Georg Friedrich Kersting: Briefschreibende Dame im Biedermeier Interieur, 1817
If you’re curious about the process I go through developing characters for living history programs, or best practices for women of the Revolutionary War-era armies, among other topics, there are some tickets left, and you can register online here.
But before I can compile what I’ve found about food markets in 18th century Boston, I have to go back to writing for this weekend.
Those Providence servants don’t research and describe themselves, and the housekeeper is particularly unreliable.
Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: Last Dying Speech and Confession, ca. 1759, Watercolor over graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Every now and then, I reach the dammit! point of my research, where I am forced to realize that Everything I Assumed Was Wrong. I try to make those moments a cause for celebration, even though they’re often deeply frustrating. Do not pass GO, Do not collect $200, Go directly to the Library.
What now?
Well… Boston ain’t London. And the North American colonies ain’t Great Britain. The business structure, the size of the cities, is different. Distribution of goods is different, thanks to tariffs and non-import/export laws. Which means?
Peddling. It’s not a thing. Or it’s a very difficult thing to document.
Which means that all the things I’d thought about doing for the Massacre (day or night) are probably wrong. (Remember, this is when we celebrate!)
But there it is: I’ve looked in the Boston Selectmen’s Minutes for 1768-1771, and while there is plenty of small pox (yay!) and many lemons being imported (yay! punch!) and there are licenses being granted for selling strong drink in inns and houses, there are no peddlers licenses. There are no licenses for street vendors of any kind. Hmmmm….
I’ve also read the Dublin Seminar publications Itinerancy in New England and New York (1984) and Life on the Streets and Commons, 1600 to the Present (2005). Not looking good here for street vendors and hawkers pre-1800.
I found peddlers’ licenses in Philadelphia for 1770: all men. But so far, nothing in Providence, Boston, or Newport (or Connecticut). The theory is that itinerant sales people didn’t pay taxes the way merchants did, and that merchants therefore lobbied against them. In Providence, the earliest mention I’ve found thus far is a lobster and fish man at the Great Bridge in 1818.
Just as the watch of Boston differed from the watch in London, so too, it seems, did the petty retailers. I still can’t quite believe there were no street peddlers and hawkers in colonial cities, but I’ll need a new way to approach this question.
Dread Scott performing “On the Impossibility of Freedom in a County Founded on Slavery and Genocide” under the Manhattan Bridge (photo by Hrag Vartanian for Hyperallergic)
So I know a guy. Where I live, everybody knows a guy, but this guy I went to high school with, and stayed in touch with off and on over the years– we’re both art school refugees, looking at “America” in very different ways.
The work he’s done over the years has been controversial. But it’s his latest stuff that I’m thinking about– yeah, I know, I missed it: he’s always scheduled for when I’m at Fort Moonrise Kingdom, or, you know, tearing my life apart and rebuilding it.
Dread Scott. Images of Oppression. After a whirling dervish of a weekend that culminated in some fancy early-morning driving in Boston, I’ve almost forgotten why I was thinking of Dread Scott and living history, but here’s the short version:
Why do we choose to reenact or enact the moments or events we do? We are, by default in our selections, limiting our characters because of the script we choose. In the main, we continue to choose to re-tell and enact the dominant stories that align with common myths about the founding and history of the United States. Until we choose to enact other stories about our collective past, we will continue to enact the same arguments that Our Girl History and I have made in the past. That’s too meta even for me.
As a friend asked a few weeks ago, “Why do we commemorate massacres and not Mondays?” Let’s commemorate some Mondays, shine a light on some moments, and reimagine what enacting history can mean.
Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: “Turn your Copper into Silver Now before Your Eyes” (Title Page Design), 1760, Watercolor, pen and gray and brown ink over graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Not everyone who’s standing on the corner is up to no good. Some have legitimate business.
In the London of the past, just as in, say, the Manhattan of today, street vendors hawked a variety of goods. Having gone through multiple versions of Cries of London, I’ve come up with a basic list of the items sold on the street.
Love songs
Stationery
Oranges
Boot laces
Reeds for chair mending SaloopSee also salop.
Gingerbread
Muffins
Hot cross buns
Doormats
Cats’ and dogs’ meat
Coal
Lavender
Ribbons
Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: A Girl with a Basket on Her Head (“Lights for the Cats, Liver for the Dogs”), ca. 1759, Watercolor, pen and brown ink, and graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Boot black
Brushes
Flounders
Rhubarb
Walnuts to pickle
Cucumbers
Bandboxes
Baskets
Brooms
Rabbits
Pins
Mops
Wash balls (soap)
Strawberries
New peas
Rosemary and bay
Strings of onions
Turnips and carrots
There’s seasonality to this, of course. Strawberries and cucumbers are not being hawked on the streets of London, Boston, Newport or New York in February. I’ll tell you: being a Cat’s-meat-[wo]Man is practically a childhood dream, since I knew I could never really learn to speak to the animals, and as it happens, Sandby depicts one. It seems there was gender equity in supplying food for pets and stinking of meat.
Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: A Milkmaid, ca. 1759, Watercolor, pen and brown ink with graphite on medium, cream, slightly textured wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
I’ve long been fond of the milkmaid, probably because she’s relatively clean, has a cloak for warmth, and I can understand what she does. As much as I love “Turn your copper into silver,” I lack real skill at charlatanry. And gambling. I don’t play poker: my face is too easy to read. Still, if you’re doing this right, there’s a lot to invest in being a milkmaid: kettles (likely pewter), measuring cups (tin? or possibly pewter), and a yoke. It’s a commitment. Cat’s meat– if you’re good with stank and have the right basket*, you’re pretty okay.
If not stank or drank, then gaming. It looks like the object of the game is to knock down the three balls at left in the background by hitting another ball, or perhaps a stone, with the stick. Ha’penny a throw? Maybe you just throw the stick.
Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: Throws for a Ha’penny Have You a Ha’penny, undated, Brown wash, gray wash, graphite, and black chalk on medium, cream, slightly textured laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
This is another instance wherein I am faced with historical things I don’t know nearly enough about: gambling and street games, pet care and keeping. Cat boxes: when we were they invented? We know cat litter is a 1947 invention, and that sand or ashes were used in cat boxes when cats were kept inside, but for the most part, they went in and out, and mostly out, until cat boxes and neutering became common, though an 1895 manual recommended that “the cat in civilization must be fed, looked after, and guarded in its moments of freedom.“**
Yes, I went there. I looked it up.
It’s more than 100 years after the time I’m investigating, but I don’t want to fall too far down this cat’s meat rabbit hole– but this does tell me that the historical images of indoor cats come with oat or straw filled baskets in sunny corners, and recommendations for galvanized pans filled with sand, clean earth, or sawdust, which may be ideal, as it can be burned.
My point is, there’s a lot to sell on the streets of any town, images to support the material culture and reference books from which we can derive contextual clues to the impression of something as random as a cat’s meat man or woman. I don’t know that I’m leaping to be a Cat’s-meat-Woman, but it leads to a lot of interesting interpretive points about domestic life, pets, and families that visitors can relate to much more easily than street sales. Of course, if you choose to be the Cats-meat-Man, I won’t stop you from calling yourself Mr Friskies.
**Huidekoper, Rush Shippen, 1854-1901. The cat, a guide to the classification and varieties of cats and a short treaties upon their care, diseases, and treatment. 1895: New York, D. Appleton and company
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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