Category: Living History

History is Not a Competition

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Reenacting1 Comment
IMG_1583
Drilling by the Sergeant

Saturday was my first post-operative foray into costumed interpretation, up to Paul Revere House on Flag Day. This went much better than my first attempt at Paul Revere House, which ended in ignominy as I missed the train. In April, I managed to convince Mr S to drive in Boston, which he usually refuses to do (in fact, he nearly abandoned me once at the Old State House one Saturday after a miserable drive that had us stuck in the Downtown Crossing vortex).

I’m so glad we managed this, Despite anticipatory near-tears and epic pouting by the Young Mr, we managed to have a rather nice time.

Poise, with extra elevation by the Young Mr
Poise, with extra elevation by the Young Mr

We were in the courtyard, and Mr HC and Mr FC told the story of Amasa Soper’s company and its members several times to the streams of tourists. They solicited recruits and ran them through the 1764 drill using the nicest wooden muskets I’ve ever seen, though with mixed results. Some new volunteers held their muskets backwards, and the Young Mr’s ramrod got stuck in the barrel, though that is a known issue with that particular musket.

I sat on my ladder-back chair near the house and made the tiniest hems I could on Mr S’s next shirt, which will be for best. People asked about the sewing and my clothes, and I had a chance to talk about what women wore, typical fabrics and fibres, supplying the army, and who made what.

The day was warm, but fortunately not overwhelming, and as a museum person, I found the crowd quite interesting. This is a facet of Boston I don’t usually see: the tourist experience.

In one memorable moment, a pair of young women stood just outside the door to the house.
Young Woman Number One: “Is this really his house?”
Young Woman Number Two: “Yes, this is where Paul Revere lived.”
YWNO: “Oh, my God! I’m so excited! This is so neat!”
Kitty Calash: <eats heart out with jealousy> “Why can’t my museum do that?”

The celebrity factor of Paul Revere is undeniable. There were tourists with guide sheets in Chinese, and tourists who made me wish I still remembered my college German. Some seemed to be hitting every Boston landmark they could in one day, carrying white cardboard pastry boxes; some seemed to be going more slowly, looking, and trying to figure out what they were seeing, and what it meant.

Virtue Rewarded
Virtue Rewarded

What living history means is something I’ve been thinking about lately, or trying to. It’s tangled up with questions of authenticity and appropriateness, but what I learned on Saturday, or re-learned, was how very happy this business makes me. I like history, and historic costume. It doesn’t matter to me if we are talking Revolutionary War or New Republic or Lewis and Clark.

My favorite visitors were a mother and daughter from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, visiting Boston for the first time with a young man from New Hampshire. The mother said, “There’s so much more history here than where we’re from. Our town’s only 100 years old.”

That’s a challenge I’m always ready for, so I asked where they were from. Colorado to me means Native American settlements reaching back a thousand years, Spanish explorers and conquistadors, French, and then American, fur traders. It means hundreds of years of history, and a chance to remind people this isn’t a competition for “oldest” or “mostest.”

Knowing where our country came from is important: so yes, please visit Boston, and Paul Revere House, and Providence and Newport, too! But knowing where you are is just as important. There’s history all around you, and your local historical site, society and museum would love to tell you about it.

Frivolous Friday: Just a Pretty Bonnet

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things, Reenacting2 Comments

Like Sew 18th Century, I’ve been enjoying preparing for the August 2nd event in Salem.

I’ve not ventured too much into Regency bonnets, or into straw, but I did flirt with a 1794 bonnet. Now I’ve got hats on the brain, and the time to fully indulge my whimsy (though it runs out Sunday).

From the fashion plates, one would almost say, Anything Goes.  Of course it doesn’t, really, but you can get a sense of the exuberance of bonnet trimmings in the illustrations, and the lavish use of ribbons, bows, feathers and flowers.

Not all straw bonnets were lined– in fact, they often weren’t– but the lining protects the straw and the wearer’s face, and finishes this off in a way I like. Pleating in my condition was, ah, challenging, but I figure it was good for my brain to have the exercise. The lining in the brim is white taffeta, but I used white linen in the main crown or tip portion of the bonnet. Instead of bagging the lining, or trying to fit it, I mimicked what Mr B does in the hats he’s made for us. The gathered linen closes with a drawstring and required slightly less effort to fit into the hat.

The velvet ribbons came from Lunarain Designs on Etsy, the ties are taffeta ribbon from Taylor’s Etsy shop, and the straw bonnet form came from Regency Austentation. While the finish work takes time and concentration, I do enjoy both making up and trimming bonnets, and look forward to several more.

More than Just a Pretty Hat

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History2 Comments

While pretty hats were pretty important parts of the milliner’s trade, many more things were sold in a millinery shop.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Margaret Hunter shop is probably the best-known living history milliner’s shop, and they provide a nice definition and explanation of the trade. But that’s never enough: what’s the primary source information for New England milliners?

While there is documentation of a Rhode Island milliner in the 1830s, and even a thesis on her work, Sew 18th Century and I are working on an earlier shop. I started with Rhode Island newspaper advertisements, because I like the sound of “lately arrived from Providence,” and because I understand that context.

The Rhode-Island American, December 25, 1810. III:20, p. 1
The Rhode-Island American, December 25, 1810. III(20), p. 1

Here is Mrs. Sands, just returned from New York to Newport and vicinity, with a long list of things for sale, “selected from the latest European importations, an elegant assortment of the most fashionable MILLINERY.. viz,:–” (you have the love the punctuation, which is like the Chicago Manual of Style on New Republic crack)

What is she selling? In addition to what we think of as traditional millinery, the “variety of ladies’ Caps and Turbans, Straw, silk and velvet Hats and Bonnets; Straw Trimmings of various kinds,” listed at the bottom of the ad, Mrs. Sands carries:

  • Lace Shawls
  • Caps, Handkerchiefs and Whisks;
  • Infants’ Lace Caps
  • Plain and figured mull mull and jaconet
  • –Muslins, of a superior quality;
  • Handkerchiefs and Habit Shirts,
  • India and British book Muslins,
  • Plain and figured Lenos,
  • Long black, white and coloured Beaver and Kid Gloves;
  • Silk and cotton lace Armlets,
  • A large assortment of Ribbons,
  • Artificial Flowers, Featehrs and silver Wreaths
  • Tortoise Shell Combs of Various sizes;
  • Merino long Shawls
  • Worsted Tippets
  • Gentlemen’s Neck Pads

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff, and many different kinds of things, though all broadly in the ‘accessories’ or supplies range. I am delighted to see Habit Shirt on the list, as I buy my chemisettes, and I am intrigued by the range of handkerchiefs and by the Tortoise Shell combs, in part because I did not buy an assortment of them at a shop in western Rhode Island a month ago (kicks self).

Newport Mercury, December 11, 1811. L:2593, p.1
Newport Mercury, December 11, 1811. L(2593), p.1

In the December 21, 1811 Newport Mercury, Mrs Sands again advertised her goods lately arrived from New York. This is a less exhaustive, but no less interesting, list. “Ladies elegant green velvet mantles, with and without spencers” is particularly intriguing for a Spencer fan, and not particularly clear to me.

November 21, 1812. Essex Register
November 21, 1812. Essex Register

In Salem, which is where we will be in August, Elizabeth Pierce advertises her “Fashionable Goods” for sale. She, too, has a long list of things she will sell, from Canton crapes to imitation shawls, hosiery, lace sleeves and armlets, one box of English flowers, and American Straw bonnets.

I suspect that just as retailers do today, milliners of the late 18th and early 19h century probably had an assortment of things designed to bring buyers in to shop (new bonnet styles), and small items to tempt them into impulse purchases (English flowers). You can’t buy a new bonnet every week, but you can refresh an old one.

A Whale-Safe Bonnet

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History, making things, Reenacting6 Comments
Complete with my interpretation of "Hat Face"
Complete with my interpretation of “Hat Face”

As promised, my interpretation of the ribbed bonnet in the 1789 engraving. There are a few problems with this beyond the model. (Which is not to say that I don’t like this bonnet– I do!)

I used the Kannik’s Korner bonnet pattern (view F, I think) as the basis for this because I already had a brim, lining, and caul cut and in a drawer. Given my current medicated state, using something pre-cut seemed advisable. That means I didn’t play with the brim to create the line of the Williamsburg bonnet, or the curve of the brim in the “Fortune Teller” engraving.

Detail, The Marquis of Grandby
Detail, The Marquis of Grandby

Is this style acceptable for the period I typically interpret (1775-1783)? Well… there are other examples of the lampshade-style bonnet, as in the Edward Penny painting of the Marquis of Granby. This painting is dated “after 1765” so there’s some room for interpretation there…too much room. But if that’s 1765-1770, and the “Fortune Teller” is 1789, I think we have comfortably covered the 1775-1783 time frame, even if it is a bit like a queen-sized blanket on a twin bed.

Front view: more lamp-shade like.
Front view: more lamp-shade like.

As you can see, the bonnet does have some lamp-shade-like tendencies on my head, which I consider a benefit. I like the way the ribs are visible, even if I remain unconvinced by the caning. I think it’s a little too wide, and lacks resiliency, though to be honest, I have only felt baleen at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where there is a large sample on the second floor.

To compensate for the disappointing cane in the brim, I slipped a piece of millinery wire into the pocket underneath the cane. The layers in the brim are:

  • black taffeta
  • horsehair canvas
  • linen buckram
  • yellow taffeta

The channels are all hand-sewn, and then the cane was slipped in. I stitched the black taffeta caul to the first three layers, and then lapped the yellow taffeta over the raw edges and stitched it down to finish the brim/caul seam.

No, I didn’t take any in-process pictures…probably because this took considerable snake-eyed concentration last weekend. IMG_1477 IMG_1476

Usually, I line the cauls of my bonnets, but through shear laziness or distraction, I opted not to this time, and I think I’ll leave it this way for a while. You will also note that I have not trimmed this: I have some black silk ribbon coming, and I may try that. I don’t have enough black taffeta left to cut self-fabric ties, and there do seem to be some plain examples. A plainer, lamp-shade-like bonnet may be just the ticket for Bridget.

What would I do differently? Next time I would definitely play with the brim shape using a paper template. I’d like a lower, curvier, brim. Once I had the shape worked out in paper, I would use that as a template to cut the taffeta and horsehair or light buckram layers.

The Edenton Tea Party
The Edenton Tea Party

I’d also try zip ties. I know: not period correct! But short of risking federal prosecution resulting from a trip to New Bedford with some shears, I’m not sure that anything other than plastic will have the resiliency and spring that baleen has, and that made these bonnets so special. I thought of them while making this bonnet, but I think Mr S used them all at work in the past two months. A Facebook friend has been thinking of zip ties, though, and has a hankering for one of these bonnets. I can’t say that I blame her– and honestly, I think I might join her.