It's pretty clear that one of my objectives is to correct some of the common misperceptions about Victorian life that abound on the Web. But you don't have to wait for me to do it! "Myth-busting" often involves the simple application of logic – no special knowledge required. When you feel that something you're reading doesn't make sense, there's probably a good reason for it. So here are some tips on how to determine whether a site or blog is providing accurate information.
1) What are the author's credentials?
A writer doesn't need a string of degrees to be "legit." However, it's a good idea to determine just what makes this writer someone to be believed. For example, some of the best sources of historical information online are romance novelists. They may not have PhDs in history, but they've spent years doing meticulous research. Why? Because they know many of their readers are "experts" in the period they're writing about, and will pounce on the tiniest mistake.
Many writers provide some details about why they're interested in, or passionate about, whatever they're writing about. Sometimes, passion is credential enough. If a writer truly loves a subject, they have a vested interest in making sure others understand it properly, and that means taking pains to provide accurate information. Check the author's "about" page to find out more.
2) Does the author have an axe to grind?
Two clues to "axe-grinding" are emotionalism and over-generalization. Lots of emotional phrases aren't always a sign of inaccuracy, but they can be a sign of one-sided reporting. If a phrase makes you think, "Oh, how terrible!" – take a closer look. It might be terrible, but it also might not be true. In my series on Myths of the Victorian Woman, I cited a course that made a number of emotional claims about how badly women were treated in the 19th century, including the statement that women were "confined" to the home. There's a word fraught with emotional baggage, suggesting a world of powerlessness, restrictions, and even captivity. (It also happens to be untrue.)
This course also made several very over-generalized statements which, taken as given, simply couldn't be accurate. Saying something is true of "women of the 19th century" asks you to believe that it was true of all women over a period of 100 years! In reality, women's status varied widely over time, and based on social and economic demographics.
2) Does the author over-generalize?
As I said above, over-generalization can be an indication of axe-grinding, but it can also indicate sloppy research and/or sloppy writing. Recently I came across a Facebook post claiming that Victorian servants literally lost their identities on entering service. As evidence, the author claimed that households employing servants couldn't be bothered to learn their names, and so simply assigned them generic names. "The first lady's maid was always Rose, the first footman was always Thomas."
Now, it is true that some households, particularly larger establishments that hired many servants and might have a high turn-over of servants, often did tend to refer to different servants by a standard name. However, there were certainly no universal names employed throughout Britain (or America); one mistress might call all her maids Rose, but another might call them Mary and yet another Eliza. (It often depended on the name of one's first maid!) This author probably also doesn't realize that the majority of servants in Britain were employed by the middle classes, not by wealthy households. Middle-class homes generally employed one to three servants; those servants often remained in the same employment for years; and one can be fairly certain that the mistress knew her servants' names.
Again, that's not to say that generic naming didn't occur. For example, a generic term (especially in America) for an Irish servant girl was "Bridget." That doesn't mean all such servants were called Bridget, but rather, that when one was looking for a new servant, one might say, "I'm looking for a Bridget."
Over-generalization is generally meant to get an immediate reaction, like "Wow, did you know that Victorians never bothered to learn their own servants' names?" Unfortunately, even a little over-generalization can make it difficult to ascertain whether any part of a post is accurate.
Sometimes a Little Research Can Help One Avoid Falling for Internet Myths...
The Girl's Own Paper, 1886
5) Does the author provide specific details?
While over-generalization is (generally) bad, specific details are usually good. The more specific the information, the more likely it is to be accurate. People don't tend to make up names, dates, and numbers. For example, here's a quote from a post titled "Things You Might Not Know About Being a Spinster in Regency England":
In the late eighteenth century, a tax was proposed which specifically targeted spinsters. Any woman over the age of 27 was to be taxed 6% of the value of her land, property, fortune or other assets. Any woman who failed to accurately report the extent of her financial worth would be required to forfeit 25% of it to the Crown.
The wealth of detail in this paragraph makes it convincing. (Actually, it seems this proposal was meant as a joke, and no such Act was enacted, but the proposal was made.) No one would make all this up, and the details can easily be checked.
4) Is the same information repeated in multiple articles by different people?
I've been amazed at how many blogs simply repeat one another, often verbatim. In such cases it's impossible to determine who provided the original material. This type of duplication doesn't necessarily mean that the information is inaccurate. However, if someone simply repeats (or copies) someone else's blog, that means they're not doing their own research, fact-checking, or even writing. They are offering nothing of value, and often pass along misinformation without ever bothering to check it.
A bigger problem with blog-copying is that it influences the results of AI searches. One thing AI looks for is consensus. The more sources that make the same claim, the more likely an AI search is to spit this back as the definitive "answer" to your question, whether it's accurate or not.
6) Does the information stand the test of logic?
Sometimes you read an article and think, wait, that just can't be right. Maybe you can't quite put a finger on it, but something seems wrong. In that case, something probably is wrong – and applying a bit of logic may help you figure out what.
Here's a somewhat edited example, 'cuz I plan to write another post on this topic and don't want to give away the details just yet. In researching my book, I found multiple blog posts claiming (often verbatim) that a particular custom was named after a certain Victorian tradition.
However, these posts weren't content with offering just the one explanation. The custom might have been named after this Victorian tradition... but then, perhaps it was named after a slightly different tradition... and then again, there's evidence that it might have related to something completely different that might or might not even have been a Victorian tradition. This demonstrated that the author (whoever the original author might have been) didn't actually know the source of the custom and was grabbing at straws. But it got even better, because the next thing the author did was offer a reference to the custom dating from the 1700s – 200 years before Victorians were engaging in any sort of "tradition" whatsoever. Logic dictates that you can't claim, in one breath, that a custom originated with a Victorian tradition, and in the next, declare that it existed 200 years before there were any Victorians! At that point, while I still hadn't learned the answer to my question, I certainly learned that this wasn't it!
7) Does the author provide references?
When it comes to historical topics, an author has to get information from somewhere. Now, if one is fairly fluent in one's "period" (like the afore-mentioned romance authors), one can write quite a bit without needing to pull in direct quotes. Quotes and references, however, go the extra mile to show that research and fact-checking have taken place. I don't mean that every post needs a bibliography, but including a note like "According to an article in the December 1847 issue of The Illustrated London News" is enough to show that one did one's homework. It also gives you a chance to track down additional resources to learn more about the topic.
While there are certainly many sites and blogs that are deliberately misleading – often, as noted above, from the desire to grind a particular axe – much of the misinformation that is spread online is simply due to ignorance and laziness. Too many bloggers simply want to attract readers to their blog – even if that means cannibalizing the blogs of others to provide "material." Those who take this approach don't waste precious time verifying the accuracy of the material that (at best) they quote and (at worst) they steal. Nothing can completely protect us from misinformation – but applying a few basic rules of logic can ensure that we are less likely to be deceived.
Find Out More:
- Treasure Trove of Vintage Pleasures, by Tames Allen
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/352566505697426/posts/802214957399243/
- Things You Might Not Know About Being a Spinster in Regency-Era England, by Amy D'Orazio
- https://www.quillsandquartos.com/post/things-you-might-not-know-about-being-a-spinster-in-regency-era-england
- A Proposed 18th Century Tax Bill Targets 27-Year-Old Spinsters...And Their Cats!, by Mimi Matthews, January 12, 2017
- https://www.mimimatthews.com/2017/01/12/a-proposed-18th-century-tax-bill-targets-27-year-old-spinsters-and-their-cats/
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