Category: Events

Documented Fantasies

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Museums, personal, Reenacting, Research5 Comments

It was three years ago on a warm August afternoon in the museum room we’d turned into a photo studio when I quipped, “All my fantasies are documented.” It’s been hard to live down ever since.

With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.
With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.

Documentation, research: we all do it, everyone who reads this blog does it. What matters is how you use it– or, maybe even more importantly, how well you understand how you are using your research. This past weekend was the Salem Maritime Festival, and round number three for me in the West India Goods Store (WIGS, which sounds far more political than it is). The year was 1804, and as you may recall, that required a new dress.

Reader, I wore it. And it survived!

Yes, it is made from an IKEA curtain. The pattern is my own, derived from examples in Janet Arnold, at Genesee, and the KCI. Once again, I discovered the power of upper body strength and leverage. It’s not that my stays are too big necessarily. The busk is too long, that I will grant you. But I think the shoulder straps are as well, and the shift– that slattern! She was rolling a la Renaissance Faire, which is completely unacceptable, of course, as she slid down my right shoulder by the end of the day when the shop had been unpacked into the conveyance.

So let us focus on the non-slattern part of the day, when a mercantile enterprise briefly overtook the WIGS.

Behind the Counter

There was some custom, though numerous debts were recorded in the ledger.  (Somehow, there are no images of Mr K sweating over the figures in the book, though I recall them clearly.)

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The shop was hot, but we attempted to stay fed and hydrated, as we discussed the various kinds of goods imported to places like Salem and Providence in 1804. Politics were rather difficult to discuss, as Mr K has a marked antipathy for Mr Jefferson that caused a mild agitation; expanding the country does seem a bold and perhaps unconstitutional move, given the deal Mr Jefferson has struck with Bonaparte, but perhaps this is for the best. The Indians will surely benefit from Christianity and education.*

It’s engaging in the moment, and we’ve done our research. But it’s a fantasy nonetheless, a kind of happening grounded in primary sources and material culture. I’m OK with that– I understand what I am doing– but I wonder sometimes if the people I’m watching on social media understand what they are doing with the fantasies they portray.

 

 

* To be SUPER clear, I’m staying in character here. I worked in Missouri and I have enough understanding of “manifest destiny” to disagree with this point of view.

Friday’s Fright: A Dress in White

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Uncategorized1 Comment
The Frightened Girl, oil on canvas by Cephas Thompson ca. 1810. MFA Boston, 1986.397
The Frightened Girl, oil on canvas by Cephas Thompson ca. 1810. MFA Boston, 1986.397

Two paths crossed for me this week, both in the early Federal era. Cephas Thompson, a self-taught New England painter, recently became very interesting to me. Although he grew up in Massachusetts, Thompson painted extensively in Virginia, but also in Providence, so of course the story resonated with me. But even more than the story, I loved the images. What a show the portraits would make– and he seems to have painted miniatures as well– so when I met with a local preservationist who turned out to be a fellow art school fugitive, wheels began to turn.

“What clothes!” my new friend said.
“I can get you a room full of people in those clothes,” I replied. And what fun would that be, a gallery opening where the people in the portraits appear to have come to life? Beats the pants off mere mannequins, but keep your Cossacks on: this one’s gonna take a while. In the meantime, what about those clothes?

Salem Register, July 14, 1803.
Salem Register, July 14, 1803.

Saturday marks the third time I’ve been part of the Salem Maritime Festival, and once again the West India Goods Store will be the base of operations for a mercantile enterprise. Millinery has its charms, but this year, the park historian shared fascinating notes on “She Merchants” of Salem, and the Hathorne sisters really intrigued me. Drunk Tailor dug into online newspapers (harder than ever to access remotely) and found an 1803 issue of the Salem Register

That’s an incredibly helpful list of goods to sell (and to pack from the Strategic Fabric Reserve), but a new year means a new dress, of course, and for reasons still not entirely clear to me, this seemed like exactly the right time to wear white. That’s sort of where Cephas Thompson comes back into play: white dresses.

Mrs. Cephas Thompson (Olivia Leonard). Oil on canvas by Cephas Thompson, 1810-1820. MMA, 1985.22
Mrs. Cephas Thompson (Olivia Leonard). Oil on canvas by Cephas Thompson, 1810-1820. MMA, 1985.22

There’s a pile of white cotton and white linen on my table, ready to be packed up this evening: with the dress on for a fitting, I felt like a bowl of whipped cream, the red silk Spencer and scarf the cherry on top. Happily, white and red are documentable to New England, though I would be mortified to be as frighted of a garter snake as the girl in Thompson’s painting. Strawberries and coffee are entirely different, and I shall probably require a bib for Saturday, lest my whipped cream be spoilt.

Mendy Monday

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, Living History, making things2 Comments

Best not to be shiftless, so mending was in order. I knew this day would come, and soon, and after doing the post-Genesee wash, the moment had arrived for this shift.

Simple, classic patching. I hadn’t expected to wear a hole in a shift quite this soon, but four years of wear whilst working and sweating have taken their toll.

It’s a toss up, now that it’s mended, as to whether or not I’ll shorten the sleeves. They’re too short for some of my gowns, but fine for others. Ideally, I’d make a second shift for this time period (early Federal) and third for the late 18th century. I’m somewhat concerned because I have taken a notion to make a new dress for Salem, which is just around the corner.

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Now, it’s not this dress– and this may be a pelisse, after all– but I’ve become pretty obsessed with this image, and decided, what with it being summer and all, to finally cave in and make a white cotton gown.

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~thanks to Mrs B for the image~

This is madness, of course, because I am not someone who doesn’t spill on her clothes or happily and recklessly carry strawberry-eating babies. White. Sheer. Really sheer. I don’t know what possessed me, but once I had the idea and the image to inspire me, I could not shake the notion of a white cotton gown for summer. Perhaps the recent heat is to blame: thin, white cotton seemed cool and refreshing. We’ll see how that goes in a little more than a week. Until then, bright light and fine stitches keep me busy.

Indocent Exposure

On By kittycalashIn Events, Fail, History, Living History, Reenacting, Thanks2 Comments

IMG_7288 Or, Confusion into Confusion.

Docents and volunteers: the backbone of any non-profit organization, right?

Well…sort of. I’ve worked with docents for more than a decade, and along the way I’ve learned what does and doesn’t work. What does work is intensive engagement and participation, though the occasional shock to the system can be necessary and useful. For special events, though, and in cases of turf, diplomatic relations must be opened with the enemy early and often.

That is not to fault the organizers of the “Order Out of Confusion” event this past weekend, for I was one of the people organizing the civilian, non-marching end of things, and due to turbulence in my own life, I failed to plan adequately in the arena of Docent Relations.

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We had a Retaliator, a Pine Robber, a Quaker, and a Slave-Owning Patriot. We managed a debate or two over slavery. We begged people to take the Quaker home with them. But we did not occupy the house, for the house was occupied by red-shirted volunteers who gave at least some of us the five cent Condescension Tour punctuated with, “But I suppose you’re not interested in that.”

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Actually, that look was one of sheer disbelief, sir, at the farm implements in a bedroom, the tidy piles of perfectly formed ashen coals under the cookware in the fireplace, and the roomful of flax accented with a snake charmer’s basket. In my line of work, I enjoy house tours, but find they generally go better when tour guides don’t point out all the flaws to me. Complaining about the state (which owns the site) and onerous regulations that make repairs expensive will also increase my look of horror and disbelief. But really, if you want full-on horror, kindly inform the Quaker that Japanese POW camps “really weren’t that bad” because we are thriving on confusion today.

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The volunteers were thrilled by the marchers, and were clearly very positive about the event. They love Craig House, and the battlefield, but that sense of pride and ownership made it impossible for them to share the house with us, or to see us as anything but invaders– an Army of Occupation in our own right.

It’s my fault that I’m not an agile enough negotiator to convince recalcitrant octogenarians that my friends and I are safe to play with and will respect the house, and it’s my fault that I didn’t put in place all the lessons I’ve learned in the past decade. Then again, I don’t know that I would have had time to travel for meetings with the volunteers to generate buy in and support, given the maelstrom that was my life this past spring.

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But it’s a lesson well-learned: interpreters will read voraciously, acquire tons of material, and turn that research into appropriately-dressed characters making interpretive points, but unless you work with the site and its volunteers or staff to create agreement about presentation, you’ll get about half the value of the work you put into the planning.

Many heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated, and to the organizers for letting me try out my interpretive model. Next time, I know I have to work with the site staff and volunteers to make sure that execution matches vision.