Tag Archives: 19th century

A Saturday in Salem : Jane Austen Ball

17 Friday Feb 2017

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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
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.

Documented Fantasies

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Museums, personal, Reenacting, Research

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It was three years ago on a warm August afternoon in the museum room we’d turned into a photo studio when I quipped, “All my fantasies are documented.” It’s been hard to live down ever since.

With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.

With Mrs B watching Miss B self-perambulate upon the sidewalk.

Documentation, research: we all do it, everyone who reads this blog does it. What matters is how you use it– or, maybe even more importantly, how well you understand how you are using your research. This past weekend was the Salem Maritime Festival, and round number three for me in the West India Goods Store (WIGS, which sounds far more political than it is). The year was 1804, and as you may recall, that required a new dress.

Reader, I wore it. And it survived!

Yes, it is made from an IKEA curtain. The pattern is my own, derived from examples in Janet Arnold, at Genesee, and the KCI. Once again, I discovered the power of upper body strength and leverage. It’s not that my stays are too big necessarily. The busk is too long, that I will grant you. But I think the shoulder straps are as well, and the shift– that slattern! She was rolling a la Renaissance Faire, which is completely unacceptable, of course, as she slid down my right shoulder by the end of the day when the shop had been unpacked into the conveyance.

So let us focus on the non-slattern part of the day, when a mercantile enterprise briefly overtook the WIGS.

Behind the Counter

There was some custom, though numerous debts were recorded in the ledger.  (Somehow, there are no images of Mr K sweating over the figures in the book, though I recall them clearly.)

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The shop was hot, but we attempted to stay fed and hydrated, as we discussed the various kinds of goods imported to places like Salem and Providence in 1804. Politics were rather difficult to discuss, as Mr K has a marked antipathy for Mr Jefferson that caused a mild agitation; expanding the country does seem a bold and perhaps unconstitutional move, given the deal Mr Jefferson has struck with Bonaparte, but perhaps this is for the best. The Indians will surely benefit from Christianity and education.*

It’s engaging in the moment, and we’ve done our research. But it’s a fantasy nonetheless, a kind of happening grounded in primary sources and material culture. I’m OK with that– I understand what I am doing– but I wonder sometimes if the people I’m watching on social media understand what they are doing with the fantasies they portray.

 

 

* To be SUPER clear, I’m staying in character here. I worked in Missouri and I have enough understanding of “manifest destiny” to disagree with this point of view.

Forsaken Friday: a love letter from 1800

29 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in History, Museums, Research

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Carl F. Herreshoff. miniature by Edward Malbone ca. 1800. RIHS 1972.21.1, Gift of Norman Herreshoff
Sally Brown, miniature by Edward Malbone ca. 1795. RIHS 1972.21.2, Gift of Norman Herreshoff

Once again, I begin to consider What Cheer Day, and, feeling uninspired, I turned to primary sources, thinking that reacquainting myself with the characters might prove useful. Among the documents I read today was this letter written by Carl F. Herrreshoff (late of Prussia, but now in New York) to Miss Sally Brown of Providence.

New York 17th June 1800

I hasten my dear Sally to answer three of your letters, two of which, one by Gideon and one by the mail, I received yesterday. I am glad to know you at your favourite place, and the more so as I am well convinced you will think of your absent friend on visiting those spots where we have been so happy. That moments like those should ever return, I thought it folly to hope until a few weeks since; a little lonely spot, where I would quietly reflect on what is past and love you with a pious resignation, was all I dare to wish for, but my love is too powerful for my reason, one beam of light was sufficient to give another turn to my imagination, and your last letter has compleated it. I begin already to see a chain of melancholy days in my solitude, I begin to think myself entitled to more happyness, what ever reason may say to the contrary; but taught by sad experience, like you my dear Sally, not to anticipate much happyness, I shall guard my heart from being to sanguine.One happyness I am not however determined to enjoy, let the consequences be what they will. I will see you, dear excellent girl, I will hear it confirmed from your lips that your heart is above the caprices of fortune, that it is as constant as my own. But though I feel now as much alacrity to obey your command as ever, it is not in my power to do it immediately. I have fixed to go to Philadelphia for a few days; I shall be as expeditious as possible, and on my return the first packet shall convey me to you. I rely on finding you at Point Pl. for I feel very averse to go to Providence. Ursus is in the same condition with your little mare, and I have sent him to the pasture, but I will try to get another horse.
Think of your promise: let me find you in good health and spirits; as for my own health, though never blooming, it is very strong, it have never been really affected from all my mind has suffered these ten months past, and since I have entertained the prospect of meeting you again, I feel as if there had been a great change in my fortune.
I lament that our pleasure will be chilled by the situation of poor A. Let us be ever so good we cannot escape our share of misery in the world, every one must have his turn.
As for your request regarding H I assure you, that if
I made a confident of him in matters which concerned you, it was of my own sentiments merely.
Adieu my charming little Sally, I expect a letter from you dated from Point Pl. forget not to direct all your letters in future to the care of John Murray & Son. Is Mr Coggeshall’s house still a tavern in Bristol? You shall soon hear again from

Your sincerest friend
Herreshoff

I think it proper to write to your father before I go to Providence, are you not of the same opinion & if I should write from here, before I receive your answer, I shall enclose my letter in yours.

Carl Herreshoff to Sally Brown, 17 June 1800.
MSS 487, Herreshoff-Lewis Family Papers
RIHS Manuscripts Collection

A month after this letter was written, “poor A.” gave birth to her first daughter, Abby Brown Mason, a day after marrying James Brown Mason, the child’s father. It was not until 1801 that Sally Brown married Carl Herreshoff, despite her father’s misgivings. John Brown never really liked his sons-in-law, and given his nickname of “Old Thunder,” you have to wonder how they felt about him.

For me, this letter full of longing and acquiescence to a powerful love, has resonance beyond its years. Distance is easier to overcome today, to a degree, but letters remain a poor substitute for a lover.

Privacy and Proximity

23 Thursday Jun 2016

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Feeling the Wyeth at Kiefer House

It has been a long time since I read Bowling Alone, and longer still since I read A Pattern Language or Jane Jacobs, but all of those came to mind this past weekend.

I don’t mythologize or romanticize the villages of the past: we all know how The Crucible turns out, but I thought about privacy and proximity, and I thought about scale. Let’s take privacy first.

In this century, it’s difficult to experience the past as anything more than a series of simulacra which we piece together in a crazy quilt of understanding, but past notions of privacy are far different from our own.

Bedroom

Early one morning, as I lay in a creaking rope bed, I considered how unfamiliar most of us are with the noises of other humans. The wall of our bedroom just barely fit against the exterior wall, and moonlight on whitewash showed the spaces between planking and the plaster, and we slept with the bedroom door open to take best advantage of the cool evening cross breeze.

As I lay awake, my companion happily asleep, I pondered the true extent of my laziness. How much clothing did I really need to wear to go up to the public facility? How loud would relieving myself in the chamber pot be? And what would the reaction be? (I have been on the side of someone else’s choice not to use a chamber pot, and said, “I wouldn’t care,” but one never knows.) And though I elected to put on more than my shift and walk to the public convenience, I began to wonder: what did the people in the past tolerate, ignore, or politely decline to mention?

What did living together feel like, when people shared smaller spaces? When the boundary between private and public, bedroom and parlor, was pierced with holes?

My Grandfather’s Trunk

11 Saturday Jun 2016

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Some objects you can't shake. And then you buy them.

Some objects you can’t shake. So you buy them.

When I was little, one of the games my mother and I played was “I packed my grandfather’s trunk.” You start with that line, and take turns adding an item in alphabetical order. The trick is, you have to repeat the whole string as you go along, so that by the time you’re packing a zebra, a zither, or zwieback, you’ve got to remember the other 25 things you and your companions have packed. It’s a good game for waiting rooms when you can’t run around, and fun for people who love words. How many nouns that start with “y” can you think of?

After lining the bottom with paper, I packed the linens.

After lining the bottom with paper, I packed the linens.

In less than a week, I’ll be packing someone else’s greatx-grandfather’s trunk for a trip westward into the (relative) wilds of New York State to join a Sketching Party. Despite two intense weeks, I’ve persevered on the orange check gown and made significant progress on the Thriller Spencer and finished the second sheet. This is a trip to a different class altogether, one of my two annual forays into the mercantile class of the early Federal period.

It’s quite the thing, packing your alter ego’s equipage for another century, and as I’ve enjoyed a longer commute recently, I’ve pondered the ways in which we stereotype certain kinds of living history practitioners. Progressives don’t always travel light: they travel right, and in this case, it means a quantity of baggage to create the proper simulacrum of an 1814 excursion.

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It’s a quantity of stuff, isn’t it?

While I decry the use of film and television as sources for historical costuming, I do appreciate them for inspiration, and it is remarkably easy to get someone else hooked on a good adaptation like the BBC’s 2009 Emma. The depiction of the picnic on Box Hill is particularly good (i.e. excruciating) and the pile of materials required for appropriate comfort is overwhelming to anyone who prefers to travel lightly. Never before have I considered a turkey carpet a possible accessory to an excursion, but when one intends to ape one’s betters and bring culture to the frontier, anything is possible.