Tag: John Brown House Museum

Saturday to Saturday

On By kittycalashIn 1763 Project, Clothing, Events, Living History, Museums, Reenacting6 Comments
Demonstration at the Old State House
Demonstration at the Old State House

That’s last Saturday, outside the Old State House, for the “People of 1763” event. Sew 18th Century and I provided a material culture/ladies’ clothing presentation in the Hands on History room. The guys drilled outside, had their photos taken, and represented the militia. The Bostonian Society had over 1200 people in the museum last Saturday, which is a pretty respectable number for a small place. It can also leave you feeling somewhat overrun. (All my photos turned out fuzzy: all I had was a shaky hand and my phone. Chalk it up to needing more sleep.)

Gossip!
Gossip!

This coming Saturday is What Cheer Day at the John Brown House Museum, and my sewing and research and house prep continues, if not apace, at a steady pace. Mannequins have been put away, furniture moved, and the accents practiced. By the time we were trying to say, “These are not the droids you’re looking for” with 18th century Maine vowels, we knew it was time to go home. Why this and not “I’ll put the kettle on to boil,” I do not know.

It’s still hard for me to get a handle on my character, and not so much her background as her attitude. I’m not very good at being servile or lady-like, which is why, if I’m still working for the Browns, I must be a relative of some kind.

My husband’s dead; he died in 1788, not long after the Browns moved into their new house; wounded in the Revolution, he never quite recovered and despite the best ministrations of Dr Bowen, Mr S succumbed at last. My son, now 18, was born not long after Mr S returned from the war (Mr S enlisted ‘for 3 years or the war’). Curiously, the chaplain of his regiment is also the pastor at the Congregational church in Providence.

I am a nearly non-observant Anglican, but I recognize Reverend Hitchcock, and know the work he has done in support of free public education. Mr Brown and his brother disagree on many things, but they have at least agreed upon the importance of free public education. My son and I can read, but if Tom had been better educated, perhaps he would not have gone away to sea.

Next I have to think about my cousin from Newport, and the Brown women, and what I think about them.

And there’s still the small matter of sewing two hems, three buttons and three button loops and hoping the whole business will fit properly. At least my friend finished my cap for me. I get just so far, and then I hate caps.

“I know a guy”

On By kittycalashIn Uncategorized
The Banishment of Roger Williams, RIHS 1943.3.1

It’s an oft-used phrase in my state of residence: I know a guy. Even I use it, because I do. Know a guy. A bunch of guys. They are mostly contractors, but they get stuff done and if they can’t, well, then they know a guy.

My favorite guy, Billy, union carpenter and accidental poet, is a descendant of Roger Williams, and has shown me his genealogy to prove it. He’s a multiple-great-grandson of Roger’s youngest son, Joseph, and Lydia Olney. As it happens, not too long after my encounters with Billy, I visited a donor in the rural but wealthy Quiet Corner of Connecticut. The widow of a man descended from a Rhode Island governor, Natalie showed me her late husband’s genealogy.

Yes, the children of the very wealthy scion of lawyers and governors and bankers are some kind of cousin of a construction superintendent who lives in area known as “Rhode Island’s Alaska.” I was immensely gratified and smug all the way home from that donor visit.

As we try to calculate how many domestics are involved in making John Brown’s house run (perhaps nine), though we think the domestics aren’t family members, it might be worth considering that in Rhode Island, you can be relatives and still not be family. You might just “know a guy.”

Always the Lady’s Maid, Never the Lady…

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, Living History, Museums, Research
Testing the bodice and sleeve

but that’s fine, actually. I like to get dirty. The red Virginia cloth dress is now clay-splashed, and while it was made especially for the “People of 1763” event, it may no longer work. Fine for cherry-sellers, fine for hand-bill hawkers, it will not do for a lady’s maid, and I don’t especially want to clean it. Hope I can get my stays wrangled back into shape and that my cross-barred gown fits…but if not, I’ll be a recently promoted lady’s maid.

From the back.

My other upcoming role as a maid will be at the John Brown House Museum, on October 5. This has required quite a bit of thinking and stewing about appropriate clothing and realistic background. I finally settled on a black-and-brown combination of petticoat and open robe, with the style of the open robe based on Paul Sandby drawings and extant garments, but determined by the scant three and a quarter yards of brown worsted that I was able to find.

Winter, 1795. The British Museum, 2010,7081.509
Winter, 1795. The British Museum, 2010,7081.509

The bodice back is based on the 1795-97 cross-front gown from Museum of Costume in Bath shown in The Cut of Women’s Clothes. The front is meant to be transitional: a little bit of gathering at the neck, but not a great deal, with the edges still pinning closed. The sleeves are long and slim, and will button at the wrist once I’ve gotten the length worked out.

The skirt will pleat, with fullness centered on the back triangle and decreasing to the front. For the black petticoat, I used the double inverted box pleat of the 1790s open robe in Costume in Detail. As you might imagine or just plain hope, they work! I’ve also made a small pad to help lift the skirt in the back and create the right profile; I’m thinking of adding buttons and loops so that it can migrate from gown to gown.