Category: Research

Checked Linen Aprons post-1800

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting, Research6 Comments

Not that this is an exhaustive or final chronicle, but Jackie asked about the apron.

Spring Cleaning, 2012
Spring Cleaning, 2012

I first encountered this form of apron at Old Sturbridge Village, on display in the Firearms and Textiles exhibit space, which I think of as “Muskets and Muslins.” The accession number given on the exhibit label was 26.39.4, but the object does not appear in the OSV online collections database (they do warn that it contains just a selection of their total 60K-plus object holdings). The original at OSV, as sketched and described by me in April 2012 has a drawstring at the neck, straps that button, string at the back opening, and is slim, without gathers. That means the bodice is very similar to the gown bodices of the early part of the 19th century.

Smock, Checked cotton, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. #2000.01.869.
Smock, 2000.01.869 PVMA

There is another original checked bodiced apron in the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association collection in Deerfield, MA. This original appears in color in The Needle’s Eye by Marla Miller. As you can see in the images of my apron, I mashed the two styles together to suit the amount of material I had on hand, the skills I had three years ago, and the amount of time I had between seeing the apron and the day of the program, which was probably two days during which time I had pleurisy.*

This is also wrong, but funny.
This is also wrong, but funny.

To refocus: I chose to wear this apron at Whitehorse House in 1820 for a really wrong reason: it was what I had.

Prints in the British Museum show a maid in a yellow gown with a black apron, no bib; there is another, with a maid in a green gown, in a wikigallery, that I could not fully track down; a London Market scene; and a French print from 1818 that does show a bibbed black apron on a shop assistant. The visual research I’d done for the 1820 program suggested that black aprons were the height of fashion, and that they did not always have bibs.

Papering the Saloon at Tickford Hall, watercolor by Diana Sperling, 1816.
Papering the Saloon at Tickford Hall, watercolor by Diana Sperling, 1816.

Since we deal in confessions here, I will tell you that I did buy material for a black apron, and I planned to make a strapped or bibbed one, much like the one Sabine made. The appearance of the dark apron in Diana Sperliing’s watercolor of the ladies papering the saloon at Tickford Park put the dark strapped and sometimes bibbed apron the in English-speaking world. And still I did not manage to make one. If I were to do an 1820 program again, or even an 1813 or later millinery shop again, I like to think I would find the time to make a black strapped and possibly bibbed apron. I do think they were the height of fashion, and are likely to have been worn by women in shops, and by maids.

Do I think the checked apron is wrong? Given that I can rationalize anything, of course not! I think a checked apron is probably reasonably appropriate within the context of a kitchen, even in 1820, especially in New England. Since we did not cook on Saturday, the black apron would have been ideal, but I think the checked apron passes. To make it pass with a higher grade, I will freely admit it requires button and tape upgrades. Since the next dates on the horizon are 1775 and 1780, chances are good those upgrades won’t happen anytime soon. * Do not attend an all-day outdoor event in the cold when you are not well. Do not attend said event without your cloak, or in stays you have laced up a little too firmly. Do not deny that the cold you have might actually be the start of something bigger, when it includes a productive cough. Lo, the lessons of living history are many.

Good Enough Coat

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, Living History, making things, Research3 Comments
The great coat is nice, but how ’bout them gaiters?

Winter is firmly here, with the snow, fog and ice that marks the season in the Ocean State. It’s not fun weather for living in the past, though there’s not a lot of that happening right now. Even so, there’s a February program on the horizon and what better excuse for fastening on a garment and making it?

Even if I’ll likely spend the day in a kitchen interpreting life below stairs in 1820 (while the light infantry occupies my living room and denudes my kitchen), an early 19th century event on a winter weekend seemed a worthwhile excuse for making a greatcoat, and, eventually, gaiters.

IMG_2733

With no pattern, and only 2 and 3/4 yards of thick, soft, grey double faced wool*,  I’m adapting my standard Spencer pattern. I didn’t upsize this too much, because women didn’t have frock coats and waistcoats to wear under their greatcoats or Carrick [carriage?] coats or Reding cotes. (I’m too engrossed with sewing to parse garment names.) The skirts will be attached at the waist, with a belt to hide the seam. At my height, cutting a back in one piece takes yardage I do not possess. Happily, the Taylor’s Instructor describes Redingcoats or Habits for women with attached skirts.

It’s a new collar shape.

The collar shape diverges from my usual 1790s collar, and is based on another fashion plate, this time from 1815. The program I’ll be doing with Sew 18th Century is set in 1820. As a maid, I think an 1815 coat is pushing it a bit, since red wool cloaks hold up well, but I’ll take any excuse for some tailoring, I suppose.

1815, with a round collar that can stand up.

I plan to use this button arrangement, too, stylish as it is in not-quite-double breasted. Bring on the button-making– we all have to go death’s head sometime, and this wool is too thick for covered buttons without much heartbreak.

The lower front pins are there from the moment when I realized the front was hanging strangely — because I had neither marked nor sewn the bust darts. That oversight, and the pain in my ear, do suggest that the delightful cold I’ve had for weeks may be affecting me more than I think– but that’s just another argument in favor of a cozy wool coat.

IMG_2737

The sleeve pattern (again, not upsized) is once again the old standby two-piece sleeve from Henry Cooke’s 1770s unlined man’s frock coat, so of course it fits well.

I’m hoping to stitch up the sleeves this evening, and set them later this week. I’m still pondering lining materials– there’s just enough silk “persian” to do the body and sleeves–but I have some twilled wool that would increase the warmth and still provide some ‘slip’ in the sleeves.

And those blue gaiters? They’ll come in time, from the scraps of blue wool a friend is making his first ditto suit from. I’ll spot him some remnant table chintz for a summer waistcoat, and expect greater sartorial splendor will grace the spitting stamp inspector in Newport this August in exchange for my blue wool ankles.

*Holy burned hair smell, Batman! Mr Cooke’s right when he says this almost feels like foam, but put a flame to it, and you might as well be smoking sheep.

The Unbearable Sameness of Dressing

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things, Reenacting, Research9 Comments

One of the arguments I hear against changing the way people dress as civilians at reenactments, particularly the women but sometimes the men, is that “if we all use the same pattern, we’ll all look alike, and that’s not how people dress now or then.”

I have news for you: that is how we dress[ed].

I know, we can’t apply modern thinking to the past– that’s crap historiography. But why do we resist using the same correct patterns for historic garments when we are clearly dressing alike today?

Mrs Samuel Browne by Smibert, RIHS 1891.2.2
Mrs Joseph Mann by Copley, MFA Boston, 43.1353

I’ve not yet read a paper on the similarity of women’s dress in Robert Feke or John Copley’s portraits that really convinced me, but if you look at enough of them, you might think there’s only one woman and one dress in all of British North America, because Badger and Greenwood are painting her, too.

Even if those clothes are studio props, what does it say that the sitters wanted to be portrayed in the same clothes? Look, if that’s the only means of getting myself into a Charles James, you bet I’d take it. Or, for a more contemporary analogue, Alexander McQueen.

Luxe et Indigence. Le Bon Genre, 1817
Luxe et Indigence. Le Bon Genre, 1817

Dressing is about status as much as it is about self-expression, and in the 18th century, dressing signaled refinement, sensibility, and status through the quality of fabric as much as through the cut of clothes. Air Jordans do the same thing today, or North Face jackets, or Kate Spade purses. They show what you can afford, even if you’re eating oatmeal for dinner behind closed doors.

We dress the same now, and we dressed the same then, with variations according to pocketbook. We can’t all afford K&P superfine wool today any more than we could have bought the best wools or prints in the 18th century. But using accurate patterns and fabrics appropriate to our station will create the best impressions possible– even if my gown is cut to the same pattern as my wealthier acquaintance’s.

Whimsical Whiskered Wednesday

On By kittycalashIn History, Museums, Research1 Comment
A quintetto. Musical Amateurs. Hand colored etching by Piercy Roberts, after George Moutard Woodward, 1803. British Museum1981,U.199
A quintetto. Musical Amateurs. Hand colored etching by Piercy Roberts, after George Moutard Woodward, 1803. British Museum1981,U.199

E’en Age itself is cheard with Music. It wakes a glad Remembrance of our Youth, Calls back past Joy’s and warms us into Transport. Vide Rowe read the lines at the top of this engraving, and while I’m fairly confident the Rowe referred to is Nicholas Rowe, I have not connected the quote to him.

Instead, you’re treated to the image that struck me as I searched for 1820s maids at the British Museum. Happily, my household is one cat and one cockatoo short of this reality, but it pretty much sums up breakfast time Chez Calash, when I am too slow with the breakfast portions, and the beasts begin to sing.

Happy Thanksgiving, American readers. I’m taking a short break from museum thinking to wrangle our dinner to the table, attempt to finish a gown, and catch up on some sleep.