Improving Collection

New Woman Poster ?1896
The New Woman: a bookish frumpy young woman in plain clothes & monocle sits on a stool surrounded by improving books. She also smokes judging by the cigarette in the corner

Comic postcard, Woman with dress improvers the wrong way round, as pointed out by her maid Date: early 20th century

Comic postcard, Woman at her dressing table, improving her appearance with makeup Date: early 20th century

Motto frontispiece in a bound volume of The British Workman, an improving magazine aimed at the industrial classes, advocating temperance and education. Laborare est Orare - To Work is to Worship

Front cover of a bound volume of The British Workman, an improving magazine for the working classes founded by Thomas Bywater Smithies in 1855, committed to encouraging temperance, protestantism

Exercising in bed
A woman exercising on her bed, using a Cush-up, patented by Marian Jacks of Old Bond Street who specialised in corrective anatomy

Work at the Embankment, London 1868
Workmen improving the public stretch of road alone the River Thames, 70 to 100 feet in width and stretching from Westminster to Blackfriars more than a mile and a-half in length

Cartoons, Improving landscapes
Cartoons, Improving Landscapes, with the addition of smoky chimney-stacks, gas towers, soap factories and drainage pipes. Date: 1880

Proposed extensions of transport links into London 1919
Diagram showing a map of London and the movement of commuters by different travel means from Greater to Central London, and the proposed extensions of transport links

Thomas Day, Author
THOMAS DAY The author of Sandford and Merton, an improving tale. Date: 1748 - 1789

Workers Cottage
Double cottage for agricultural districts, drawn from the plans presented to the Society for improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes. Date: 1849

Cartoon, Making progress. A young woman sitting at the piano tells her friend: My voice is coming on -- I just had a complaint from the tenant on the sixth floor ! Date: 1919

Saint Elisabeth, Princess of Hungary (1207-1231), wife of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia. She spent vast sums of money improving the conditions of the poor, and died at the age of 24

Girls Hall at Mullers Orphan Homes, Ashley Down, Bristol
Girls Hall in House 5 at George Mullers New Orphan Homes, Bristol. The girls are occupied in sewing. The room is decorated for Christmas and the walls adorned with improving mottos. Date: early 1900s

Illustration by Cecil Aldin, Crackers dog show inventions (with the authors apologies to Heath Robinson). Smoothing the Scotch Collie, Pampering the Pom, and Improving the Kerry Blues Beard

WW2 birthday card, All Clear! Rabbits, bird and squirrel. Date: circa 1942

Touching up a photograph for use in a newspaper
A specially-trained expert retouching photographs before reproduction in The Daily Chronicle newspaper - done by hand in the days long before Photoshop was available. Date: 1914

National Physical laboratory Hovercraft Unit Experimental craft HD2, HD2-001, built to investigate methods of improving lateral control and manoeuvrability

Dr Zander / Posture / 1897
Dr Zanders apparatus for improving posture, demonstrated by one of his patients Date: 1897

Nottingham & Midland Counties industrial exhibition
Visitors at the Nottingham and Midland Counties Industrial Exhibition, in a building erected for the purpose in the Cattle Market at Nottingham

Model Lodging House, St. Giless, London, 1847
Engraving showing the exterior of a Model Lodging house (centre, left), built by the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes in St. Giles s, 1847

Disraeli and Asia Minor
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli repairs Asia Minor, claiming this improving of the noble Turk is his proudest work in this satire on early British Colonialism

Improving Voice Timbre
Improving the timbre of the human voice with an amplifier

Ivan Michurin
IVAN MICHURIN Russian botanist, noted for his work in plant selection, improving fruit and vegetable varieties with great benefits to Soviet horticulture

Golden Square, Soho, 1853
Golden Square: site of the model lodging house, erected by the General Society for improving the dwellings of the working classes

First Day at School 3
The teacher reads an improving story to the children

Pyne - Grass Roller
THE GRASS ROLLER Technological innovations such as the roller are improving Englands pasture lands : it can also be used on some kinds of crop

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