After a late afternoon meeting that left me raw from the way men speak over, interrupt, and dismiss women, I began to think again about a conversation I’d had with a friend at lunch about women’s roles at living history events, primarily military, but also militia, so let’s call them Gun Shows.
What do women do at the Gun Shows? They cook, for one thing, tied to camp fires. That’s at least a little better than the spinning that can happen, but it’s still not always right. I think a lot about how we’re not truly representing the ways that armies moved, slept, provisioned themselves, and how that affects the roles that women, children, and the (forgive me ) Invalid Corps might play. Yes, there are options: laundry, petty sutlering. There are women doing those things and doing them well, which is fantastic. When I think about how I might complement that, I end up thinking about women even naughtier than Bridget– and I think Bridget must have been very naughty indeed.
Even when you move away from military events, let us say to militia events, similar segregation occurs: women cook and wash dishes, men fire weapons. It just makes me tired, this notion of women forever being pendant to a gun, dependent on housework. It leaves me wondering what else I can do. Perhaps more Gaskell than Austen, here
That’s easier in a civilian context. Women ran boarding houses, had small shops, ran needlework and boarding schools, worked as seamstresses, soap makers, tailoresses, milliners, mantua makers, painters and silhouette cutters. None of those things belong in a camp, and I begin to think that unless I can figure out a feminist interpretation of women’s lives of drudgery, I will have to give up the Gun Shows completely. And yes, for those of you who know me, that will be a natural transition, won’t it?
Mr Hiwell, the Young Mr and I ventured out to Nassau, New York this weekend to be part of Founders Day Celebration at Eastfield Village. The gents were part of the 1833 militia muster, while I traveled out intending to interpret tailoring with Mr JS, and to provide meals for the militia.
It’s an interesting assemblage of buildings, and we were pretty curious about what the site and the experience would be like. While OSV and Genesee are also assembled villages, they’re museums, with different missions and guidelines; they’re also larger, with electricity and flush toilets for visitors and volunteers alike. That means they’re lovely, but not nearly as immersive as the pitch-dark privy experience.
The back of the Benjamin Culver house, or, our dining room for dinner.Wear all the patterns possible, please.
There was a lot to consider at Eastfield, but I’m tired from driving back and will stick to the simple things for now.
I was incredibly fortunate to have a bed—indeed, the entire 1787 Benjamin Culver house—to myself for sleeping. Friday night, after changing into period clothes, we went up to the Yellow Tavern to eat our supper (pasties brought from home, with hard cider for Mr JS and myself). The candle lit taproom was cozy, and I understand from Mr JS that the sleeping quarters upstairs were even cozier.
We cooked our meals in the Yellow Tavern kitchen, and ate sometimes in the taproom, and sometimes standing in the kitchen, except for dinner, which was served picnic style on the grass behind the Culver House. (Saturday supper was provided by Eastfield Village and prepared by Neil DiMarino with able help; that deserves a post all its own.)
Cozy is as cozy does.
Much of time was spent on women’s work, interpreting daily tasks to a stream of visitors travelling through the house from front door to back, and sometimes upstream. The scullery—for want of a better word—had a soapstone sink which drained through the wall, which made dish washing pretty plush, and provided entertainment for all who cared to witness it. No chickens were present, but from washing dishes at Coggeshall Farm, chickens would have enjoyed the ground beneath that window drain.
The view from the scullery: not bad, really.
There are always curious questions, from “Is this a house?” in a tone of wonderment, to “Where did you get the water?”
Gentle reader: these stumped me, briefly, until I was able to gather my wits enough to reply, “Yes, it’s a house, built in 1787,” and to assure the visitor that people had, in fact, managed to live in it. The water question was somewhat more perplexing.
I started with, “Well, I got this from the hose, but they would have had a well,” when the visitor stopped me. “No, I mean, how did you get it hot?”
The kettle had been over the fire in what would be the kitchen room where Mr JS and I were set up to sew, and the fire was still producing heat, albeit from coals. Then I realized she had not been among the clump of people watching me remove the kettle from the crane so that I could pour hot water into my basins. I pointed to the kettle, and said, “Over the fire.”
Fire hot.
It’s hard: there’s so much we take from granted in our own daily 21st-century lives, let alone what we become accustomed to when we inhabit the past. Interpreting between the two worlds, things can be lost in translation.
I’m always curious about what I’ll learn when I travel to a different century, and I think what I learned, again, was that I find it hard to find a way to interpret women’s lives and work in the past that does not reinforce stereotypes of “life was hard” and “roles were constrained.” Enough! I tried explaining the greater freedom some women enjoyed in the early Federal era, in contrast to the pre-Revolution and post- Great Awakening eras, but that wasn’t entirely successful, and would you believe that story from a woman washing dishes?
What I may really have learned is that I’ve done enough time in the kitchen and the scullery; I’d rather be the tavern keeper than the cook or scullery maid. Women were in business, and while never on the scale of partnerships like Brown & Francis, women as merchants, tavern keepers, landlords, and, yes, tailoresses, are underrepresented. It’s easier to talk down the scale than it is to talk up the scale from the washbasin to the shop or tavern, so it’s time to leave the wash basins aside for a bit.
Pocket ca. 1784, American cotton, wool Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Bequest of Marie Bernice Bitzer, by exchange, 1996 MMA 2009.300.2241
Sharon Burnston, on the Historic New England site, points out that “Pockets thus represent the kind of dilemma that objects of material culture can present to scholars. Much is known about how and when these items were made, but evidence of how they were used remains fragmentary and tantalizing.”
As we can see from this diagram from the Workwoman’s Guide, pockets could take many shapes, and the extant evidence bears this out. There are oblong pockets, and more rectangular pockets, rounder pockets, longer and shorter and wider pockets. One suited one’s self, and cut one’s pattern to one’s cloth.
A pair of silver buttons A pair of buckles A pen knife Thimble Coins A silver spoon A pair of scissors Keys Needlecase Biscuit Nutmeg and grater Smelling bottle An orange or an apple A pocketbook Comb Snuff box Jewellery Needlebook Pocketbook Paper Pen or pencil
When Pamela runs away, she takes with her, in her pocket, two handkerchiefs, two caps and five or six shillings.
Of all the listed things, what might Bridget have carried? Some of the things she carried would be needed, but others would be wanted.
Soldiers and Camp Followers Resting from a March. Jean-Baptiste Pater, 1730. private collection. used from Wikimedia Commons.
I prefer woman belonging to the army, or “regimental woman,” which sounds like Mick Jagger or Roy Orbison could sing it, but one could have a pretty lively discussion of which term to use. Camp followers has a connotation–prostitute–that doesn’t reflect the full reality of army life for women in either the British or the Continental armies.
Were there prostitutes who took advantage of the proximity of a large customer base? Yes, undoubtedly. In the John Robinson Waterman Papers there is an unusual letter from Col. William Battey dated October 28, 1812 with a sketch of the army camp near Albany and a description of camp life. This description includes the treatment of a woman accused of prostitution and summarily banished from camp. I think she was beaten and half-drowned, so the army took the no-prostitutes-whatsoever dictum very seriously.
As far as cooking goes, a commenter elsewhere explained that women would have been cooking, at least for themselves. Typically, they did not cook for the soldiers’ mess, unless they were being paid to. This must have been a difficult situation for the Continental Army: when women were present, it made excellent sense to assign them all possible non-combatant tasks to ensure the maximum fighting force. But could discipline be maintained? Not always, given Bridget’s temper.
A soldier and his girl. Henry Bunbury, ca. 1794. Lewis Walpole Library, Drawings B87 no. 8
Rolling back a bit and trying to consider the army’s structure and camp layout, what are the mechanics of handling rations for women with the army? How are they fed? And did it vary, unit by unit? There is probably far more variation than we credit, that will only be illuminated by careful attention to the documentary record. That means finding as many victualing rolls and returns as possible, looking for women. It means reading all the orderly books that can be found, looking for women.
The best secondary source I know for the Continental Army’s women is with Holly Mayer’s book, Belonging to the Army. (And I’ll admit I haven’t read it in two years, so it’s time to re-read it.) If you’re British, I’m not in a position to help you as much, but there is Don Hagist’s work on Women of the British Army. For a more granular understanding of women in all armies, you have to turn to primary sources, and what’s available varies from unit to unit, state to state. There is a handy index of orderly books, and while these vary in their utility, they are a good place to start. In fact, the whole RevWar 75 site is useful (though it is not loading at the time of this writing).
Soldiers’ diaries and accounts are also useful. Jeremiah Greenman of the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment recorded his experiences throughout the entire war, starting in 1775, when he joined Arnold’s expedition to Quebec. There were two women on that expedition, attached to two different companies. While there is not a plethora of detail about the women, it is clear that they were strong and able, and in one case, more able than her husband.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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