Tag: Living History

Bustin’ Out

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History3 Comments
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Tight Lacing, or, Fashion before Ease

Grand weekend, right? Spent a happy day cleaning, missed any hints of the reported near-fracas, inappropriate hostility, or snide commentary, and thus had a perfect weekend, you think.

Almost…except of course the whole thing nearly derailed into a visit to the Princeton Art Museum. Why, you ask? The Great April Stay Failure.

Confessions of a Known  Bonnet Wearer are what we’re all about, so here you go: Despite a quick stay alteration that appeared to solve the too-big shimmy, the Stays of Yore continue to chafe and annoy.

Bent and Broken Bones
Seemed okay at the time

Turns out that lacing yourself up the back is nowhere near as effective as having someone else lace you up. Leverage: you don’t has it the way another person standing behind you does. And if that person naturally possesses greater upper-body strength than you, well, there you are. You will find yourself experiencing a great deal more containment than you might find desirable. Actually, the stays were more like nipple guillotines, as the fault shown here made itself all too well known.

Yes: the fool things were not made properly in the first place, exacerbating any fit issues that can be ascribed to weight loss, fabric stretch, or general high-level-of-activity use. Reader, I am up against it.

Not only do I have a pair of 1800 stays on the table needing to be finished, I have a banyan to make up and a bedgown to finish, all by April 21 for a program at work. A mere two weeks later, I will need really serviceable and decently-fitting stays if I plan to go back up to Fort Ti. Quickie torso measurements, anyone?

It tried, and did well, considering the circs.
It tried, and did well, considering the circs.

Of course, the thing is that these ought not to be done quickly, but correctly. I recognize that after four years of wear, these imperfect stays made of modern (linen and caning instead of wool and baleen) materials could legitimately be wearing out. But the really important thing is this: They turned out to be so (literally) painfully wrong that turning them around and wearing them backwards was better. No, that was not an ideal solution. I have a sizable bruise on my left underarm area and a red wear spot on the right and my poor handmade (just finished!) sketchbook is bent from use as a stomacher/busk.

Granted, I do have the materials I need to make new stays, but what I lack is more critical: time and a second pair of hands to help me measure torso length. I suspect that even a new pair (of wool and linen, thank you for reducing stretch) will take more alterations than I currently credit. Hilariously, while these pattern pieces may require some lengthening, the 1800 stays needed shortening to fit properly. So on my table sit one pair, shortened, and another pair, seemingly in need of an opposite alteration. Get fit or die tryin’, right?

Mopping Up Action

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting4 Comments
Photo by Asher Lurie
Photo by Asher Lurie

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.

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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.
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.

The Dirt on Ti

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting, Research3 Comments
On the road in: dirt.
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.

So, what happened? How did it go? What did we do? Our Girl History provides a descriptive photo essay overview of the day. My experiences were more limited, as befits someone of my status: officer’s servant.

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. 

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Flopsy Mopsy

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, making things, Reenacting, Research8 Comments
Mop sellers, red chalk on paper, Paul Sandy, 1759. Museum of London 65.59/5#sthash.EaUTT9dg.dpuf
Mop sellers, red chalk on paper, Paul Sandy, 1759. Museum of London 65.59/5

They’re pretty consistent: mops appear to be made of fibers attached to a handle. These look like they’re simple string mops. A stick and string? A stick and rags strips? Something along those lines. But what kind of string? What kind of fiber? How was it attached?

I’ll confess that I have been too lazy to search collection for extant mops– no, seriously, if someone offered me an 18th century mop my first reaction after “Absolutely!” would be, “Wait a second…how can there be anything left of an 18th century mop? My own mops don’t last all that long….” so I assumed no such critter exists in captivity (feel free to prove me wrong, I could use an assist here). Instead, I went ahead with the daft notion of replicating what I saw in images.

Sandby helpfully supplies us with mop sellers who carry fuzziness on a stick. Most likely wool, since sheep were plentiful and cotton expensive in this period. But maybe not. In any case, a simple business.

Supplies assembled
Supplies assembled

After work on Saturday, I went mop-top-shopping. It was not one stop. An internal rant developed about how companies can call anything “wool” that is less than 100% wool, but I managed to contain myself and with enough hunting turned up hero cord, 100% wool yarn and 100% cotton yarn as well as dowels. Sadly, I could not find wool roving in any color but grey. So, making a mop from craft and hardware store supplies is a pretty easy thing, especially when you don’t have many tools to complicate the business.

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This is not my first rodeo where string is concerned, so I wrapped the yarn around a cutting board just the way you’d make a pom pom. How else will you get it all the same length (more or less)? The result: a somewhat sad hank in search of purpose, tied off in the more-or-less middle of the strands.

Temporarily secured
Tied off with hemp cord

Secured temporarily with a rubber band, I tied the hank to the dowel with hemp cord. Then I turned the wool (and later cotton) back over itself, and tied it off again. I pulled as tight as I could manage, much to the chagrin of my now-blistered pinky finger. Small price to pay, though, for two new entrants in the experimental archaeology of cleaning. As I looked at the images in Sandby’s drawing and in the prints, I was pretty confident the mops are not tied off again in this second way, but one band didn’t seem secure enough. So, yet another compromise, but one that I hope will result in less hilarity from losing mop heads in the midst of washing floors.

Wool…
…and cotton

Now, if I would but turn my attention to the lint, string, and yarn scattered about my floor at home…