Category Archives: History

A Bonnet, Universally Acknowledged

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, material culture, Reenacting, Research

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Print made by James Caldwall, 1739–1819, British, A Ladies Maid Purchasing a Leek, 1772, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a bonnet existed in the 1770s, it was black taffeta” has long been the rule reenactors have followed, particularly those wanting to adhere to the strictest standards of well-researched impressions based on primary source documents and period material culture. Truth examined is more subtle, showing that bonnet colours, materials, and shapes varied from decade to decade—and year to year—and that these factors seem to have varied by region. What worked in Boston would not be comfortable in the Carolinas, and people adjusted accordingly.

I was asked recently about Boston-area bonnets in the first half of the 1770s. My impression of this decade is that it is one in which there is a stylistic change in women’s headwear, as the “sunshade”* and “Bath” bonnet terms fade from use, giving way to plain “bonnet” or “chip” bonnets. These appear to have been made from “bonnet paper,” seen in both blue and white** in newspaper ads, though prints and paintings show brims in both boned and paper forms.

The Rival Milleners. Mezzotint after John Collet, 1772. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1955-125

Brim shape and bonnet material— fabric and colour–  vary by period (and region). So let’s look at Boston in the first years of the 1770s. One tricky bit is that there are fewer indentured servants and enslaved people in Boston than elsewhere in the American Colonies in this period, so runaway ads are scarce, giving us fewer clues than we get in Pennsylvania and points south. Still, there are plenty of ads to help guide us.

As early as 1769, we see color variations, with the mention of “black, blue, green, white, and crimson bonnets” in Caleb Blanchard’s store. The year before, Joshua Gardner and Company advertised “black, pink, blue & crimson sattin hats and bonnets.” That means that on the streets of Boston and environs, by 1775, you’d see half-worn black, blue, green, white, crimson and pink satin bonnets.

The best statistics around for bonnets are currently tabulated for Pennsylvania, and definitely show the preponderance of bonnets are black (52 of 75 tabulated, or 69%). So don’t give up on black silk bonnets! They are the most common color. If we extrapolate these statistics, for a Pennsylvania event in the 1770s, of every 10 bonnets, seven should be black, one should be white, one should be green, and one should be blue. In larger groups, we’d also see red and brown bonnets, but again, just one in 20 or 30.

The Boston Gazette, April 4, 1774. Benjamin Franklin’s sister advertises “Sattins of the newest Fashion… for Bonnets.”

“A few sarsnet taffety bonnets,” in the Boston Evening Post, September 28, 1772.

For Massachusetts, statistics are more difficult to compile, given the dearth of runaway ads and the fact that I haven’t yet dived into inventory and probate records. Merchants’ ads give us some clues as to materials, and one thing I find is that “sattin” shows up, as well as “sarsnet taffety” or pelong. Sarsnet or sarcenet was a “think transparent silk of plain weave,” according to Textiles in America. Thicker than Persian, sarcenet was woven both plain and twill, and could be plain or changeable. Pelong is a kind of silk satin, again according to Textiles in America, and in The Dictionary of Fashion History, described as a kind of “thin silk satin,” but I have also seen it described as a ribbed silk. Joshua Blanchard advertised “Pelong sattins of all colours” in 1768. Where does that leave us with materials? Probably with the need for more bonnets to be made of silk satin than of silk taffeta, though the proportions are difficult to calculate yet.

Miss Theophila Palmer (1757-1848), oil on canvas, attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds ca 1770.

What about shape? For those dressing a la mode, we are past the deep-brimmed, small-cauled “lampshade” of the 1760s, and into a smaller, tighter bonnet with a larger caul and more trimming. In the portrait of Miss Palmer, we see how the brim stands away from the face, and the caul or crown poufs up. “A Lady’s Maid Purchasing a Leek” and “The Rival Milleners” (aee above) both depict women in similarly tight-brimmed and round-crowned bonnets trimmed with bows. These are shapes that I am confident appeared almost universally (with variations) in the American colonies in the first years of the 1770s. Now, there are different shapes to be sure, but these seem to predominate. I do think we need to see more brims that wrap around the head, as seen in the 1774 mezzotint of George Whitefield (Anglo-America’s most popular preacher) and his followers.

Detail, A Call to the Converted. Publish’d April 15, 1774, by W. Humphry . Lewis Walpole Library, 774.04.15.01+

So what’s the take away, if we are looking specifically at Boston and environs in the first half of the 1770s?

  1. Most bonnets (70%) were black, but a few white, green, crimson, and blue were seen.
  2. Most bonnets were made of silk satin, with others of taffeta or sarsnet (sometimes twilled silk).
  3. Most bonnets would have a shorter, higher brim that curves across the face just above eye level, with a high, rounded crown/caul and bow trims.
  4. Bonnet brims would vary between bonnet (paste) board and boned

Each place has a local style– which, if you think about it, is still true today. When I stand on the Metro platform in the red wool coat I bought in Providence, these folks know I’m not from here. The way we dress for the past should reflect the place and the time we are representing as best we can. And that means we need accessories to match those times and places, as well as clothes.

And yes, full disclosure, I sell researched bonnets on Etsy. If you want a bonnet for a particular time and place, that’s what I make.

* Known on this blog as “lampshade”
** Nope, don’t know what that means yet, haven’t looked into it

The Colour of Things to Come

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, material culture, Reenacting, Research

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I have a thing for hats– well, for bonnets, really. I know I made stays and a shift before I made anything else for the 18th century, but I might have made a bonnet before I made a proper gown. It’s a condition I inherited from my grandmother, and a great aunt who was a milliner, so there’s little to be done about it– except to dive in deeper.

Miss Theophila Palmer (1757-1848), oil on canvas, attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds ca 1770. Pretty sure that’s a white “whalebone” or “skeleton” bonnet.

As people do more research and generously share it with me, I’ve come to realize that I need to synthesize what we are seeing. It’s a tricky thing, what with that single (known) extant bonnet at Colonial Williamsburg and only prints and images to go on. What I’ve done to compile a stack of references from newspaper ads (primarily Mid-Atlantic and New England colonies at the moment) and interfiled them with images. This has given me a much better sense of  the change in shapes and construction over time, as well as the range of colours– yes, colours, available and popular.

It’s not just that wool bonnets are a thing– there’s the ““a reddish coloured worsted bonnet” in the April 8, 1776 Pennsylvania Packet an ad for runaway Margaret Collands, and the “black durant” recommended in Instructions for Cutting Out Apparel for the Poor– but close reading shows that the colors are more varied than we’ve accept lately, but they vary by region and time period.

The Misses Waldegrave. Are blue bonnets *only* for children? Maybe.

There’s been a rule that “all bonnets are black silk,” which is too broad a statement. Most bonnets are black, that’s true. But in 1768, in Boston, a place where folks would have you think that black is the only colour bonnet you can ever have, you can have “Black, pink, blue and crimson sattin hatts and bonnets” (Joshua Gardner and Com. ad, Boston News-Letter, November 24, 1768).

Heck, if you shopped at Caleb Blanchard, you could have a green bonnet, too! Blanchard advertised “black, blue, green, white and crimson Sattin bonnets” in the Boston Gazette on December 18, 1769.

What does this mean? My SWAG is that roughly 60-70% of bonnets should be black. After that, blue, white, red and green would make up the balance. In Philadelphia, green bonnets– and green flowered bonnets– last longer in the ads. Philadelphia is also where I see more white bonnets, a brown silk bonnet, a diaper bonnet, a “queen’s grey” bonnet, and, in Trenton, a “lye coloured” bonnet. In Rhode Island, there’s a blue stuff bonnet. So yes, bonnets should mostly be black. But they can also be other colours.

Entr’acte

24 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by in History, Living History, Research

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I: Mr B. Finds Pamela Writing. Joseph Highmore, oil on canvas (Part of four scenes of Richardson’s Pamela). Tate Britain, N03573

Entr’acte: an intermission.

Note: In this series, I describe the process I used to arrive at my conclusions and assemble the materials for my impression of pharmacist Elizabeth Weed. I strive to explicate a process of research, questioning, and reasoning that may be applied to any impression. Here’s a guide to what I’ve written thus far, and what I plan to write.

Part One: Been employed these several years past provides an introduction to the project

Part Two: may depend on being supplied explores some of the primary and secondary sources I used and questions I asked of those sources

Part Three: shop medicines, ointments, and salves examines some of the sources for 18th century remedies, and the material culture of pharmacies and healing practioners

Part Four: The Material World of Widow Weed looks at the pieces I assembled: the clothing and the choices I made for gown, hat, mantelet, apron and accessories, as well choices I made for the remedies and their presentation.

Part Five: The Widow will See You Now looks at the implementation, that is, how I chose to interact with the public, what I learned as I talked to 1200-1500 people over the course of two days, and how Drunk Tailor and I used the Anarchist’s Guide principles to inform our interactions.

Part Six will look at how these same principles and processes can be used to inform any impression you take up, with the hope that it will inspire the reader to look for new ways to add depth to living history. The fun isn’t only in the making or the performance, it’s also in the rehearsal of the research, and in assembling these scraps from the past into a living, breathing whole.

“may depend on being supplied”

23 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Events, History, Living History, Research

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Lady Anne Stewart. oil on canvas by Ann Forbes, 1774. National Gallery of Scotland, NG 2036

Part two of a series

A newspaper ad can be a rickety thing on which to build a persona when it’s not a runaway ad. Those will give you what the person is wearing, who is advertising for them, and sometimes the skills they have. To better understand Elizabeth Weed, I turned to genealogical and contextual research.

George Weed’s estate was settled by Elijah Weed, his son by his first wife, Esther. Altogether, it was worth £1268.19.7, a considerable sum in 1777. Granted, £775 was book debt, but that cash could be called in. The remainder consisted of £132.15.2 in Medicines etc.,£100 cash, and £261.3.9 in Goods and Chattels. Of this estate, widow Elizabeth kept £55.8.3 in Goods and Chattels, all of the Medicines etc. and £50 in cash. That’s all of the medicines, 20% of the value of the “Goods and Chattels,” and half the liquid cash of the estate. This would certainly provide the supplies and capital necessary to continue the pharmacy business.


Morris, Margaret Hill, 1737?-1816., Margaret Morris / Morris Smith, pinx’t ; eng. by J.M. Butler. Library Company of Philadelphia.

But what was life like as a woman in business? How many women were in business in Philadelphia in the last quarter of the 18th century? More than you would think– mostly as shopkeepers selling dry goods, some as tavern keepers, and others as nurses, midwives, and healers, including women acting as pharmacists and “doctresses.” Patricia Cleary’s article “‘She Will Be in the Shop’: Women’s Sphere of Trade in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia and New York” published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography Vol.CXIX,No. 3 (July 1995) was particularly helpful in understanding women in trade.

Another useful resource was Susan Brandt’s “‘Getting into a Little Business’: Margaret Hill Morris and Women’s Medical Entrepreneurship during the American Revolution,” published in Early American Studies, Vol. 13, Number 4 (Fall 2015). Margaret Hill Morris practiced as a pharmacist and healer in Burlington, New Jersey, worried lest she “spunge” off her relatives, and anxious to support herself as a widow with a son. (Morris was the sixth daughter of Dr. Richard Hill of Philadelphia, and presumably learned some of her trade from him. Quaker women were well-educated, and participated in the scientific and philosophical life of the city. )

Brandt’s article raised helpful questions to ponder: would Elizabeth Weed have taken food and firewood in barter for medicines? During the Occupation of Philadelphia, food was scarce and exorbitantly priced, and she was feeding not just herself but also her son George, born in 1774. How difficult was it to obtain medicinal supplies when the harbor remained closed (in part because of chevaux des frises built by Thomas Nevell)? When patriots fled the city ahead of the British, did Weed’s trade suffer? Did she conduct business with the British, and how did her friends and neighbors react if she did? Only some of those questions can ever be answered. For the rest– about Weed’s particular business– we can only make inferences based on other accounts.

“Been employed these several years past”

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in History, Living History, Museums

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Part One of a Series

Occupied Philadelphia at the MoAR is one of my favorite events. It’s not too far, in an urban setting, and makes visible the history of the Revolution that’s hard to get at, the history of everyday people. Last year, I portrayed a follower of the 17th Regiment of Foot and a petty thief; this year, I wanted to do portray a woman in business. I’d settled on a milliner because that’s a trade I know well enough to portray–though I could not find documentary evidence of women in the millinery trade during the early months of the Occupation, nor could I satisfactorily justify selling hats, bonnets, and jewelry to a population facing inflation and food shortages. Happily, just two weeks before we’d have to pack the car, the program manager posted exactly what I needed, but had missed by not looking late enough into October: an ad placed by a woman in business.

Advertisement placed by Elizabeth Weed, Pennsylvania Evening Post, Thursday, October 23, 1777.

This is what I’m always looking for: someone to be, a solid place to start the research that takes me from the general to the specific. Who was Elizabeth Weed? She was only a little tricky to find. Records documenting Elizabeth Delaplaine Dickinson Weed Nevell are scarce. Based on the date of her first marriage, to William Dickinson, in 1755, she was probably born between 1730 and 1735, making her about 44 to 47 in 1777. She was widowed by 1768, the year she married George Weed, who had lately been the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital until 1767, and was then a practicing pharmacist. Weed, born in 1714, had studied and practiced medicine in Connecticut and “West New Jersey” before moving to Philadelphia around 1760. After his death on February 1, 1777, Elizabeth Weed prepared and sold the medicines George Weed taught her to prepare, and, presumably, to dispense.

Portraying a widow six months after the death of her husband seemed plausible: I have a grey wool tabby gown (with a Fort Ticonderoga white wash stain) that seemed reasonable enough for “second mourning”– until I discovered that Elizabeth Weed had purchased a house for £600 just before she married her third husband, Thomas Nevell. A widow of means was going to require a new gown and accessories in addition to the materials of her trade– two research rabbit holes at once (plus Thomas Nevell, since he provided Drunk Tailor with an ideal role for the weekend).

Period prints provided some guidance, and since widows took up the trade of ‘doctress’ often enough, some provided a glimpse not only of clothing, but also of the material culture of 18th century pharmaceutical practice. Fortunately, I had a gown-length remnant of black and white silk in the strategic fabric reserve, as well as a remnant of black silk for a mantelet.

Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin (Sarah Morris). Oil on ticking by John Singleton Copley, 1773. Philadelphia Museum of Art, EW1999-45-1

When she married George Weed, Elizabeth had already lost one husband, so an English gown with robings seemed a reasonable choice. Mrs. Thomas Mifflin’s grey silk gown lurked in my memory as inspiration (or justification) for the style of gown, though not for the meaning.

In many ways, the material trappings of widowhood were the easiest part of this project. I’d done some research on late colonial and early Federal mourning customs in a previous life, and had a sense of what was expected of bereaved widows in the 18th century. Clothing and accessories would signal status, and guide the behaviour of others towards me (in this case, keeping Thomas Nevell at a respectable distance). I could have chosen a gown already in my wardrobe (grey wool, green wool, blue wool) but inhabiting the world of the widow from the skin was important to me as a means of fleshing out a real person for whom I had scant information.