the table of contents for each issue and going to the pages in question.

I haven't looked much at the journal because for the moment, the 1790s are topmost in my mind, so will be delighted to hear if you all find anything especially helpful.

By the way, for my money, Luxus und der Moden is still one of the best sources, for it does a marvelous job of publishing entire special articles on items such as feathers, fabrics and their sources, production, specifications, and availability, jewelry, hats and headdresses, and more. It's harder work reading the journal since it's in German and in Fraktur typeface, but oh my, the excellence of the information! If Ackermann's publishes these sorts of specialty articles, I'd love to know.

Happy reading, and a good Memorial day weekend to you. Tomorrow we travel to West Liberty, in the mountains, to gather with my husband's extended family and to do what we do each year on this weekend of memory and memorial: visit the family graves scattered in the small cemetaries that dot the hillsides,  clean them and decorate them and discuss family past. This is not a common custom anymore, in suburban and urban America, where most families are scattered thousands of miles apart, but in places where families remain close to their roots, it endures.

Mmm, the honeysuckle is scenting the air. Daddy and the boys have gone to the "train station" (model train shop) and then to lunch at the local pharmacy lunch counter (yes, they do still exist), but they will return soon and my gift of time will be past. Oooh, now I smell horse manure-rich garden mulch; good thing I like it, but I had better get moving. 'Bye!