The Stamp Act Protest of 2014

On August 25, 2014August 25, 2014 By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, Museums, Uncategorized11 Comments

Last Saturday, we stepped back in time to 1765 in Newport. I know: Newport always seems to be in a different time than gritty Providence, but this trip was truly different.

We were headed across the Bay for a Stamp Act Protest (no rioting, per police request). In this effort, we joined a large group of recruits from New England and even beyond, to fill Washington Square and other sites in the city.

18th century sailors prepare to sew a sail — Preparing the ‘sails’ for stitching. I never really noticed the cars till I saw the photos!

Stationed around the square were sailors mending or making a sail*, an apprentice-less printer, a sleepy apprentice boy, a tailor and his journeyman, a milliner, and leading citizens, one of whom was kind enough to read the newspaper to the apple seller, who wonders what has become of her son.

You must be *very* careful indeed around the sailors!

Up the street, some very fine ladies were having tea. Their refinement was evident in their appearance and dress, as well as in the elegant setting of their tables. They wanted none of my apples, as they had imported citrus fruits, far better than the apples the island’s trees produce. (Wasted on tea, truly: what one wants to do with a lemon is to find some rum and make a punch.)

18th century tea party in Newport — The Ladies’ Tea

The news was very bad, and tempers flared in the square. Mistress Ellery told me that dinner parties had become impossible to hold: parties nearly come to blows over discussions of taxes, customs, stamps, and the oppressive policies of Mr Robinson, who insists on enforcing the very letter and penny of the law. (He was quite insulting on the quality of my apples, indeed, spitting one upon me even as he continued to eat it!)

The apprentice boy had charge of the effigy; the tailor sewed on.

As the afternoon wore on, the debate grew more intense and the crowd more heated. And effigy of Mr Howard was made, paraded, and hung, and then the crowd of protesters dispersed to the White Horse Tavern.

18th century men at the White Horse Tavern in Newport — Fortified!

Tensions seemed to dissipate, though when the runner came, the protesters– now fortified with ale, porter and cider–ran down the street to “plunder” Mr Howard’s house, played here by the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House.

18th century people at Want-Lyman-Hazard House — Ignoring the mistress of the house, protesters dashed to the back.

Although the mistress of the house tried to reason with them, the crowd would not be dissuaded, convinced of their mission (and perhaps more fortified than you would expect after just one glass). They carried their loot to the front of the Colony House, and heaped it up, glorying in their success.

In the end, the house was not looted, tensions were dissipated, and the protesters dispersed into the afternoon. We were well-rewarded with cheese and ale at the Colony House, and enjoyed discussing the events of 1765 and 2014 with the public and Newport Historical Society staff members.

*Yes, Virginia, they do look like tents. That’s because they are tents. Someday, Light Infantry soldiers will sleep beneath that canvas. But for now, keep stitching!

Criss Cross

On March 5, 2014 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, Museums

Dolly Eyland, by Alexander Keith, 1808. (c) The New Art Gallery Walsall; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

I like Dolly. The colors, the textures, the style of her gown, shawl and cap all please me. She’s rocking some serious class for a woman headed towards a certain age. And she’s wearing a cross-front gown, which is what I settled on for my Quaker costume.

Taffeta dress, ca.1800-1810, Originally found on Villa Rosemaine site, where it does not appear now.

The trouble with making a gown based on an artistic sketch in a book is that you don’t have the most complete sense of what that garment looks like, or how it goes together.

Not to worry, I went ahead anyway, because this is as close to Everest as I will ever get.

But I wanted comparable garments to help guide me. Ages ago I found the gown at left on a French costume site. That’s helpful, in that it explains the trickiness of assembling and wearing this style of garment. Three pieces coming together in the front may be one piece too many.

In making up my pattern, I used the pattern for the Spencer as a starting place because I knew that the set of the sleeves and arm scye were what I wanted. No reason to re-invent that process!

That left me with the luxury of concentrating on the neckline.

That took a few goes with the tracing paper and muslin: I did lose count after a while. There may have been tears, there definitely was swearing. Mr S at one point made jokes about this process appearing on the Discovery Channel’s “How it’s Made” as “the Quaker dress.” He’s really very patient, and I do understand the selective deafness he’s had to develop as a defense against the dark arts of sewing historic clothing.

Eventually, I had a decent lining and even some silk bodice fronts. I fiddled with the fronts, and settled on gathers instead of pleats, but couldn’t quite figure out where the casing went. Some days I can process drawings into objects, some days I can’t. I’d just about reached the point of cutting it all up into the gown I always make when I discovered that the excellent women of the 19th US had patterned the gown from the drawing, too. (If you don’t already use this site, I highly recommend it. Excellent work.) Those pattern pieces look like my pattern pieces, so I decided it was worth carrying on with what I have.

HSF #2: Innovation

On February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Historical Sew Fortnightly, History, Living History, Research6 Comments

For this challenge, I initially thought I’d be working on the compere fronts for a silk sacque, but then I took another look at the calendar and realized March was awfully close! Instead, I opted to spend the past week working to better understand the Quakers, especially Quakers in Rhode Island, in advance of a program in early March. (I did do #1, Make Do and Mend, but do you need to know about re-stitching a petticoat binding?)

To help get myself out of a sewing rut and panic, and a general malaise, I made a bonnet. A ‘Quaker’ bonnet. Bonnets are like cupcakes: delicious, sugary, but lower in calories and committment than a full garment.

Quaker bonnet ca. 1800, Nantucket Historical Association, 1928.54.7

Quaker women in the late 18th and early 19th century did not, as far as I can tell, wear the black ‘sugar scoop’ bonnet we now associate with Quakers.

There are numerous entries in Amelia Gummere about bonnets, and types of bonnets, and the reflection of particular sects of Quakers in the pleating of the bonnet caul. But early in the 19th century, at the dawn of the Age of Bonnets, Quaker and non-Quaker styles seem to have been closer.

Fashion Plate: Promenade Dresses, 1801. Museum of London. 2002.139/1397#sthash.YsOpwKG2.dpuf

The fashion plate from the Museum of London presented a style that I thought I could approximate, and that made sense to me for 1800-1810ish, but I chose an olive green silk (actually yellow and black sort-of-changeable taffeta) because I have seen Quaker bonnets in olives and tans, especially earlier bonnets. Going with a color that was less distinctive, and a form that was undecorated, seemed to me to strike the best balance between plainness and style in this time period.

I chose this for innovation because the new bonnet forms of the early 19th century are departures from the full, round, pudding-on-the-head styles of the late 18th century, and the Quakers took it a bit further. In standardizing the appearance of their bonnets (simple, unadorned, eventually ossified in form and signaling sect in pleat patterns), the Quakers were innovators in clothing as outward symbol and sign of inner faith and affiliation.

There’s your rationalization, how about some facts?

The Challenge: HSF # 2, Innovation

Fabric: Sort-of-changeable black and yellow silk taffeta in olive green for the body and ribbons, white linen for the caul lining and brim interlining, white poly taffeta for the brim lining, and pasteboard for the brim.

'Quaker' bonnet, view two. — ‘Quaker’ bonnet, view two.

Pattern: Modified Kannik’s Korner Bonnets, View E

Year: ca. 1803

Notions: Thread, PVA (acid-free white glue for book binding)

How historically accurate is it? Well, white poly taffeta aside, pretty accurate. All hand-stitched and assembled in a period method. Gentlewomen can disagree about accuracy of style, but we could call this a plain bonnet ca. 1803 and be safe. After March, I can decorate the bonnet. The poly will remain, so, well, 60%? (How many points from Gryffindor for using the right weave in the wrong fiber?)

Hours to complete: Five, perhaps? These are quick, so five would be from start to finish, not including agonizing in advance.

Mr S's day took a bit of turn. — Mr S’s day took a bit of turn.

First worn: First by Mr S, who wasn’t feeling well, but to be carried along by me on March 7.

Total cost: All supplies came from the Strategic Fabric Reserve and chip board depot. It takes so little of anything to make a bonnet…maybe $2.50 in silk, $3.00 in linen, .50 in chipboard, so $6.00? (The silk came from the remnant table at $10/yard, chipboard is $2.00 a sheet, and linen about $12/yard.)

Consider the Collar

On January 31, 2014 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, History, Museums5 Comments

The Newport dresses seemed a little strange to me, in that the collar treatment was more like what I would expect to see on a pelisse than on a gown. But I am willing to be wrong, and delighted to be wrong if that’s how I will learn something.

Brown silk Quaker dress, Newport Historical Society, 20.4.1

Brown silk Quaker Dress, Newport Historical Society, D77

Morning dress, ca. 1806. American Cotton, wool. Length at CB: 54 in. (137.2 cm) Gift of George V. Masselos, in memory of Grace Ziebarth, 1976 MMA 1976.142.2

Morning dress ca. 1820. British. Cotton. Length at CB: 46 in. (116.8 cm) Purchase, Marcia Sand Bequest, in memory of her daughter, Tiger (Joan) Morse, 1979 MMA 1979.385.1

@silkdamask (that’s Kimberley Alexander’s twitter handle; she has a blog you might want to follow if you don’t already) posted a photo of the dress (above left) she imagined a young woman she’d been writing about might have worn. Housed at the Met, this embroidered American cotton and wool gown ca. 1806 has a cross-over bodice and collar.

Another day dress from the Met (above right) has a ca. 1820 date, but looks very much like the gown worn by Mrs Amelia Opie (she was a British Quaker) in this engraving after an 1803 portrait. (Other, similar gowns and portraits are pinned here.)

Amelia Opie (1769-1863). Engraving by Ridley after painting by [John] Opie, 1803. Massachusetts Historical Society, Photo. 81.490

Nantucket and New Bedford both hard large Quaker populations (remember Moby Dick?), and the Williams family in Newport had connections to New Bedford, so I looked in collections in Nantucket and New Bedford as well.

The gown below, now in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, was worn by Susan Waln Morgan Rodman (Mrs Benjamin Rodman), while pregnant; using a genealogy, we can establish pretty solid date ranges for the dresses at New Bedford Whaling Museum. It looks 1820s in style, and her first two children are born in 1821 and 1822.

Maternity gown worn by Susan Waln Morgan Rodman (Mrs Benjamin Rodman). New Bedford Whaling Museum, 1991.45.5.

A date range of 1820 to 1822 seems plausible. Susan Waln Morgan Rodman would have been about 20 with her first pregnancies. (Genealogies are on Google books.)

She seems to have kept up with style and to have liked clothes; a search for her name in the NBWM catalog returned some interesting items, though the catalog does not allow for linking to item records or searches. Mrs Rodman’s appears to have kept pace with style changes; that is, her wardrobe did not ossify in 1820-something, but evolved as fashions changed, and was appropriate for different situations.

Does that mean that all Quaker women kept pace with style changes? It’s hard to say; each of us today updates our wardrobe according to our fancy, our purse, our inclinations and our age. Are those Newport gowns going to turn out to look more like the Met gowns than I imagine? I don’t know, but it seems possible.

Kirsten Hammerstrom

Tag: Rhode Island history

The Stamp Act Protest of 2014

Criss Cross

HSF #2: Innovation

Consider the Collar