The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, frontispiece, Ironwork of Bellinzona, and title page

John Ruskin saw education as a radical tool for reshaping society and was adamant that his lessons should be accessible across social classes.For more information on Ruskin’s diverse interests as an educator, see Valerie Purton, ed., John Ruskin and Nineteenth- Century Education (London and New York: Anthem Press,...

The Victorian era was an age of iron. By 1860, British trade delivered over half the world’s supply of crude and processed iron, with iron-hulled ships transporting pig iron to North America and continental Europe and ferrying wrought and cast iron to every corner of the world, from the Indian subcontinent to...