surprisingly "modern" things that are period

Sanitary belts. It's a lot like a garter belt, only it hooks onto what's basically a maxi-pad, which it secures between the legs. I know these were in use in the 1960s, because my mother remembers using them. So it was a shock to find an advertisement for one in the 1860s or 1870s!

Also, brightly patterned stockings. You typically think of the Victorians as being very sexually repressed, which would mean their stockings would be plain, but there are ads for stockings that show all manner of colors and prints, including plaids, stripes, zigzags, polka dots, etc. Very surprising!

Some things that surprised me--

Terms like "truck", "van", "cab", and "bulldozer" being used before automobiles.

That the concept of "health food" already existed in the late 19th century. There were also vegetarians and foodies, most of whom were dismissed as "food cranks".

The phrase "far out" being used in the 1880s, the same exact way a 1970's stoner would've used it.

The term "Afro-American" being a lot older than I assumed. Also American soldiers calling themselves "doughboys" long before WW1.

How recently zippers were invented. I just took it for granted that they went back to the early or mid 19th century, but nope.

Menthol inhalers for a stuffy nose being over 125 years old.

People talking about the harmful health effects of cigarettes in the 19th century (we tend to assume that before the 1970's everyone just assumed cigarettes were dandy. People have always known they were unhealthy. They just didn't care)

Hearing the phrase "radical Republican" associated with so many Civil Rights and pro-black causes

Names! It's hard to think of Tiffany or Sidney as being any older than the 1970s or so, but they're both medieval French names. (though Sidney was spelled Sidonie.)

"<Typhainne> is a French form of <Tiffany>, or <Theophania>. We find the spelling <Tyffany> recorded in the 15th century, and <Tiffany> in 1315. [2]" - Source

Yeah, "Tiffany" would definitely throw me off.

Speaking of names, one thing that surprised me was that "Stonewall" actually became a somewhat popular given name after the Civil War, even among northerners.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Cotton jersey knit.

Some of the tight white riding trousers on men in the Napoleonic era were made of essentially heavyweight t-shirt material.

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Aha! That explains the combination of 'tightly fitting' and 'flexible enough to mount and ride without gussets and other complexities'. Good to know.

Flush toilets! Apparently they had 'em in the Minoan palaces of Crete, during the Bronze Age.

I quoted someone talking about getting news "by telegraph" in 1815 Paris. Someone pointed out that the telegraph hadn't been invented then. It turns out that the electric telegraph had yet to be invented but that in France the term was used to refer to messages transmitted by semaphore.

chaneyk06 said:

Flush toilets! Apparently they had 'em in the Minoan palaces of Crete, during the Bronze Age.

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That one I can believe! I've been to an archaeological site in Newfoundland for a seventeenth-century European settlement, and they had an outhouse with a piece built out over the water's edge. Every time the tide came in, it would have flushed everything out.

Colony of Avalon (privy information is about halfway down the page).

Oil lamps. They found shells where vegetative wicks were used with animal fat going back before recorded history. There are so many lamps lying around that people now can own thousand year old ones for about a hundred bucks or less.

Just be aware that even when you are right, there will be readers who assume you are wrong. I remember a kerfuffle a while back over an author's use of the word "shag" in a late 19th century story. Actually the word goes back to the 18th century, but that didn't stop people from saying it was too modern.
If you include something surprising, you might want to add an author's note at the end.

Photographic retouching of portraits. From the 1850s onwards it was pretty well mandatory for professional studio portraits to be extensively retouched to give everyone perfect skin. Bigger studios often had someone whose full-time job was retouching. Sometimes they totally took it too far--you can pretty easily find portraits of elderly people with completely smooth, wrinkle-less hands!

flapperphilosopher said:

Photographic retouching of portraits. From the 1850s onwards it was pretty well mandatory for professional studio portraits to be extensively retouched to give everyone perfect skin. Bigger studios often had someone whose full-time job was retouching. Sometimes they totally took it too far--you can pretty easily find portraits of elderly people with completely smooth, wrinkle-less hands!

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I recently read a book with plates showing a photo of Abraham Lincoln that had been retouched to smooth out some of the wrinkles. Very strange-looking!

ETA: To clarify, the retouching was done in the 19th century.

snafu1056 said:

People talking about the harmful health effects of cigarettes in the 19th century (we tend to assume that before the 1970's everyone just assumed cigarettes were dandy. People have always known they were unhealthy. They just didn't care)

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Don't forget about 19th century asthma cigarettes though! *laugh*

Also, it's not SURPRISING if you're up on your feminist histories but the vibrator was developed as a treatment for hysteria during the Victorian period because doctors were injuring themselves giving therapeutic massages.

I just cannot with how much that cracks me up.

CWatts said:

What else has surprised you?

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I'm generally not surprised, but since I'm using actual language from the 1790s, I suspected my readers might have artificially-induced fits about such terms as

"super-skills" and "The Modern way of Love"

Kind of a nice irony that nothing creates widespread sexual deviancy more effectively than sexual repression.

Condoms existed since at least the 16th century, when they were made of treated linen and tied with a ribbon!

Medicine in the early Islamic world was surprisingly advanced. In the Medieval era, they had implements for treating cataracts and cauterizing wounds, and they had some understanding of how blood circulates. By the 18th century, the Ottoman empire had a form of inoculation against smallpox.

CWatts said:

Theresa Berkley made a fortune as a professional dominatrix thrashing the aristocracy in early 19th century London. Despite all the public sexual repression, the Victorians were secretly kinky too, with loads of porn about such strict "governesses."

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snafu1056 said:

Kind of a nice irony that nothing creates widespread sexual deviancy more effectively than sexual repression.

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"Birching porn" (for want of better word) was extremely popular already in the 18th century among the much less repressed Georgians (I used to have a fascination for 18th century erotica and read lots on it - and of it). Also, if you look at the sex trade of the 18th century, both spankers and "spankees" were much in demand. It's also one of the "specialties" that gets its own section in Harris List(s). So it seems an everlasting English favourite!

autumnleaf said:

Condoms existed since at least the 16th century, when they were made of treated linen and tied with a ribbon!

Medicine in the early Islamic world was surprisingly advanced. In the Medieval era, they had implements for treating cataracts and cauterizing wounds, and they had some understanding of how blood circulates. By the 18th century, the Ottoman empire had a form of inoculation against smallpox.

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For a very hands-on lesson in animal gut condoms which were common, see Sally Pointer: http://sallypointer.com/animal-gut-condoms

CWatts said:

Theresa Berkley made a fortune as a professional dominatrix thrashing the aristocracy in early 19th century London.

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*files under 'Novels Ideas'*

Re: the condom. A friend gave me a book on the history of the condom. I just flipped through it. Apparently the ancient Egyptians and Romans used linen or animal bladders as condoms, although female condoms or pessaries were more common. Not all scholars agree that's what they were doing with tiny little linen sheaths on their penises, but others argue it's likely.