Tag Archives: 18th century clothes

Always the Lady’s Maid, Never the Lady…

26 Thursday Sep 2013

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Testing the bodice and sleeve

but that’s fine, actually. I like to get dirty. The red Virginia cloth dress is now clay-splashed, and while it was made especially for the “People of 1763” event, it may no longer work. Fine for cherry-sellers, fine for hand-bill hawkers, it will not do for a lady’s maid, and I don’t especially want to clean it. Hope I can get my stays wrangled back into shape and that my cross-barred gown fits…but if not, I’ll be a recently promoted lady’s maid.

From the back.

My other upcoming role as a maid will be at the John Brown House Museum, on October 5. This has required quite a bit of thinking and stewing about appropriate clothing and realistic background. I finally settled on a black-and-brown combination of petticoat and open robe, with the style of the open robe based on Paul Sandby drawings and extant garments, but determined by the scant three and a quarter yards of brown worsted that I was able to find.

Winter, 1795. The British Museum, 2010,7081.509

Winter, 1795. The British Museum, 2010,7081.509

The bodice back is based on the 1795-97 cross-front gown from Museum of Costume in Bath shown in The Cut of Women’s Clothes. The front is meant to be transitional: a little bit of gathering at the neck, but not a great deal, with the edges still pinning closed. The sleeves are long and slim, and will button at the wrist once I’ve gotten the length worked out.

The skirt will pleat, with fullness centered on the back triangle and decreasing to the front. For the black petticoat, I used the double inverted box pleat of the 1790s open robe in Costume in Detail. As you might imagine or just plain hope, they work! I’ve also made a small pad to help lift the skirt in the back and create the right profile; I’m thinking of adding buttons and loops so that it can migrate from gown to gown.

What (Cheer) to Wear?

07 Saturday Sep 2013

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JBs HousekeeperIt’s 1800. Do you know what your housekeeper is doing? I don’t. Or, more accurately, I can’t decide.
I’m hung up on stays, and not wanting to make another pair. I’m indecisive about style, and though Mrs Garnett has her charms, it’s her bonnet I love more than anything.

Here’s what I’ve found, in servant-land:
18th-century-kitchen-servants-prepare-a-meal-jane-austen-cookbook-cover-page

Note that this woman is, in the kitchen, wearing an open robe and quilted petticoat.The style of her bodice–which looks  like a cross-over bodice–and the train of the robe suggest the 1790s. Score one for style.

That open robe, where have I seen that before? Why, yes, Mr Sandby showed us that style for a nurserymaid. (It’s interesting, too, that both images show women with their hair quite visible under their caps, and not pulled up and out of sight.)
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Why does “robe stye” matter? Because I only found 3 and a quarter yards of a brown fabric I like, and even with the most careful cutting, that’s unlikely to make a full gown. However, I have some lightweight black wool that will make a decent petticoat. The bodice style is a bit of a stumper, though: the wool has good drape, so it might work for something other than the usual bodice I make. I did consider whether a very smooth, edge-to-edge, front-closing style of the 1780s would be more appropriate, but I think that I can move the bodice style forward, style-wise, and be correct.

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Brown gowns are a fine tradition in the sartorial habits of questionable servants. This young housemaid twirls her mop dry while wearing a brown gown over what could be a dark blue or a black quilted petticoat. The red “bandannoe” is a nice touch, though I don’t think I’ll wear one myself for this event.

In all this there is a compromise: using fabric I like, in a style I know I can make and document, perhaps even without having to make new stays. That would be ideal, because although it’s four weeks to the event, I’ll lose a week of sewing time to other commitments. Three weeks to pattern and hand sew a petticoat, gown, apron and cap seems just manageable.

All Over but the Tugging

06 Friday Sep 2013

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Front view on Cassandra.

Back view, over petticoats

That’s right, it’s done, in all its brown and green glory, with not one buttonhole in sight.

I imagine Henry Cooke will tug on it, the same way my grandmother used to tug on my clothes, and find the things I need to fix that I can’t even see until he points them out. But that’s OK– what better way to learn?

You can see the progression on the project here, but there’s no tutorial or instruction manual, just visual notes as I went along. It’s Mr Cooke’s pattern and kit.

I think they’ll be glad of wool coats up at Saratoga, and if I didn’t have a new gown and petticoat, and possibly even stays, to make by October 5, I would think hard about making John Buss’s “red Queman’s pattern jacket” and “striped woolen trowsis” for the Young Mr to wear. With luck, he’ll have a borrowed coat to wear; I doubt a hunting frock will be as warm as he’d like by late September. No one, not even Mr Cooke (and I did ask), knows with certainty what a “Queman’s pattern jacket” is, but it might be a short coat or jacket. What I do know is that visions of a short red coat and grey striped trousers dance in my head, and the list of things I want to make just gets longer.

For now, though, this 1777 10th Massachusetts coatee is done, or nearly done, though on Mr S, I predict center back pleat tweaking.

An Unusual Coat

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting, Research

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DSCN4288In 1777, the uniforms of the Continental Army remained largely uncodified and, well, non-uniform. At Ticonderoga, German accounts from the spring of 1777 state that “Few of the officers in General Gates’ army wore uniforms, and those that were worn were evidently of home manufacture and of all colors. For example, brown coats with sea-green facings, white linings, and silver dragons(epaulettes or shoulder knots), and gray coats with yellow buttons and straw facings, where to be seen in plenty.”

Brown coats with sea green facings. There’s one in our regiment, and it is a lovely thing. The Adjutant thought it would be interesting for the troops to turn out in these coats at Saratoga, an event to which the coat can be documented (being soon after Fort Ticonderoga) and an event that will take place on the historic site. So we’re making them, in a project that started Saturday, and here we are: ready to have the lapel width adjusted, because my eye tells me it is too big, and yes, I’m told that it was cut a but wide. So this morning, a lapel trim is in order.

An American Soldier. ca.1852 copy of a ca.1777 watercolor by Hessen-Hanau Captain Friedrich von Germann. Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel, Braunschweig

An American Soldier. ca.1852 copy of a ca.1777 watercolor by Hessen-Hanau Captain Friedrich von Germann. Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel, Braunschweig

But really, these coats.

Here you can see the style that we’re making, with applied lapels and shanked buttons, simple turn backs on the front skirts, and flat collars. The cuffs are also applied, non-functioning cuffs that come to a point in front. (Also, documented blue stockings!)

These coats will be worn with overalls, waistcoats and shoes, because we know from John Buss’s letters that the regiment was issued overalls and shoes in the summer of 1777. No visible stockings, sadly.

This is the kind of project I can get pretty stoked about, with its combination of aesthetics and documentation. A coat described in a German diary, made in pettable wool broadcloth that will be unlike anything else on the field? Of course I want to help make that vision real.

Imagine a moment on the field, with these documented coats, so unusual (the sea green may have been a faded blue, but sea green is what was seen), worn in a place where they were worn. I don’t need to remind you about the authenticity/commemoration thing, do I? Because it’s pretty clear that’s what’ll happen three weeks from now in New  York.

Thinking Ralph Earl

29 Thursday Aug 2013

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Mabel Ruggles Canfield. Oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1796. Litchfield Historical Societym 1917-04-4

Mabel Ruggles Canfield. Oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1796. Litchfield Historical Society, 1917.4.4

In three weeks, I start a three week cycle of events in different decades: Saratoga in 1777 will be followed by Boston in 1763, followed by Providence in 1800. This causes a kind of temporal whiplash, though I know well enough what I should wear for 1777 and 1763, and Mr S’s brown coat will cut out this week so I can begin to sew on Saturday.

Providence in 1800 worries me more, but last Saturday’s conversation with Sharon helped immensely, especially when she said, Think Ralph Earl. So simple, I was embarrassed not to have remembered one of my favorite painters.

I need to think below Ralph Earl’s sitter’s station, but as Mrs Brown’s housekeeper or bossiest maid, these portraits represent the type of people I see, people who live in Providence but aren’t the Browns. Ralph Earl’s world of Connecticut merchants and ministers is much like the world I would see. How much more cosmopolitan was Providence than Stonington or New London? They’re all ports, and Providence is busier, but I think that Ralph Earl is a safe bet for understanding the visual context of the southern New England in the 1790s and the styles people wore.

It is especially helpful because he painted women of about the right age. Mrs Canfield at the top of te page was born in 1760, so she’s just a little younger than my character.

Oiver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth. Oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1792. Wadsworth Atheneum, 1903.7

Oiver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth. Oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1792. Wadsworth Atheneum, 1903.7

Mrs Ellsworth was born in 1756, so she’s a little bit older. Different ages, different styles (yes, styles have also changed between 1792 and 1796). But some constants: long, slim sleeves. White caps and handkerchiefs, layered at the neck. Silk–though that won’t be me–in solid, slightly muted colors.

There’s another Connecticut painter worth looking at: John Brewster, Jr. In this New Republic period, I think it’s really critical to look to American sources for clues to how people projected themselves, how they were seen and wanted to be seen. This is pretty high-falutin’ stuff for a maid, but I’m presuming that I know how to read (because John Brown and his brothers placed an emphasis on education in their own families, and on public education). And if I know how to read, and I work in a house with books and political discussions, chances are good that even in the late 18th century, I have eavesdropped on the discussions and I have read at least the newspapers. I’m living in a certain atmosphere, and how I dress and what I think about will reflect the world around me.

John Brewster and Ruth Avery Brewster. Oil on canvas by JOhn Brewster, Jr. ca. 1795-1800. Old Sturbridge Village.

John Brewster and Ruth Avery Brewster. Oil on canvas by John Brewster, Jr. ca. 1795-1800. Old Sturbridge Village.

Dr. John Brewster, seen here with his second wife, Ruth, descended from William Brewster. His wife, Ruth, is obviously literate. These people are signaling education and sensibility to us: sober, well to do, respectable. Brewster is not as good a painter as Ralph Earl, so fabric is harder to read. What is her gown made of? Could be fine wool, could be silk: hard to tell. But see that little edge of shift peeking below that three-quarter sleeve? That’s old school for 1795. But I like the neckline and the color. Burnley & Trowbridge have a light-weight wool that color…

Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George), 1799. Oil on canvas by John Brewster, Jr. Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University

Mother with Son (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George), 1799. Oil on canvas by John Brewster, Jr. Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University

Brewster’s portrait of Lucy Knapp Mygatt and her son, painted in 1799, does, I think, help push the date for the Brewster double portrait earlier: by 1799, the painter in more accomplished and bolder in the full-length portrait. He’s also learned to render fabric somewhat more convincingly.

Long sleeves, white cap and kerchief, high waistline: the styles are consistent, but as you move through the subtleties of class, the expression of the style shifts. Front-closing round gown with a waistline that’s high, but lower than what I’ve made in the past, with long sleeves: settled. Now all I need to decide upon is fabric: probably a lightweight, dark-colored wool, though I haven’t found exactly what I want yet.