During the Victorian Era, vivid shades of green gained popularity. The bold jewel tones were quick to be adopted by women who wished to stand out among the darker, less vibrant, traditional greens. Scheele’s green, discovered by Karl Wilhelm Scheele in 1775, and Emerald Green, discovered by George Field in 1814, was created using arsenic and became so popular that Victorian’s started surrounding themselves in arsenic greens. Nothing in their daily lives was untouched by the color, dresses, wallpaper, carpeting, accessories, and even socks could be found in the vivid tones.
Unfortunately, there was an overlooked dark side to the beloved colors. Many low quality or cheap products made with the dyes would flak or shed, sending arsenic particles into the air. Homes would be filled with floating arsenic that slowly poisoned anyone who took a breath and women’s dresses would shed arsenic throughout the day, potentially exposing those who got close, to the deadly poison.
It wasn’t long before people started noticing problems associated with the dye. Blister’s formed on women’s hands from the improperly sealed green dye on their gloves. Rashes appeared from headdresses dusted with the bright pigment. Babies died from playing on green carpeting or brushing against green wallpaper. Even Buckingham Palace faced problems with the dye. A foreign dignitary fell ill, informing Queen Victoria that the culprit was the green wallpaper.
While many of those who brushed against the color fell ill, the workers who made the products suffered worse fates. Seamstresses who handled the arsenic fabric developed massive sores and blisters on their hands. Workers inhaled powder versions of the color, causing blisters on their faces and poisoning them. In 1861, after the death of Matilda Scheurer, investigations began into the workshops using arsenic. Scheurer was a nineteen-year-old, who worked with the dye every day. She dusted the pigment onto the fake leaves that were used in women's headdresses, inhaling the arsenic with every breath. Accounts of her death were gruesome, reporting vomiting green water and convulsions every few minutes until she died. Her autopsy showed the arsenic had reached her stomach, liver, and lungs. It had also turned her fingernails and the whites of her eyes green.
The public was horrified.
Investigators published reports of half-clad and half-starved girls with bandaged hands picking up leaves covered in arsenic to turn into bouquets. One girl told investigators that workers wore handkerchiefs soaked in blood and their faces were a mass of sores. After reading the accounts, the public felt that Matilda Scheurer’s death had been preventable, and her life was sacrificed for the wealthy woman’s fashion. Dr. A. W. Hoffman, an analytical chemist, tested items of women’s fashion and concluded the average headdress contained enough arsenic to poison twenty people and a green dress could hold as much as half its weight in arsenic. The British Medical Journal reported that a woman wearing an arsenic green dress “carries in her skirts poison enough to slay the whole of the admirers she may meet within half a dozen ballrooms.”
Despite public outcry, people continued to use arsenic greens. Some people told themselves that as long as they didn’t ingest the color, they would be fine (they were not.) Others simply did not believe doctors. William Morris, one of the founders of the British Arts and Crafts movement, claimed arsenic could not be the cause of the illnesses. In an 1885 letter, Morris claimed “As to the arsenic scare a greater folly is hardly possible to imagine: the doctors were bitten by witch fever.”
By 1895 with the invention of synthetic dyes and the regulation of conditions in factories the use of arsenic greens gradually died out, but its memory remains. In the Chanel haute couture house, seamstresses do not like the color green, believing it is linked to bad luck. Museums today must contend with arsenic ladened objects in their collections. A book of arsenic wallpaper samples, titled Shadows from the Walls of Death, had each page individually encapsulated so researchers could handle it without worry. Dresses and fabrics can still retain arsenic particles and must be handled with care and the proper protective equipment.