Tag: Revolutionary War

On Baskets, and Authenticity

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events4 Comments


I have been thinking a great deal about Surprise Number 4, issues of authenticity in reenacting, and what is really important. As tempting as it would be to post an image of Surprise Number 4, I remember how ticked I was at the comments about an image of someone’s unkempt tent at Fort Frederick, so I can’t. It would be wrong. I may have missed the Dalai Lama today (HVAC will be my undoing, I think) but I didn’t miss the point about “doing unto others.”

So instead of philosophizing, have some photos.

The large one actually captures the entire Kitty Calash family, from Mr S at the right of the rank of soldiers to the Young Mr, in close proximity: a rare sighting indeed. Mr S’s calves stand out nicely in his new overalls, if I say so myself. Two more buttonholes, two more buttons, two more straps and those suckers are done. He did a good job, too, getting them dirty before Nathan Hale.

Yes, that’s my attempt at the “Ale House Door” jacket.  The fit is OK, the style a little late for RevWar, but it’s what I have in wool for now, made from a Wm Booth Draper remnant, and that’s the first wearing of the Sharon Burnston apron.

Sew 18th Century has a nice post on baskets, and where to get them, but wondered about the documentation of the market basket. What I can find is 1732, Plate 1 of Hogarth’s series, The Harlots’ Progress, based on Moll Flanders.


Would these have been out of use by 1770? Hard to say—I think I may have seen this form in catchpenny prints, but I have only a print source for those and it’s buried in one of the many stacks of books at home.

Still, I love my newly-arrived basket, ordered from Jeanne Beatrice for $24.

And there I am running away. Coventry, Connecticut, here I come!

History Dress-Tease

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, making things, Museums2 Comments

What Cheer! Day is a week away, and exactly a week from now, at 6:30 AM, I will get into my B&G guy’s truck and head into the site. We’ll measure and tape out camp sites, fire pit sites, and safety lines, bring wood and gear out from the woodshed and basement. We’ll put out the handicapped parking only sign in the parking lot, drop the orange cones (I love the thick flexible plastic of a traffic cone), and drink some coffee. I haven’t decided at what point I’ll start to fret in earnest that day, but the trick to not fretting will probably be to get dressed in 18th century clothes as soon as we are done carrying items upstairs, because then I will have to take off my watch. Watches lead to fretting: there’s administrator time, and re-enactor time, which is more like artists’ time. Better to take off the watch and get closer to the past.

Half-pleated skirt, sleeves in progress

At the School of Instruction, I thought the “People of the Brigade” program worked well; at OSV, I really appreciated  the Military Fashion Show (I did not make it to Runaway Runway). Using these models, and knowing about the School of Instruction’s Women’s Dress program, I thought we’d combine these ideas. I don’t have a good name for the program yet, but the reason I’m going so nuts about the dress from 1774 is that I plan a “History Dress-Tease:” starting in shift, stays, stockings and shoes, I’ll demonstrate all the layers my runaway wore: 2 petticoats, pockets, dress, stomacher, apron, cap, bonnet.

Any soldiers I can convince to get down to small clothes and layer up with waistcoat, coat or frock, canteen, cartridge box, bayonet scabbard, haversack, knapsack, hat and musket, will demonstrate the gear they carried. I thought about a weigh-in, to record how much it all weighs, but my scale is a pathological liar, and varies by 4 pounds from one side of the room to another.

All this work has an educational, and not merely sartorial, purpose. Now, if only the public will come…

Runaway! Ambitions

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, making things9 Comments
The Met, ca. 1774

Regular readers know I have a tendency to make things, especially clothing, especially for events. So another event–actually two: What Cheer Day! and Nathan Hale–approaches, and the question, as ever, is what to wear?

I like to start with the runaway ads for inspiration and documentation. The ads for Rhode Island runaway women can be limited, so I look in Boston and New London as well, and sometimes Philadelphia. My mother lives outside Philadelphia, and I know that trade connected Providence and Philadelphia in the 18th century, in particular through the mercantile house of Brown and Francis.

Of course, I do also have a fabric problem not unlike my bonnet problem. I buy fabric, and stash it. Most sewers do, and after regretting a pair of very-marked-down red leather Andrea Pfister pumps I did not buy at Marshall Field’s one winter, if I like something, I buy it. It is often red, viz:

I know what merchants were selling in Rhode Island, and as early as 1768, Samuel Young in Providence at the Sign of the Black Boy, is selling “Chints, calicoes, and patches of all figures and prices.”

When I found the ad for the runaway wearing the red and black chintz gown, I knew I wanted to make that gown.

“Run away, on the 30th of last March, from the subscriber in Fourth street, near the Post office, an apprentice girl, named Anne Carrowle came from London with Captain William Keais, in the year 1769, she has a fresh complexion, brown hair, near sighted, left handed, round shouldered, and about 16 years of age; had on, when she went away, a green silk bonnet, an India red and black and white calicoe long gown, a blue halfthicks, and striped lincey petticoat, a white apron, and new leather shoes; she has been seen trolling on the Lancaster and Gulf roads, on pretence of going to service at Esquire Moor, and the Bull Tavern, and then at Carlisle….” [Pennsylvania Gazette, 27 April, 1774]

To add to the fun, I know Lancaster and Gulph, and this could be close to where my mother lives now. Too bad I am so far from 16.

Moving on…Here’s the dilemma: front closing or not? Open robe or round gown? The last one seems easier, as the petticoat is described, and thus probably showing, so an open robe. But the bodice, what about that? Stomacher front or closed?

There is a gown in the National Trust dated ca. 1770 with a closed front. And there is a gown with a missing stomacher in the National Trust dated ca. 1770. There are many gowns in the Snowshill Collection with closed fronts, but what is documented to New England? Before 1773, it seems, only stomacher front en fourreau gowns.

PMA, ca. 1775-1780s

I think the answer is that the runaway in 1774 is not wearing the height of fashion–though at 16, she will trend as new as possible, and could be wearing a closed front gown. For me, as a middling to lower sort, I think the best choices will be a stomacher front gown with robings. I have a bodice block for a front-closing gown, know the fit works, and have a back a like and a sleeve I can live with. So on to a muslin for the stomacher front, I think. The center front closings of the striped cotton gown in Philadelphia are probably too modern for what I’m doing, and for my age.

Really, it should be brown linen. Sober. Mature. Not running away. But what are costuming and living history, if not a kind of running away?

A bit shirty about shirts

On By kittycalashIn Clothing

Fantastic seams around that gusset,seams I can really only dream of. (click for larger view)

I’m trying to be a finer seamstress, but I can tell when I’m tired and the seams wobble and the stitches get larger. Of course, I can’t always tell when I’m running on pure will power alone, so I don’t see the wobbles until the next morning.  That’s when I feel a bit shirty about how tired working can make me, since I would rather be sewing!

Mr S needs a new shirt; the one I made last year is holding up well for him but it is a small blue and white check. The check is the most common pattern in the Connecticut River valley so I’m confident in its authenticity for the period…despite murmurings about the size of the checks…but it is a “shirt from home,” compared to other shirts. Check shirts are documented to the Rhode Island Regiment in the inventory of clothes of a soldier killed at Fort Mercer in 1777. But by the later years, that shirt would have worn out, so another seems in order. I chose linen that is too heavy for a fine shirt, and probably too heavy for a not-fine shirt, but it was cut and assembly begun before the shift linen arrived on Saturday. So onward we go, and with pressing and washing, perhaps it will be OK. The placket and side slits are sewn, the neck gussets attached, and one shoulder strap. It is slow work, but a train trip next week might get it finished.

The Young Mr’s shirt, of the same check fabric and construction, has been mended twice in the  past year. He has not outgrown it, thanks to the volume of 18th century shirts, and while he has evidenced all the activity of a slug at events, he still managed to undo seams and essentially deconstruct a shirt in one day. It is a gift, I am sure.