Victorian culture embraced “other sciences” like phrenology, alienism, and spiritualism alongside mourning rituals. These practices mirrored anxieties about race, empire, gender, and death—revealing how science, the occult, and grief shaped the shadows of progress.

Victorian empire thrived on science and classification, yet its literature—Kipling, Haggard, and beyond—reveals the shadows of knowledge. Anthropology, ethnography, and adventure tales exposed anxieties about race, empire, and the unknowable.

Little Ladies: Victorian Fashion Dolls and the Feminine Ideal explores how 19th-century dolls served as tools of gender training and socialization. Beneath the silks and lace lies a powerful story of class, empire, and the making of the “proper” woman—stitched in miniature.