Tag: newspapers

The Authenticity Challenge

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events3 Comments

We’re going up to Minute Man on August 24, or at least that’s the plan. We have hostages to exchange (one ends up with other folks’ spoons and bowls when one does the dishes) and drilling to do for the September 28 event in Boston.

Immediately after Sturbridge, the authenticity question blossomed on the interwebs, as there was an unusually fine crop of bodices on view in the village that weekend. (To be clear, I am pro-authenticity and anti-bodice, but I am still working over my thoughts on authenticity, which veered into hermeneutics, and are therefore not really germane to the conversation.)

Authenticity and standards are in the ether, and for this year’s event, all participants are asked to provide documentation, not just the people taking part in the challenge. I plan attend but not to partake of the challenge, as I have no desire to relive my childhood of never-even-third-place, thank you. Instead, I’m merely queasy and scrambling, as the only person in our household who seems really documented to me is the Young Mr, with his snuff-colored trousers  currently under construction, and two jackets from which he may be able to choose (presuming I get all buttonhole inspired). So he’s good. Run away!

I’ve been working on a ‘secret’ gown that’s not totally secret, but don’t feel I can adequately document it for this event. I have examples of the fabric advertised for sale, and a period print. But so far, the only gowns of this fabric type described in runaway ads have dark grounds. Granted, servants might tend to wear darker, more dirt-hiding colors, but I don’t feel that one print and some wrong-ground ads are enough. Next!

Anne Carrowle is Philadelphia, not New England: she’s passable for Monmouth and other Mid-Atlantic events. Chintz jackets: also fine for those runaway Dutch servants in NY and Philadelphia. Next!

Brown wool seemed too heavy for August, but the way the weather has been of late, maybe not. Well, anyway, it could get hotter. Next!

1772 red pompadoreThat leaves me with the New Favorite Gown, which I like, but which is based on an earlier British watercolor, so must be slightly altered at the sleeve or cuff as well as documented. At first I could find nothing to suggest that the color and fabric were within the realm of documentary possibility. Eventually I did find an ad in the Newport Mercury for what might be a likely candidate.

“Ran away on Sunday the 19th instant, from the subscriber at Newport, an Irish indented maid servant, named Elioner Clievland, pretty tall, who is very corpulent, with a red complexion, brown hair, and has a scar and a large dent in one of her arms, had on a red pompadore gown, and light broadcloth cloak: ” Newport Mercury, 8-10-1772

claret poplinTwo years later, “ a likely tall Negro Woman, known by the name of Violet Shaw, about 25 years old; has a Blemish in one Eye, carried away with her a white Calico Riding Dress, a strip’d Calico Gown, a claret colour’d Poplin Gown, a strip’d blue and white Holland Gown, a Bengal Gown, and many other value Articles…” Boston Evening Post, 8-1-1774

Well, I’m tall, and far from 25, but thankfully, I am not corpulent. But here are two wool or wool-blend, gowns, in reddish colors, in the right time period and place. Unfortunately, I have not yet found striped, or striped linsey, petticoats in Rhode Island, Connecticut or Massachusetts in 1772-1775—plenty in Philadelphia, where there are more servants running away—so what to do? I’ll look a damn fool without a petticoat.
brown petticoat newport

ShortGown There’s the brown petticoat solution. There is one in Boston (Weston), in August, 1774, and another in Newport, in January, 1773. I like the “brown camblet skirt;” I don’t have camblet, but at least the drape of the lightweight wool and cotton will be closer to camblet than to wool. I can agonize over the suitability of fabrics (and the vagaries of style) in some other post.

I made the gown intending to wear it with a blue and yellow striped as-yet-unmade petticoat (to look like the watercolor), but have some brown wool I can make up instead. Better documented than not (or nude).

Aspirational Shopping

On By kittycalashIn History

So, I always thought that window shopping was a product of the late 19th or early 20th century, the plate glass windows of the Bon Ton, and The Lady’s Paradise.

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 4-18-1772
Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 4-18-1772

I was wrong.  Check out the last line in this ad from the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of April, 1772:

“Any Person not wanting to purchase, but having a Mind to see the greatest Pennyworths, shall be waited on with great Chearfulness, by their very humble Servant, PAUL ALLEN.”

In case we forget, the past is there to remind us that the consumer culture started much, much earlier than we think it did. Stop blaming Don Draper: I give you Paul Allen.

Chintz? Check!

On By kittycalashIn 1763 Project, Clothing, History, Research4 Comments
Les Fleur d' Inde
Les Fleur d’ Inde: delicious!

Because I am prey to a pretty print as much as the next princess costume blogger tenant farmer’s wife, I thought I should go  looking for evidence before I launch into any cotton sacques, and to justify the use of the print remnant I’m stitching up into a jacket. (Apologies in advance to my friend who bought enough for a gown, because you know we’ll wear them to the same event…)

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765
Providence Gazette and Country Journal, March 16, 1765

American Historical Newspapers to the rescue, once again. Here’s an ad for Alexander Black and Archibald Stewart, from the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of March 16, 1765.  Chintz and calico: it’s here in Providence in 1765. I knew there were merchants selling calicoes and chintzes in Providence in 1768 (including Samuel Young, who printed his broadside in red).

Chintz and chip hatsThree years later, Joseph and Wm. Russell at the sign of the Golden Eagle are selling (lately imported from London and Bristol) “A neat and genteel assortment of dark ground calicoes and chintz.” This ad runs to four columns in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 1768, April 9. It’s a tantalizing list, and no, I did not miss those chip hats and bonnets!

forks!

Digression: I was attracted to this bit about forks as I recall being told by a historic house tour guide once that “forks were not in common use until the Civil War.” It’s an early house, maybe he meant the English Civil War, but I think forks were here to stay and be bought for a variety of prices long before the American Civil War. How else to explain those archaeological finds that show forks of some kind at Rev War forts and camp sites? /Digression. New digression: OMG, knitting needles! /New digression.

William Eliot

Back to chintz: Here, in 1771, is William Eliot, selling chintzes in Providence, and advertising in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of June 1, 1771. He also has “flowered and sprigged lawn in aprons,” and Kenting and check handkerchiefs.  (Kenting was a fine linen fabric)

In the limited search I ran (1754-1783 newspapers), plenty of references to chintz appear in Providence alone (there were 166 hits, but the ads repeat). This completely unscientific approach in which I stopped looking in 1771*, has turned up 5 merchants, if you count the RIHS Library’s broadside for Samuel Young. Chintzes and calicoes were everywhere. Dark grounds were “genteel,” checks and spots and stripes are popular and common.

Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries... ca. 1759. YCBA, B1975.3.206
Paul Sandby, London Cries: Black Heart cherries… ca. 1759. YCBA, B1975.3.206

I begin to see 18th century Providence, if not all of the Colonies, as a variegated, kaleidoscopic place of pattern and color. I think there was more than we realize, even if only in small amounts.

Look again at the cherry seller: her petticoat is yellow and blue, if not yellow, blue, and white striped,  her apron is blue, her stockings brown or faded reddish, her cap is affixed with a pink or red ribbon, and she wears a checked kerchief. She’s poor and sort of faded, but she’s colorful–more colorful, perhaps, than we have credited.

*I do have to head out to work, but I can search again.

In the Grip of La Grippe

On By kittycalashIn History2 Comments
lwlpr13377
The Life of a Nobleman: the sick room, LWL call no.
830.00.00.73+

I had a cold this week past, and quite miserable it made me, too. It got me thinking about illness, and historical perceptions of illness.

I love words, and old words are best, and one of my favorites has long been catarrh. It sounds just like what it is. The Times (another one of my loves) has a hilarious column on the subject, originally published in 1865. It makes me want to write a chapbook, “Letters on Cattarh.” The first known use of the word is in the 15th century, so chances are good it turns up in 18th century usage. In fact, it turns up in the Boston Post Boy of Jan 1 1736 not as a cause of death, but as the reason for the state of George Bethune’s lungs.

Scanning America’s Historical Newspapers (yes, I do this for fun) turns up more than 1,400 hits before 1783 alone for “illness,” most resulting in death, though some are described as past, and disfiguring. My money’s on smallpox for those.

Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 1768.
Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 1768.

Catarrh turns up 27 times. Here it is in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal of 1768. It’s from an extract of the minutes of the American Society, held at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge. I can imagine the gentlemen sitting with pipes and punch bowl, grumbling to each other, “We can send a ship to Suriname, but we can’t cure the common catarrh.” Or perhaps it is the ladies who say it, as the gentlemen come stumbling home from the meeting to Promote Useful Knowledge.

La Grippe

La Grippe, as experienced by poor Adelaide, is influenza. The etymology suggests a 1770-80 French origin, from gripper, to seize suddenly. That’s pretty descriptive, if you’ve ever had flu. La Grippe turns up in the index of the Philadelphia Repository and Weekly Register, January 1, 1803, as “prevalent at Paris,” and on April 9, 1803, we can read the little article about it.

On April 11, 1803, in the Alexandria Advertiser and Commercial Intelligencer there appears an “Extract of a private letter” describing interments of 400 per day, and 4000 in a ten-day period. This was serious, serious stuff. Facing illness today, we’re so much better off than people were in 1803, or even 1903. Germ theory is only 150 years old at the most, and really, thank goodness for it.

For more on the various diseases and epidemics of the past, I give you the Contagion database from Harvard. It’s an excellent collection of articles and links to additional reading, from smallpox to influenza. I feel better already.