Atlas Trail
From the Cottage Garden to the Cat Fancy
Ordinary domestic life, kept and cultivated at home, has repeatedly organized itself into real movements and institutions: a reaction against Victorian bedding schemes became the cottage garden style, wartime food anxiety became the victory garden, and one man's pigeon-judging habit became the organized cat fancy. This trail follows four such turns, from a Danish word for coziness through to the Victorian household manual that tried to systematize domestic life itself.
Stop 1 of 8.
Concepts and Movements
Hygge: the Danish idea of everyday coziness that names what a home is for.
Stop 2 of 8.
Concepts and Movements
The Cottage Garden Movement: a reaction against formal Victorian bedding, built around the home garden as a lived, informal space.
Stop 3 of 8.
Milestones
Publication of The Wild Garden, 1870: the book that gave the cottage garden movement its founding argument.
Stop 4 of 8.
Concepts and Movements
Victory Garden: the home garden turned to wartime purpose, feeding a third of America's wartime vegetables.
Stop 5 of 8.
Concepts and Movements
Cat Fancy: keeping a pet becomes a judged, organized pursuit.
Stop 6 of 8.
Milestones
The First Cat Show, Crystal Palace, 1871: the single event that launched the fancy.
Stop 7 of 8.
Milestones
Founding of the National Cat Club, 1887: the fancy gets its first registry.
Stop 8 of 8.
Milestones
Publication of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861: an attempt to write down and systematize domestic life itself.
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