Here’s a chance to wear corsets, horsehair crinolines, petticoats, silhouettes, and V-shaped bodices.
King Manor Museum will host the second annual Governor’s Victorian Holiday Ball on Saturday, Dec. 9, from 5:30 pm to 8 pm.
Formal dress is encouraged…Strongly encouraged!
Participants will celebrate with historic cocktails (i.e. Apple Toddies, English Milk Punch, Champagne Cobbler), ballroom dancing (i.e. Galop, Polka, Tango, Viennese Waltz), period music, a magic lantern show, snacks, and surprises. And to jump back to the modern day, attendees can buy tickets for a raffle to win a cap autographed by Brooklyn Nets hoop star Cam Thomas.
Ticket prices start at $33.85.
True to its name, the Victorian Era ran from 1837 to 1901, when Queen Victoria reigned over the British Empire. It was a period of rapid change, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and growing public access to electricity.
King Manor Museum sits on 11 acres in Rufus King Park in Downtown Jamaica. Rufus and his descendants lived there from 1805 to 1896. They farmed the land, but as ardent abolitionists, they paid their African American workers wages even though slavery was permitted in New York State until 1827. (Other workers were immigrants from Scotland and Ireland.)
The family’s three-story, three-chimney residence is now a landmarked museum that’s open to the public. It’s the site for the Governor’s Victorian Holiday Ball, which gets its name from Rufus’s eldest son, John Alsop King. John was Governor of New York from 1857 to 1859 and during his ownership, King Manor was referred to as the “Governor’s House.”
John, who also served as an Assemblyman and Congressman, wasn’t the only prominent King. His previously mentioned father, Rufus, was a senator and an ambassador to Great Britain. Rufus’s other sons include Charles, who edited the New York Enquirer before becoming President of Columbia College; Edward, who moved to Ohio and founded Cincinnati Law School; James, a War of 1812 veteran who moved to New Jersey and became a Congressman; and Federick, a doctor who became famous for his lectures on anatomy.
Images: Library of Congress