Category Archives: Events

Eating in the Field, or, Hunger is no Game, Mom.

09 Wednesday May 2012

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Breakfast at Battle Road

The first time both Dave and Tom were in an event was a parade in Norton, MA. Carl ate Ritz crackers from a paper tube in his haversack; the boys had nothing, but we stopped for hamburgers on the way home.

The first time we were all in an event was Redcoats to Rebels at Old Sturbridge Village. Dave packed us lunches of sandwiches on soft rolls (wrapped in tinfoil), apples, and juice pouches. Just try to find a private, off-duty place to eat an anachronistic lunch when you’re at the largest re-enactment in New England.

After that, I got smarter. I used take-and-bake baguettes from Whole Foods, or other crusty breads, to make sandwiches. I wrapped the sandwiches in freezer paper, or parchment paper, and tied the packages up with string. Now I wrap sandwiches in white cotton napkins or towels bought from a big-box store—I cut the tags off to disguise them, so I can’t tell where I got them, and I no longer remember.

At OSV, I was hot and thirsty, so I bought a tin cup. The Captain had a lot to say about it, but passed it as ‘acceptable,’ so I have continued to use it. The boys have canteens, but what about water for me? I make lemonade for some events, boiling lemon juice and sugar to make syrup, and diluting that with ice water from the Brita pitcher. I decant this concoction to some snap-lid bottles that used to hold French lemonade. The snap-top can be removed and replaced with a cork, and I am working to replace the bottles with ‘1895’ pressed into the glass. But for now, I wrap them in striped linen-look kitchen towels.

Here’s how I pack the ‘picnic’ basket (purchased at Michael’s on sale) for a hot summer day:

On the bottom layer, two large gel ice packs I also use for post-physical therapy pain; cover these with striped, linen-look kitchen towel.

On top of the ice packs, two glass bottles of lemonade or water, chilled overnight, each wrapped in a towel.

Sandwiches or pasties (recipes to come), wrapped in paper or in white napkins.

Captain approved mug, from Burnley & Trowbridge.

Pack apples into the remaining spaces; make a place for your own tin cup or redware mug. Let the guys use their canteens; if they want lemonade or your cold water, you can share the mug or cup.

Top with a plate of gingerbread, wrapped in paper and tied with string.

Food keeps cold, and you can eat your picnic in public, knowing that you’re authentic enough to pass muster.

Imag[in]ing the Past

07 Monday May 2012

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Photographers in the background prepare to stalk their prey.

Last Friday, R. L. Fifield wrote about being in other people’s family albums. In the future, I think I’ll turn the camera on the crowd as she did at the Battle of Brooklyn. It is an odd thing to be an animal in the zoo, as the boys and I have been.

But what seems even odder is the how the public behaves.

I have not been shoved too hard myself, but I have been elbowed and ignored. I have seen grown men push their way through a group of chatting reenactors, shouldering past the men they didn’t want to talk to as if they were sleek as a cat. (Note to the Rude: If you give a speech at an event and state your name and organizational affiliation, perhaps you should not actually shove the participants aside later, even if they are “only” privates.)

Brian and Thomas, too oblique for the woman behind me.

I have heard a woman with a point-and-shoot camera yell at my son and the Regiment’s adult drummer, “Turn around! I can’t see your faces!” Really, I had no idea Brian possessed an Evil Eye, but it’s a good one.

I have watched an elderly gentleman with a large digital SLR pull and tug on my husband’s hunting frock to force him into a portrait with woman he did not know.

And that was all just on Saturday in a small town in RI. Similar behavior, with more foot-crushing and shoving, was on display at Fort Lee, NJ last November. (A NJ camera club came to the Fort Lee event, which was listed on their website as a good event for taking photos.)

We’re reenactors, not dolls.

Please,  ask before touching, or tugging. We’re happy to explain what we’re wearing and let you touch our clothes but we don’t like being pulled around to suit your aesthetics.

Please don’t step on the women in kit. We can’t be in the battle, but we like to watch it, too, and the guys on the field are our friends, husbands, sons, fathers…we care about them.

In short, remember we’re people too, and we’re happy, delighted—eager, even—to share the history with you. But let’s minimize the tugging, shoving, pulling, and yelling.

Being Here Then, or, Present in the Past

06 Sunday May 2012

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One of the best things about reenacting is that you are always present. It is almost ironic that trying hard to being in the past makes it easy to be present—the present of “being in the moment,” being here now.

I really mean mindfulness, but that’s not as good a pun.

Just be: it’s easier without a watch, without a cell phone. I am by no means trying to say that reenacting is a panacea or without politics, for it is neither. What I do know is that dressing in the 18th century manner, attending events at historic sites with other reenactors, and engaging in 18th century activities changes a person. It changes me, changes my husband and son.

We are lost to time, in time, and while we can usually estimate the time of the clock, we find ourselves knitting or sewing or walking without regard to time, but instead to light, or hunger, or tiredness. Around us, the 21st century site staff are running tours, checking watches, checking cellphones, and we are sewing, chatting, learning. We are stones in the rivers of other people’s busy.

Saturday we celebrated Rhode Island Independence at Nathanael Greene Homestead. It was a trial, in a way: poorly done history, misogyny among non-unit re-enactors (Civil War guys, get a grip!), and the Mouse Woman. But we went for a walk to the River, in quite the 18th century way. With this Regiment, you never quite know what will happen, though no one sang at us this day, and the fishermen ignored us.

We walked to the falls, dug in a pile for slag from Greene’s forge, chucked sticks in the water, and listened to the water.  Clear and so fast it seemed not to move above the falls, foamy torrents roared below the drop.

I came home grateful for the guys, for their patience, and for the day.

All Cleaned Up

23 Monday Apr 2012

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We arrived at 8, and started cleaning at 10. We finished a little after 4, with three rooms and two light fixtures cleaned. Along the way, we learned a few things and answered some questions.

Following the advice of Hannah Glasse and Susanna Whatman, we began with the fireplace, and then started high and worked our way down. Dana pulled the logs from the formal parlor fireplace and cleaned the andirons, while I covered the sofette with a cloth and began to dust the looking glass. It soon became clear that no one had cleaned the looking glass in some time. I whisked the upholstered furniture (with reproduction fabric) while Dana polished the mahogany. These 18th century techniques definitely worked.

Using an 18th century cleaning solution of vinegar infused with lavender, we cleaned the glassware and china, and saw visible dirt residue on the rags we used to wipe, rinse, and dry the objects. We applied the same solution to the marble fireplace with similar success. We swept the floor with the round broom-corn brooms of the period and discovered just why the housekeeping guides suggested the use of damp sand, “thrown down hard onto the floor,” before dusting began. While we could collect piles of dust bunnies and dirt, they fled before the wind from our moving skirts and were hard to sweep up. Damp sand would have kept the dirt down and allowed us to sweep it up more easily—but that’s not how the floors Marsden Perry installed in the house were cleaned, so we used damp rags instead.

When we were finished, I noticed that although we had not swept the floors with herbs and sweet grasses, the formal parlor did have the faint odor of sweet broomcorn and lavender. The daily sweeping and cleaning a house with herbs, grasses, corn brooms and lavender would have been an excellent means of keeping the less pleasant smells of the 18th century at bay.

About our clothing, we were asked that most-often-asked question of re-enactors, Aren’t you hot in those clothes?

No, we’re not. We wear linen shifts next to our skin, under the stays and petticoat, dress and apron, and once the shift is damp with sweat, you tend to stay cool. If you stop moving, you can feel chilled. We began the day in jeans and t-shirts, and felt much cooler once we’d changed into 5 layers of linen and cotton.  (This is true inside and out; I have certainly felt cooler on an 80+ degree day at Old Sturbridge Village in 1775 dress than I have in modern blouse and skirt.)

When I got home, I discovered that the diagonal bones in my stays had worked their way through the linen binding—another argument for using the earlier method of binding stays with leather, and not with linen. The busk, or flat wooden panel running down the front of my stays to provide separation and support, was wet and warped. I didn’t notice the twist in the wood until I had loosened the stay laces, and then the front of my stays started twisting! The back of the busk was wet, and the front smelled slightly of vinegar, which I must have spilled. Now that the busk is dry, it has pretty much regained its original shape, with a slight twist along its long axis.  Baleen might have greater staying power than oak, but I will compare the busk I have with some in the collection to see if they, too, have twists from use.

~Kitty Calash

An Experiment in Housecleaning

16 Friday Mar 2012

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Eighteenth and 21st centuries meet at the John Brown House Museum when RIHS Director of Collections Kirsten Hammerstrom and Registrar Dana Signe Munroe get the museum ready for spring in the 18th century manner. Dressed in period-appropriate clothing, we will discover what it takes to make the John Brown House ready for spring. With buckets, cloths, and brooms, we will start with the formal parlor and demonstrate for visitors domestic work described in Hannah Glass’s “The Servants Directory, Improved, or, House-Keepers Companion,” published in 1762 and Susannah Whatman’s Housekeeping Book (1776-1800).

20120313-193805.jpgTo prepare for this day’s event, in addition to researching historic housekeeping methods and the Brown family servants, we have been hand-sewing clothing suitable for servants in the 1795-1803 period. Although we do not know exactly who worked for the Browns at the cusp of the 19th century, we do know that they, like other wealthy Rhode Island families, employed servants and owned slaves. In this program, we will not interpret specific servants, but instead explore the work and methods that servants or slaves would have used, wearing clothing typical of the period.

The house may seem insurmountably large, a vast Sahara of dust and dirt, to a woman wearing jeans and equipped with a vacuum cleaner. Taking on spring cleaning in late 18th century stays and long dress and petticoat, knowing that we will climb ladders (fortunately modern) to reach woodwork, will be daunting. But the experience will provide us with first-hand knowledge of what a day was like for a house maid who followed Hannah Glass’s exhortation to “Be up very early in a morning, as indeed you are first wanted; lace on your stays, and pin your things very tight about you, or you never can do work well. Be sure always to have very clean feet, that you may not dirty your rooms, and learn to walk softly, that you may not disturb the family.”

The methods outlined in these period books are surprisingly similar to today’s conservation cleaning methods outlined in the Manual of Housekeeping published in by the National Trust of Britain in 2006. Fortunately, recently completed construction has provided us with a house full of dust ready for cleaning. Join us on Saturday, April 21, from 10 to 4:00. The program is free with the regular house tours at 10:30, 12:00, 1:30 and 3:00.

Follow dress making progress and research updates, as well as a report of the day’s findings, here on the blog using the housecleaning tag.

~Kitty Calash