There are some interesting topics in the list– brewing? I certainly enjoy the results of brewing. Dairying? I like cows and love the local dairy farm. Language and speech patterns? I could certainly do better. Professions? Hmmm….I’ve considered several. Much to love in this list, and I’m looking forward to learning more.
You know that musical? The one you can’t get tickets to unless they were willed to you by your grandmother because she was lucky enough to stumble out of the Tardis right at the box office on opening day, but had to buy them for, like, six years from now, and they’re actually for the Kansas City production? The one in which the founding fathers are, you know, brown? My friends and family assumed I’d hate the whole idea, but I don’t. Like so many people, I love it, and not just for the music, though my preferred method of psyching myself up for GeeDubs1790 or What Cheer Day is listening to the Stones or the Beastie Boysall the way up.
My Shot gives me goosebumps: why? Is it because history and civics are finally sexy?
Maybe. But “Hamilton” as a whole, per Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, “is a hymn to the allure that America promises the immigrant who aspires to reach its shores; it is also an argument for the invigorating power that this nation’s porous borders, and porous identity, have always offered.”
Porous identity. That’s part of why I’m fascinated. But just as “Sleep No More” and Occupy Providence (really really) were partial inspirations for What Cheer Day, “Hamilton” strikes me as the kind of production worth paying attention to. No, I am not suggesting that the paunchy reenactors start channeling their inner Biggie, though I might well pay to see that.
No, what I’m suggesting is that we reconsider what it is we’re doing out there on the field and in the historic houses, and not just what but how and why. Hamilton takes an unexpected approach to history and it’s going gangbusters, while Amazing Grace tanked. So it’s not about the costuming authenticity, though I implore you not to give that up. It’s about the passion. It’s about coming at things sideways.
What makes you love doing laundry, drilling with precision, telling local gossip, making soap, or whatever it is that you love best about your place in the past? Why does all this matter to you so much? What is it that we can learn about today as you teach us about the past? Let loose that love and passion, share those insights, and ten to one you’ll have more fun and excite more visitors.
This past weekend, I took my show on the road down 95 to Trenton’s Old Barracks Museum, where once again, soldiers’ rooms needed cleaning. Hannah Glasse exhorts servants (housemaids and housekeepers) to clean household rooms daily, and I can tell you this: if you’re cleaning 18th century spaces using period techniques, daily is the way to go.
Unpaved streets and sidewalks meant people tracked significantly more mud and grit indoors, and soldiers would have brought the parade ground indoors every time they crossed a threshold. Not a pretty thing– and then there’s the straw mattresses (to be changed monthly at a minimum), wool uniforms, skin, hair, and vermin that could accumulate as well. Filth: a major contribution to ill health if not managed properly.
Brandy-new broom sweeps clean. Photo by Drunk Tailor
Being possessed of a particularly detail-oriented mind, I went in search of a more 18th-century correct broom at an affordable price and found a broom enthusiast on Etsy who agreed to make and priority mail custom brooms just in time for the trip to New Jersey. On the whole, I’m very pleased with these. They make a satisfying sound as they move across the floor, and draw a fair quantity of dirt. Turns out that strewing wet sand on the floor before you sweep is remarkably effective and absolutely the way to go. The damp sand keeps the dust down and is swept out the door with the filth without harming the floor.
Mop making: surprisingly contemplative. Photo by Drunk Tailor
After sweeping, mopping. Once again, I used the lavender-infused vinegar in the mop water (though I forgot to strain the solution this time). The mixture has a unique but not unpleasant smell, and as the floors dry, the room retains the odor, a sure indication of cleanliness.
This weekend was also the first run for a new wool scrap mop, which was proven the best mop yet. Many thanks to my secret source for the contribution to the effort. It’s clear that mops could easily have been made by binding rag strips to pole handles, and whether made by poor house inmates or soldiers, mop making is cheap, low-tech busy work.
Seen on the way in to Fort Ti: dirt. (Kitty Calash photo)
The dirt on Fort Ti came home on my shoes. And my petticoats. And my gown. And possibly my face, which could explain the reactions I got when I stopped for gas on the Pike Saturday evening.
It’s incredible how how dirty, dusty, and straw-filled a room can get– and that’s just the officer’s room. For all I know, a horse had been sleeping in the back corner of the barracks room we cleaned– who else would leave so much straw?
Regular readers know I have a thing about portraying women’s work in the past, as well as historical cleaning methods and what I like to call “experimental archaeology” and other people call “that crazy hobby- thing- where you get cold and dirty.” We started with mop making, of course, and when I loaded the car on Friday morning, I was pretty well pleased with my swag.
Every good experience begins with a meal. Friday night supper included bread, cheese, pork loin and apple, imported from Rhode Island. Yes, I also helped myself to bacon, to ensure none was wasted. Bedtime for officers’ servants comes early: I’m not a stranger to rope beds, but found this straw tick far more comfortable than a previous arrangement elsewhere.
Ticks rolled back for cleaning
Start in one corner…don’t stop!
After formation, to tasks. I was ably assisted by Miss Sam, who was a better height for the brooms than I. The brooms are speculative on the one hand, and later on the other. The corn broom was markedly more effective than the broom straw, which disintegrated with use, though not for lack of care in making. We were up against some serious accumulation.
Housekeeping and servants manuals from the period, like Hannah Glasse, tell you the cleaning must be done every day. It’s certainly something I heard within my own lifetime, though an ideal I continually struggle to achieve despite the advances of Mr Kenmore. The general rule is to begin at the top and work your way down: gravity is, at last, your friend. I use brushes– a large, soft round paint brush and a stiffer circular whisk– to remove dust and dirt from upper surfaces, and cobwebs from corners, and other wall-borne detritus. Gentlefolk: your cleaning ladies know much about you in any century.
After sweeping (yes, into the fireplace or out the door, it’s that simple), scrubbing. I scrubbed the baseboards first with vinegar and water (the vinegar infused with lavender for several years). Filth, my friends. Then we mopped. Again, filth.
I would have preferred to do another dust collection on the floor– the water did pool a bit on the dry dust that remained, but swabbing seemed to work and I believe we left the floor cleaner than it had been. The three mops we tested (wool, cotton, and linen strips) each had benefits and deficits.
The cotton and wool caught on the rough floor boards, but did a good job spreading water around the floor and lifting dirt. The linen strips were better at not catching and at scrubbing.
No matter what, the water got filthy and took on the look and nearly the consistency of the chocolate we drank that day. Remember the iron museum rule: don’t lick it! That rule applies everywhere.
Everyone and everything got cleaned Saturday. Miss V broached the laundry with vigor, but discovered that possibly untoward things had been done in her laundry tub. Things that might involve shoes, and blacking. Marks were left on shifts and shirts, so even the wash tub got a scrub this garrison weekend.
Some of the best comments came after the fact: I’ve never heard cleaning called “one of the coolest things” seen all day, but when someone says it helps them see a space in an entirely new way, I’m incredibly happy. There’s so much about the everyday use– and maintenance– of space and objects and each other that we take for granted in our own lives. Surely the people of the past who had servants took all that work for granted.
But for me, enamored as I am of details and of the quotidian, transforming a space through the everyday work of women is a job with doing. Thanks to Fort Ti’s staff for giving me the chance to step back in time and enjoy (really, I mean it) a day of hard work bringing the mundane back to life.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Eliza West, courtesy of Fort Ticonderoga.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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