Category: Living History

Hat Face

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History, making things, Research
The Fortune Teller, 1789. Lewis Walpole Librray. 789.1.2.1
The Fortune Teller, 1789. Lewis Walpole Librray. 789.1.2.1

I like hats; I think it’s been made clear here before that I have a bit of a bonnet problem. As it stands, I have something in the neighborhood of a dozen bonnets, and really need to get my Etsy store up and running…

But as in life as in the Richard Scarry story, there’s always room for one more, and more to learn, so my collection hasn’t stopped me. I blame my Grandmother Elsa, who owned a dress shop, collected shoes, and had a particular face for trying on hats.

Black silk bonnet, 1770*1780. Colonial Williamsburg 1993*335
Black silk bonnet, 1770*1780. Colonial Williamsburg 1993*335

I’ve been thinking about bonnets because I lately came across some engravings showing what might be called baleen bonnets. At left above, a bonnet that is clearly reminiscent of the bonnet in the Colonial Williamsburg collection on the right. The CW bonnet (1993-335) has seven baleen bones, and a baleen rib around the bonnet brim.

It is strikingly similar to the bonnet in the 1789 engraving, down to the decoration. In “Kissing the Baby,” a lithograph in the collection of the British Museum, the older woman appears to be wearing a ribbed black bonnet in the style my friend calls “lampshade,” and that others call “bucket.”

Kissing the Child. Lithograph by David Wilkie, 1800-1841. British Museum, 1852,1211.134
Kissing the Child. Lithograph by David Wilkie, 1800-1841. British Museum, 1852,1211.134

There are more bucket or lamp-shade-like bonnets depicted in engravings and paintings, and it is possible that flamboyant style was the one that got Ann Warder in trouble in 1788. I remembered this passage on page 223 of Amelia Mott Gummere’s book, The Quaker, A Study in Costume,:whalebone quote

Whalebone bonnet? Interesting… so, having an interest but no whalebone, I send the Young Mr to the basement for the remaining stock of caning I’d used for stays, and came up with a plan to replicate a “whalebone” bonnet, which I will describe and show you next time!

The HFF: Historical Food Fortnightly

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, History, Living History, making things, Reenacting

2f053ddd402318588e6c094c0ec0e6b4Every now and again Facebook proves itself useful: without following Dobyns & Martin Grocers, I would not have known about this interesting cook-along, the Historical Food Fortnightly.

The challenges look interesting, and I particularly like the seasonal fruit/vegetable one. This seems like a wonderful chance to cook historical recipes using seasonal, local ingredients, and I do like to remind people that historical eating is grounded in seasonal, local, eating. Plus pounds of raisins and sugar and gallons of alcohol.

Your local historical archive (or whichever one contains the works relevant to your interests) can be a great place to get started assembling documentation on local eating. Receipts for foodstuffs can be mixed into other accounts (cotton for your daughter, a parasol, a pair of shoes for your wife, 5/8 yard pink silk satin self) but you can still quantify tea, sugar, spices, Madeira, and flours. I find fresh produce somewhat harder to track–you won’t count what is growing behind your house– but fear not, New Englanders! Some of that hard work has been done for you.

A bill of fare for August
A bill of fare for August

J.L. Bell of the fantastic Boston 1775 blog wrote the book-length historic resource study General George Washington’s Headquarters and Home—Cambridge, Massachusetts, which I read before we went up to the “Washington Takes Command” event last July. (That sentence just seemed crazy, even to me…yes, I read 650 pages plus the event program to prepare for a 6-hour event…)

The report can be downloaded as a PDF, and if you’re looking for food, where you want to go is Chapter 6, Daily Life at Washington’s Headquarters (page 173 and following). On pages 195-197 the Steward’s Purchases are listed, sorted by Fruits, Vegetables and Grain, Spices and Flavorings, etc.

While Washington was maintaining (or causing to have maintained for him) a Genteel Household, the list of purchases is helpful in documenting the variety and types of foods available in Cambridge. I suspect that similar kinds of documentation exist in the historic resource reports or room use studies for places like Gunston Hall.

I cannot manage to keep up with the Historical Sew Fortnightly right now– things went pear-shaped in December— but we have to eat, historically or otherwise!

Tactical Strategies

On By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, Reenacting

One of the things I liked best about this year’s School of Instruction was the Petite Guerre demonstration that followed a discussion of those tactics by Dr Stoltz of the 5th NY.

Mr McC & the Young Mr share a tree; note British officer and Hessian

Demonstrating skirmishes instead of linear warfare makes sense, given the numbers of men who take the field at events, and the smaller engagements will reflect exchanges common between the sides during the war.

What I like in particular is that using ‘petite guerre’ tactics requires the commanders and soldiers to tailor their actions to a site (site specific immersive experience: you cannot go wrong) and as the action unfolds, soldiers at all ranks are forced not only to move but also to think. Any action where the interpreters have to think is likely to create a better experience for visitors—and no great surprise, that usually makes a better experience for interpreters. It also flatters the site managers and visitors, who will appreciate that you’ve taken the time to explore and understand their place, and its place in history.

While you don’t necessarily want to fight the Battle of the Comfort Station, skirmishing around a site with buildings provides an objective, while multiple buildings and some woods or undergrowth provide cover for the Light Infantry troops and opportunities for deceit.

Of course, depending on troop size, it may be that each man needs his own tree. On Sunday, the Young Mr kept close to Mr McC, demonstrating troop [leg] length.

It’s hard to be invisible when you’re tall.

But I do mean this seriously: scaling events to available resources allows for a better interpretation.

That’s common sense, and sound museum practice, and that’s pretty much the business living history practioners (aka reenactors), are in: interpreting the past to visitors. Best practices for professionals and hobbyists are grounded in the same principles:

  • Primary source research
  • Material culture research
  • Site, resource, and audience- appropriate delivery
IMG_1386
Direction provided by Mr C with spontoon.

Building an encampment and tactical demonstration on the first two principles grounds the event in in historical authenticity. Adding the third principle, and increasing the use of smaller group tactics, tailored to the participants and site, would be a subtle but strategic shift to build a more engaging experience that better educates visitors and might even attract new recruits.

Dirt Stew & The King’s Oreo

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History, Reenacting4 Comments
What Lights through Temple window Break?

What do you do when the kettle tilts off the pothook and spills onto the floor?
Scoop the food back in and keep cooking.

That’s how you make dirt stew, with just enough ash to keep the texture interesting at the bottom of your bowl, plus ham, onion, turnips, parsnips, potatoes and carrots. If you wash the inside of the kettle later in your motel bathtub, you will add to the list of very bad things you’ve done in the bathrooms of temporary accommodations.

On Saturday, the original event plan called for a camp kitchen demonstration; this was nixed because a long string of permissions could not be obtained in time, so we fell back on bringing the three sticks and two kettles. Outdoor fires of all kinds were nixed Thursday because of red flag warnings, and after downpours Friday night followed by rain on Saturday afternoon, we ended up cooking in the back room of the Temple building.

Third from the left, Mr S in the ‘Ugly Dog’ coat.

Some of us were too focused on getting food into the kettle to tidy up the surroundings, and that is why you need several people in any group: someone has to keep their head and clean up the wreckage of previous occupants. Fortunately for us, Mr McC managed that while the Young Mr swarmed around like a cat wanting its dinner, I cut vegetables and Mr S stewed about spilling the stew.

In the end it was a cozy evening boiling roots and hearing stories. I took no photos because that would have ruined it, but Mr S kneeling before the fireplace in the Ugly Dog coat and overalls as the last of the light came through the watery glass made a Vermeer-like and beautiful sight.

On Sunday morning, Our Musician Friend (who has turned his coat, and now sports yards and yards of lace and a bearskin hat nicknamed Lamb Chop), produced a package of Oreos from his haversack, and the Young Mr and I took the King’s Oreo with pleasure and no commitment.