Tag: resources

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).

Hunting Frocks, Again

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, Reenacting

They’re not Mr S’s favorite thing, and I can understand why. Hunting frocks lack pizzazz, buttons, tape, lace, lapels, skirts and all the things that make him so fond of the Ugly Dog Coat worn by the 10th Massachusetts in 1782. (I think these are the coats captured from British supply ships and dyed at Newburgh and West Point in tanner’s vats.) But what he has right now is a hunting frock.

Here’s the kid in his new hunting frock, and a hand colored copper engraving by Johann Martin Will from 1776.

You gotta hold your tongue just right when you drill.
Americaner Soldat, Johann Martin Will. Ann S. K. Brown Collection, Brown University.
Americaner Soldat, Johann Martin Will. Ann S. K. Brown Collection, Brown University.

And then there are the colored and plain engravings, “1. Americanischer scharffschütz oder Jäger (rifleman) 2. regulaire infanterie von Pensylvanien,” engraved by Berger after Chodowiecki.

Library of Congress
Library of Congress
Berger after Chodowiecki, Ann S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Ann S. K. Brown Collection

I started thinking about these again because not only am I reading Hurst’s thesis, but I’m fresh from helping the guys get dressed and arrange their capes and straps. I have been doing that as long as Mr S has been wearing historic clothing.

Early days of draping
Early days of draping

Drapey capes

The hunting frock drifts if it does not have some kind of fastening at the neck. The two halves migrate in opposite directions, and while belts help, the light infantry bayonet shoulder belt does not contain the hunting frock as well as one might like. So the thing to do, I think, is to attach a loop and button at the neck to hold the garment in place. From the period engravings, I think that’s acceptable. The garments all look as if they are closed at the neck. From the evidence in the field, and from the images, I plan to make loops and attach buttons, and hope that will limit some tendency to wander.

The image of the two soldiers together suggests another wrinkle in the hunting frock quandary, since the left hand soldier’s out garment looks like a long pocket-less coat with applied fringe and only a very small cape at the neck. Thank goodness that soldier is a rifleman, and thus outside the realm of immediate relevance. (And on a side note, I know a gentleman who very much resembles the Pennsylvania infantry man: identical calves, and even a similar face.)

Authenticity: Sources I

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things1 Comment
There he goes!

You know this guy: the reluctant drummer and avid ensign who wants to be in uniform but struggles with the fact that he might be seen by someone. (14 is complicated.) I’ve been mulling over several upcoming events and the comments that swirl around on the Interwebs after any large event, and, as I often do, find my clarity in writing. That means you’ll have to wait till the end of this post or a series to get “answers,” or what pass for them.

One of the things I struggle with is that the kid is not a mannequin. He has stated quite plainly that he feels like I fuss too much over his appearance, when he has nothing to do at events, which leads him to believe that I am fussing over nothing. There’s some truth in that, right: while God and authenticity may be in the details, all is for nought if there’s nothing to do or interpret.

This means I cannot simply dress him up as I see fit, I have to negotiate with him, and keep on eye on what he’ll be doing. And I don’t have the time to make all the lovely things I’d like to make (or not all at once, anyway) so it’s a matter of choosing.

June 21, 1774 Connecticut Courant
Connecticut Courant, June 21, 1774

Let’s start with what the kid has already: the blue jacket, checked shirt, neck cloth, breeches, stockings and shoes. I went to the newspapers (the lower sorts’ Vogue) looking for examples of runaways, and found some good ones. On June 21, 1774, an ad was published in the Connecticut Courant for a boy who had run away in a “check linen shirt, pair of striped linen trousers, one pair brown plain cloth breeches…” but the Young Mr wants no part of striped linen trousers, and his breeches are linen, not wool.

Essex Gazette, January 10, 1775
Essex Gazette, January 10, 1775

On January 3, 1775, the Essex Gazette ran an ad for a boy in a “short blue jacket, snuff colored breeches and long trousers.” Now that’s more like it!

Long trousers sound good to the kid, more “normal” than breeches,  but there’s a jacket in there that would satisfy my stripey love. For the short run, even if I don’t get the trousers made up in the next couple of weeks, he’s reasonably well documented, or at least within the realm of plausible appearances, even if he should be in wool and not linen, and even if one of the best reasons for making trousers is to replace the poorly-fitted breeches.

Kids shouldn’t just get a pass for inauthentic clothing, and children in what are really costumes do make me crazy–probably because I’m hand-sewing clothing for a wily teenager to grow out of, and looking for sources to make sure the choices I make have some form of documentation.

Tentage

On By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, making things, Museums, Research
Scene of the Camp on Hampton Green, 1781
Scene of the Camp on Hampton Green, 1781

Like many other reenactors/living historians/suckers for wool in summer, I’ve been following the First Oval Office project with interest and envy. Imagine my delight upon finding this blog by Tyler Rudd Putman, who is working on that and many other projects of interest.
The common tent project l is one that I really do hope to take on someday, though I doubt I can ever achieve a tent of this level of quality. (Reader, I cannot weave.) But I can aspire, at the least, and I see that a hand-sewn tent is something even I can achieve. It won’t get done by me in just one day, but over the course of several weeks I could get one done as long as I cleared the downstairs of all our furniture, and put up with a cat sewn into a seam. (My assistant has been lying down on the job, melting in the heat.)

The Howling Assistant Lies Down on the Job

I’ve been thinking about tents since the after-dark hilarity at Monmouth setting up an unknown tent in the dark with a brittle pole that had to be repaired with string from a pasty wrapper, and the later perhaps over-zealous cleaning by Mr S of the tent abused by a cat and identified on the NJ turnpike’s extended play of “What the Hell’s that Smell?”

I’m not sure why we’re allowed to remain in our regiments, really, I am not. But I suspect that an ability to produce Chesire Pork pie is a factor in our favor.

We’ll be setting up tents at OSV in just about a week, broken pole and all, and looking ahead to that, I give you the following links for further reading on tents.

John U. Rees on tents in both armies of the Revolution.

How to fold a tent.

Period (British) images.

Even more documentaton: scrolling down, Rhode Islan had a return of 147 tents in May, 1781– that’s about 882 soldiers, at 6 men per tent, a max of 1029 at 7 men per tent. (At least one is always on duty, so there would not be more than 5 or 6 sleeping at any one time).

Amazing and image-rich essay, The Tent Article

Lochee, Essay on Castremetation, which I read and forget by the time it is dark and some man is trying to reason with me about how a camp should be arranged, when all I want to do is sleep. With that in mind, a brush arbor is starting to look good…