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~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Search results for: salem

Sandby in Salem (New Jersey)

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History, Reenacting

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

common people, Hancock House, HM 17th Regiment, interpretation, living history, New Jersey

The Kitchen at Sandpit Gate (detail). Watercolor on paper by Paul Sandby 1754. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 914331

The best times are always those when we are the least self-conscious– not that we can necessarily choose those times. Often they simply happen to us, but if we are lucky enough, we will notice, or someone else will record those moments for us. Last weekend, without even meaning to, we came as close as I may ever hope to get to recreating Sandby images of the Sandpit Gate kitchen.

Mistress F commanded the kitchen: I served as her reasonably able scullion, and, with assistance from Drunk Tailor and the company of the B’s, we managed to produce enough food for several dozen people.

 

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(I baked the pound cake at home, but the egg and onion pies were made on site. I lack historically correct baking apparatus aside from one pie plate.) Cooking in the cabin at Hancock House reminded me of good times long ago— and not so long ago–and how much I enjoyed throwing refuse out a window, and using a soapstone sink. The weekend also brought to mind “show, don’t tell” as it applies to interpretation, and made me think again about how to create more immersive educational experiences for visitors, without becoming ritualistic.

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There’s not much time to think those esoteric, grad-school-seminar thoughts when you’re in the midst of cooking, and that can actually be a relief. Instead, better to think of the light, and the landscape, and the time remaining until a pie is cooked through.

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At Sandpit Gate circa 1752. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 914328
At Sandpit Gate circa 1752. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 914328


The landscape and the light: redemptive, all that space, the blue sky and the grasses. I thought of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which I haven’t read in decades, for in some ways, the coast of New Jersey resembles the coast of Connecticut. It’s one of the first historical novels I remember reading– it is probably one reason I have ended up doing the work I do, and spending as much time as I did in New England. (You can read it here.) It’s not brilliant literature, and it was nearly two decades old when I read it, but it was certainly memorable.

Photos courtesy of HM 17th Regiment, Al Pochek, and Cape May Wren Photography.

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A Saturday in Salem : Jane Austen Ball

17 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Events, History, personal

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

19th century, 19th century clothing, Costume, dancing, dress, fashion, Federal New England Fashion, Federal style, Salem event

Closure: green silk satin ribbon.

Closure: green silk satin ribbon.

With many thanks to the Quintessential Clothes Pen, I was not dancing with myself Saturday last at the Jane Austen Ball in Salem. I was there on a bit of a whim, knowing that the ball happened in February and looking for something to do on a winter weekend– and, as it happened, I actually had a dress to wear. Of course, it wasn’t finished until Friday night, although I had worn it in December for a photoshoot.

Dressed for the weather: I only seem to wear this pelisse in February.

Dressed for the weather: I only seem to wear this pelisse in February.

In the past year+, I’ve been trying to do more and regret less, which seems a bit contradictory: if you do more, might you regret more of what you do? The trick for me, especially in dealing with my baseline high-anxiety self, is to do more things that seem scary but are actually fun.* That’s how I found myself traveling up to Salem between snowstorms to stay in a tiny little room in a historic hotel. It’s a pretty quick ninety-minute trip on a good day, but I know myself well enough now that staying overnight is the safer, less-stressful option for an excursion like this.

Salem on a snowy Saturday was busy, streets crowded with people as I walked to the old Town Hall, feeling very much like a character in a novel. (Having just finished Remarkable Creatures, the scenes of Elizabeth Philpot walking in alone London came to mind as I did attract some attention in my pelisse and bonnet.)

Old Town Hall, Salem, MA
Old Town Hall, Salem, MA
Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458
Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458

The Town Hall was crowded; I arrived a little late, as dancing was beginning under patient and direct tutelage, so I had the pleasure of watching several dances before I joined in. While not everyone was wearing early-Federal/Regency clothing, the crowd still provided an excellent sense of the social mixing and festivity of a scene from the past.

Unforgivable hotel room selfie to record the dress

Unforgivable hotel room selfie to record the dress

Joining in was even better, to be in the swirl of people and skirts, to pay attention to my feet– my shoes were a little slicker than I would like– and to count the rhythm of the music. While I spent years in ballet class, it is true that those years were surpassed by years in mosh pits and on dance floors of questionable clubs. Country dances made me think of four-dimensional math, with the patterns made by the combinations of active and helper couples, the reversals of direction, and the changing positions of partners: it was like being a living fractal.

*With some exceptions including rollercoasters and sky diving.

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Women in Business

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by kittycalash in Living History, personal, Philosophy, Reenacting

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

interpretation, kickstarter, personal, Philadelphia, women's work

 

One of things I’ve struggled with in living history is reconciling my own life as a 21st century working woman and feminist with interpreting the lives of 18th century women.

Mrs. James Smith (Elizabeth Murray)
John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815) 1769

It takes a while– and a bunch of reading– to get past the notion that these women lack agency in their own lives. Sure, there are notable exceptions: Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Elizabeth Murray, but those wealthy Boston women aren’t the kinds of women I’m interested in portraying. What about more everyday women? What about the women more like me? They’ve proven harder to find, but not unfindable–though even they, by dint of being findable, are more exceptional than the vast majority of 18th century colonial American women.

Elizabeth Weed carried on her husband’s business as a pharmacist, noting that she “had been employed these several years past in preparing [his receipts] herself,” and was therefore well-equipped and trustworthy to carry on in his business. Rebecca Young advertised as a flag maker, and as a contractor, made flags, drum cases, cartridges and shirts for the Continental Army, thanks to her brother Benjamin Flower’s position as a Lieutenant Colonel.

In researching Elizabeth Weed, I read about other women running businesses in Philadelphia, and practicing as “doctoresses” in nearby New Jersey, demonstrating that Mrs. Weed operated in a context of other successful women, including some practicing medicine, or at least “medicinal arts.” What I would really like is to track down the records of a mantua maker or milliner in 18th century America, and not only because I make and sell gowns and bonnets, but because in doing so, I’m carrying on with the kind of work that my grandmother and great aunts did.

Elsa, Studio Portait ca 1935

For fifty years, my grandmother ran a dress shop in western New York state, dressing the women of Jamestown and the surrounding counties in fashionable and flattering clothes. My aunts made hats and accessories in their own shops, completing the look. I come from a family of makers (including a great-grandmother who made her own shoes), who care deeply about fit and helping people look and feel their best. My grandmother ran a successful shop for fifty years, until she sold it in the mid-1970s. I have many fond memories of sorting costume jewelry upstairs, and gift-wrapping boxes in the basement, with a rack of ribbons in all colors handy on the wall.

She was exceptional in her own way, though you will be hard-pressed to find much (if anything) about her on the interwebs, but maintaining a business through the Depression and World War II was challenging. She gave back, as a member of the YWCA and Women’s Hospital boards, recognizing the importance of sustaining the community you’re part of. When I portray Elizabeth Weed or Rebecca Young, or the Hawthorns of Salem, I think about my grandmother. Maybe it’s a step too far to say the living history work I do or the business I’ve started honors her and the other working women of my family, but I like to think that it helps make visible women who, though now forgotten, were as important to their own communities as she was.

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Hair a la Titus and the Resting Bingley Face

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Making Things, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Federal style, Gadsby's Tavern, handsewn, sewing, sewing project

Reader, it is hot where I live. June, July, and August are tiresome months here, humid and warmer than what I became accustomed to in New England. After a year, I realized I’d had enough of trimming my hair myself. I texted a friend with good hair, and found someone to liberate my neck. Excellent, right? Well…it’s all good until you want to dress up.

Resting Bingley Face
Lady Russell's headdress, Persuasion, 1995.
Lady Russell’s headdress, Persuasion, 1995.

19th century history hair being somewhat mullet-like, my short in the back bob was not going to get the job done for last weekend’s Jane Austen Ball at Gadsby’s Tavern. What to do? Cap it, of course– there’s no way I could figure out how to tie a turban elegantly and reliably without giving up the hope of finishing some other projects I really want to finish this month. So, a cap/hat/sewn headdress. Aside from the examples seen in film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, what evidence is there for these concoctions?

ladies heads with various wraps and feathers

London Head Dresses, June 1804

woman in a gray tam o-shanter cap

Detail, Plate 11, April 1799 Journal des Luxus und der Moden.

Enough, it would seem, to be getting on with. In addition to the 1804 Ladies’ Head Dresses plate, there are plates in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden showing headdresses and wraps, as well as an image of a pelisse and matching tam-o-shanter-like hat. These are simple enough to make, and I managed one in less than 24 hours.

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two couples in historical dress

I had no idea Drunk Tailor and I would color coordinate so well. Also, Dat Hat.

The fabric is left over from a gown I made to wear to a dance in Salem one spring, , but which happily coordinated well enough with the sari gown made for a photoshoot, and also worn to Salem for a dance. Briefly, the cap is made from scraps, ornamented with a two-layered rosette centered with a paste button, with the bulk of the caul gathered up and stitched down to hold the shape and embellished with three coordinating tassels looped onto a gold silk-wrapped cord. In the end, not too resting Bingley face, and a satisfactory cover for what I’ll call my hair a la Titus when I’m not in the current century. Drunk Tailor’s hat covered, somewhat, here.

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Mending: Check

18 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Living History, Reenacting

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

18th century clothes, apron, checks, common dress, Fort Dobbs, linen, mending, North Carolina, War for Empire


My poor old apron. It’s almost– but not quite– the firstarticle of historical clothing I made. (The first was a shift. Infrastructure and fundamentals, people.) It acquired some new wear (actual holes!) in New Jersey, and required mending.

First, it needed to be washed. I hadn’t taken a objective look at my apron in a while, but after we got home from Salem, I knew I had to mend it, which meant washing.

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Reader, it smelled.

You get used to smells, and even enjoy them: wet wool, gunpowder, wood smoke. And then there’s tallow. I’ve never gotten used to the smell of tallow, and I don’t remember when this apron encountered hard fat, but the odor is unmistakable.

So is the water.

This past weekend, I had a chance to mend this favorite apron while I peddled luxury goods at Fort Dobbs’ War for Empire event.

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Although I have a sturdy plain linen apron, I’m fond of checks, and of the hand this apron has achieved after much wearing and some washing.

It will never be really clean again, but for now, the apron is mended and back in rotation.

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