Tag: common dress

What’s in your pocket?

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Historical Sew Fortnightly5 Comments
A typical rough linen lining

My son’s pockets used to be full of acorns: he collected them at the bus stop, but I don’t know if it was because he planned to feed the squirrels, or if he thought he was a squirrel. Later, he moved on to rocks. Now, rocks, fish hooks, a pocket knife, change and a hankie fill the pockets of his 18th century breeches.

We’ve had some moments of unhappiness when things have gone missing from the pockets, though we’ve usually found them again. When you look at the contents list, you wonder how the linen stands up as well as it does.

There’s a clever way to upgrade pocket bags in menswear, and it’s authentic: leather bags, instead of linen. Original garments have leather bags, probably deerskin, and they’re deliciously soft and very durable. Stuff all the heavy, sharp things you want to in that pocket, and it will probably take it.

1895.4.3A-C
1895.4.3A-C

Based on a suit in the RIHS Collection, I decided to modify the pocket bags on the Young Mr’s new workman’s jacket-in-progress, which I plan to have finished by March 11 for HSF #5, Peasants and Pioneers.

Made of a heavy, rough-finished brown broadcloth (possibly manufactured in New England), both jacket and breeches pocket bags are made of deerskin.

Pocket bag in progress.

To recreate this, I took a trip to the auto parts store, and purchased a large chamois.  Instead of cutting the bags from linen, I cut them from the chamois and trimmed the seam allowances: chamois won’t ravel, so the seam won’t need to be folded over at the top.

A little fuzzy, but you get the idea

I backstitched the bag seam, and in general, I’m pleased with the way it has turned out. I think I’ll look into additional leather options, but otherwise, it seems like a fairly successful experiment.

The real test, of course, will be user testing. How many sharp, heavy things can the kid load in a pocket before it gives out?

Dressing and Undressing in Newport

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History3 Comments
A lady and her maid
The Ladies, Dressed, in Newport

Last Thursday evening, my friend and I went to the Colony House in Newport  for the “Undressing History: What Women Wore in the 18th Century” program presented by the Newport Historical Society.

There were excellent questions from children (I loved, “What would you wear for pajamas?”) and adults, including:

If you were not a wealthy woman, or you were an enslaved woman, what did you wear on laundry day?

At Sandpit Gate, Paul Sandby, 1765. RCIN 914329
At Sandpit Gate, Paul Sandby, 1765. RCIN 914329

The image that sprang into my mind was Paul Sandby’s women at Sandpit Gate, doing laundry work. They’re wearing their shifts, stays, petticoats, neck handkerchiefs, caps and shoes. (I particularly like the woman working at the tub; you can see the angle of her stays diverging from her spine as she bends forward; it’s a fine little detail and very accurate.)

So women wore one of their shifts, their stays, petticoat(s), stockings and shoes.

And that brings us to the question, How many shifts did they have?

Several months ago I had the luxury of doing some research in the manuscript collections at work, and found MSS 957, the Stafford Family Papers. In those papers there is an undated estate inventory, thought to be from ca. 1780-1799. It’s extensive, and while I have a hand-writen transcription of the whole, I’ll quote the most relevant entry:

5 shifts [illegible]

Yes, five shifts. A woman who owned five slaves had five shifts. They were not for her slaves (though that leads to yet another set of questions about people who were property owning property…and where might that be enumerated?). And if she was laid out in a shift, or wearing one when she died, was it counted, too?

With five shifts, this unidentified woman could have worn each for two days and managed a washing every week–or rather, managed for another day or two or three while her slave women washed, dryed, and ironed her clothing.

In The Dress of the People, Styles points out in Chapter 2 that the largest differences between what the rich and poor wore lay in “numbers, quality and value,” (p. 31) and tables in the back lay out the different number of shifts lost by different women in a fire on an afternoon in May, 1789, in Brandon, Suffolk, England. A blacksmith’s wife lost six shifts, the mantua maker lost one. We can’t know if that emphatically means the mantua maker had but two shifts, or if she saved more than the blacksmith’s wife; one servant lost seven shifts! What we can tell is that women had more than one shift.

We can’t take one undated inventory as typical of 18th century clothing inventories in Rhode Island, (more research lies ahead of me) but counting shifts would be an interesting exercise. Based on my own experience, I can verify that one wants more than one shift. I think it likely that inventories will turn up multiple shifts for women, and shirts for men, no matter where we look, and that this will probably hold true even for slaves. Styles reminds us that the differences are not just numbers, but quality and value.

Petticoat Burns

On By kittycalashIn History, Living History, Reenacting1 Comment
Per Hillstrom, Kitchen Scene

You know this site, right? History Myths Debunked examines the stories about the past many like to think are true, and Death By Petticoat is one of the favorites. Here it is on an English site catering to reenactors. There’s a variation I’d never heard, about wetting petticoat hems to keep them from engulfing the wearer in flames. (OK, mild exaggeration: to keep the petticoat from igniting fully, thus… hat tip to Back Country Maiden for pointing this out.)

As someone who just finished mending a petticoat, you’d think I’d leap at the chance to drench my hem in water to prevent future mending episodes, but not so. For one thing, in the house or in the camp, that’s water I had to haul or cause to have hauled, and I’m not wasting it. Wet the hems and what’s next? Caked lumps of ash, mud, and.or other filth. No thanks.

High-tech historical cooking
High-tech historical cooking

The burns I got in my dress were acquired at the end of the day when we were hearth cooking and were practically in the fireplace ourselves. That is where you must be if you wish to stir the sauce until it thickens, and there was the hoisting of roast in its pan a couple of times, and general playing with fire in pursuit of food. My ca. 1799 dress is longer than my 1770s petticoats and gowns, and the extra inch or two probably contributed to the burns. But I wasn’t engulfed by flames, because the damn thing is wool. Self-extinguishing wool, worn with linen and wool petticoats and a linen apron. not going to go up in flames. Also not going to get dipped in water–and wouldn’t that result in steam and hence scalded shins?

I don’t know where these rumours start, but they could have started with a cynical curator joking with house tour guides who failed to get the joke. Not that I know anything about a story of about Providence kitten named Georgie in honor of George Washington’s visit to a large brick house on a hill .

Sense and Sensibility and Secretions

On By kittycalashIn Clothing1 Comment
Mended holes

I managed to mend my dress this weekend, motivated primarily by its odor and the desire to hang it up for an airing.  The holes at the hem were such that the patch had to be applied over the fabric and not behind. It tends to wiggle, but the mends are done and the dress is hung up to “air,” which means  it is “in the drafty front hall trying to make my coats smell like wood smoke, tallow, and animal secretions.”

I told you my feet were big.

The Robert Land shoes arrived on Saturday, along with a heavy box of wool. That’s tucked away for now (trousers and overalls come first, oh my) but not the boots. Ignore the size marked on the sole–that’s a vanity size–but note the smears. I believe that for the shoemaker, as for so many of us, the historic item is not done until you have bled upon it.

I should note here that the shoes really make ones feet look like the feet of women in fashion plates. Those trippy little poses with dainty toes are achievable in these, and the minute I find someone to photograph that, I will. It’s a very different foot experience from 18th century buckle shoes.

It’s not done until you’ve bled on it.

In a mark of solidarity, I bled on the ribbon that’s going on my new bonnet. I spent Saturday making, and unmaking, a remaking, a late 1810s bonnet. I’m still not quite satisfied with the shape, but have the silks and ribbons ready for when I convince myself to go ahead and stitch it up. Sunday I made a late 18th century/early 19th century bonnet. After bleeding on the trim, I finally had the sense to stop.