Tag Archives: Events

History Dress-Tease

06 Saturday Oct 2012

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What Cheer! Day is a week away, and exactly a week from now, at 6:30 AM, I will get into my B&G guy’s truck and head into the site. We’ll measure and tape out camp sites, fire pit sites, and safety lines, bring wood and gear out from the woodshed and basement. We’ll put out the handicapped parking only sign in the parking lot, drop the orange cones (I love the thick flexible plastic of a traffic cone), and drink some coffee. I haven’t decided at what point I’ll start to fret in earnest that day, but the trick to not fretting will probably be to get dressed in 18th century clothes as soon as we are done carrying items upstairs, because then I will have to take off my watch. Watches lead to fretting: there’s administrator time, and re-enactor time, which is more like artists’ time. Better to take off the watch and get closer to the past.

Half-pleated skirt, sleeves in progress

At the School of Instruction, I thought the “People of the Brigade” program worked well; at OSV, I really appreciated  the Military Fashion Show (I did not make it to Runaway Runway). Using these models, and knowing about the School of Instruction’s Women’s Dress program, I thought we’d combine these ideas. I don’t have a good name for the program yet, but the reason I’m going so nuts about the dress from 1774 is that I plan a “History Dress-Tease:” starting in shift, stays, stockings and shoes, I’ll demonstrate all the layers my runaway wore: 2 petticoats, pockets, dress, stomacher, apron, cap, bonnet.

Any soldiers I can convince to get down to small clothes and layer up with waistcoat, coat or frock, canteen, cartridge box, bayonet scabbard, haversack, knapsack, hat and musket, will demonstrate the gear they carried. I thought about a weigh-in, to record how much it all weighs, but my scale is a pathological liar, and varies by 4 pounds from one side of the room to another.

All this work has an educational, and not merely sartorial, purpose. Now, if only the public will come…

Just Keep Stitching

18 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by in Events, History, Museums

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It is going to take a long time to finish, and longer because I’m doing it alone, have little room for the frame in our apartment, and have a family to sew garments for. But if I just keep stitching, it will get done.

The photo is from Sunday at Coggeshall Farm, and gives an idea of the set up. The frame worked well, though the pegs did fall out in the drier weather. No wobbles, though. It’s a little tricky to stitch from different angles and to maneuver around, but I’m accustomed to lap quilting even large pieces. This needs a frame, so I’ll just adapt.

The sandwich is comprised of a linen backing, wool batting, and a plain-weave silk and wool top. I’m quilting with some silk twist from Wm Booth Draper that matches pretty well. This is a compromise, given that I can no longer buy tabby and calamanco, or fine plain weave wool. The wool (calamanco/tabby) originals in the RIHS Collection are lined with wool, not linen (the silk petticoat that belonged to the Browns is lined in a fine white linen plain weave), but I could not find materials that satisfied my requirements for weave, sheen, color or fibre. The compromises I made I will have to live with—one hopes without recriminations—but they are balanced by the panels I stitched at about 13 to 13.5 inch intervals to match the dimensions of the originals. I’ve also laid the petticoat out in the same proportions as the originals.

Now all I have to do is keep stitching…

The Public: Not Quite the Enemy

17 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Events, History, Museums, Reenacting

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Ah, the public. We’re not really much without them—we need an audience, don’t we? Living history practitioners/costumed interpreters/re-enactors are all looking for an audience. We like to tell people about the past, so we need the public. Sometimes, though, the public is a trifle confounding.

In one weekend, I heard or heard about the following questions or comments:

Are you Jane Austen? (This from a 10-year-old girl in a grocery store, so it’s actually score one to the girl for knowing Jane and getting the dress period right, and one to Dana, who answered with grace.)

Look, it’s the Pilgrims!

Gosh they must have been hot back then. I guess they had to adapt, but they must have been awfully hot, even if they didn’t know any better.

Why is it like it used to be in here? (My favorite!)

Did children chase chickens back then?

What are you chopping all that wood for?

Oh, look, the fire’s on!

I thought you’d all look pretty like the ladies on British TV. [i]

There was also a group that trouped in and just stared. Stared. Hard. I couldn’t manage to say anything, though Vicky and Johanna did an excellent job explaining what we were doing. By the time it was my turn, they’d stared in silence for several long minutes and it was just too weird to say anything.

So, what to do? Not much, I think, but to join and support your local history organization to encourage history education for all. And for those of us on the receiving end? Take a break, eat a snack, stay fresh, and park the snark. Wait until the tour has left the building to react.

I had only one not-great experience. A child came behind my quilting frame, popped on my bonnet, and left the room while I asked several times, “May I have my bonnet back, please?” Her mother turned to me and said, “We thought this was interactive!” Well, yes, but that is my personal bonnet. So the lesson for me is hide my bonnet better, and for the public? It never hurts to ask if you can try on the item sitting next to the interpreter, or to touch the things they’re clearly working with. And never touch an interpreter or re-enactor unless invited to. Yes, it has happened.

Manners transcend centuries: please and thank you always work.

[i] This is similar to what a guide at work said the first time I did a program in period dress, wearing a linen gown. “I guess they were more comely at Colonial Williamsburg than in New England.” I am not a fancy lady. But not comely? Well, maybe I’m built for speed.

What Table Manners?

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Events, Food, History, Reenacting

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When you think of 18th century dining, which image comes to mind, tea on the left, or the sea captains to the right?

While I did not carouse with sea captains this weekend, at dinner today, I found myself deeply envious of someone’s skill in eating from a knife. I shoveled food onto my spoon yesterday with abandon. I coveted the last three pieces of quince tart today despite knowing that one of those pieces was for my husband. And I am not ashamed. Ok, not too ashamed.

The best part of living history is always what you learn, and I feel a separate blog post should deal with “the public, god love ’em.” What I learned this weekend was less about quilting and more about living old school. Ok, and maybe more about the public’s…breadth….than depth…

The most instructive thing was about being hungry and thirsty. Thirsty as in my lips are dry and I know I need to drink, which means being past thirsty and at dehydrated. Yesterday I went all day without peeing and that’s not right. Both yesterday and today I left the farm hungry, not because there was not food but because I ate mindful of leaving enough for those eating after me. The goose pie was delicious and seriously worth eating standing up in the kitchen. I’d fight for that pie.

Eating boiled dinner (ham, parsnips, carrots and turnips) along with a pudding, with 18th century utensils was challenging. Two-tine forks have great sticking ability but not much carrying ability.  Spoons are your friend. Knives may be better as trowels than cutting implements. No one really cares about your manners, they are too hungry to notice. Boiled pudding is this season’s smash hit.

Coggeshall Farm uses Amelia Simmon’s American Cookery, which I started reading last week. It is full of useful receipts based on American ingredients and I recommend it. Here is the receipt for the fantastic, sliceable pudding we had today:

A boiled Flour Pudding_.
One quart milk, 9 eggs, 7 spoons flour, a little salt, put into a
strong cloth and boiled three quarters of an hour.

There were hot words about those “7 spoons” from the kitchen staff and to be honest, I did not quiz them fully on the size of the spoons they used. But whatever magic they worked, it was truly delicious with and without the molasses cream sauce. Sliced and eaten with spoon or fingers (I snitched some later in the kitchen), it a consistency of solidity like the best parts of a Swedish rice pudding, though smooth.

It is hard to countenance how hungry people must have been much of the time in the past. More than the extreme hunger of the soldiers (like Greenman and Plumb Martin), I think common people experienced days of lacking, and accepted them, with the seasons. Food was not constant, but in flux, and even at harvest, I think, or hope, that one was mindful of the needs of others.

For more on seasonality and 18th century ways of thinking or seeing, read Circles and Lines: The Shape of Life in Early America. That’s what I’m going to pretend to do while I fall asleep.

Framing a Plan

10 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Clothing, Events, History, Making Things, Museums, Reenacting

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cross-posted from A Lively Experiment, all images copyright RIHS.

This coming weekend, I’ll be joining in at the Coggeshall Farm Harvest Fair, along with my co-worker who helped clean the museum 18th-century style. She will be helping with cleaning and laundry and ironing (must remember to pack the lavender and vinegar solution), while I will tackle a quilted petticoat.

At first glance you might think I’ll have the easier weekend, and in some ways, I will, sitting in a parlor with a quilting frame. On the other hand, I booked myself a weekend with worries that have pestered me since we were invited in mid-August. Is the fabric I’ve chosen going to work? Do I know enough about the quilted petticoats in the RIHS collections? What kind of quilting frame is correct? And where did I stash the batting?

Research is always the place to start. I compiled a Pinterest board of quilted petticoats  in other collections to build my visual literacy, and tracked down articles by Lynne Zacek Bassett in PieceWork[i] and in the  Textiles in New England  II: Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Proceedings[ii].  From the Textiles in New England proceedings, I learned that September is the second-most common month for quilting mentions in diaries for the late 18th and early 19th century in New England (May is the most often mentioned, Octobe is third). This was a relief as I wondered if quilting in September was even appropriate. With that resolved, I was able to move on to aesthetics.

New England and Rhode Island quilted petticoats share some general characteristics: the overall skirt is quilted in a diamond or diaper grid of about 1” square. Below this is a decorative band or border, usually about 12” deep. The top of this is set off from the grid by a cyma curve or wave pattern. Some examples use an undulating feather border, and others have a stylized arc and clam shell border.  The background of the border is stitched in diagonal lines. Sometimes the direction is set from center front, and lines radiate to the left and right, and in other cases the lines radiate to left and right from the center line of each arced segment.

Within the border, floral and animal motifs are quilted. Animals seem prevalent in New England quilts—there is even a mermaid in Connecticut—but none of our quilts have a mermaid. We have sunflowers, pomegranates, and carnations similar in form to the stylized flowers that appear in samplers and embroideries of this time period. Animals include deer, lions, squirrels and a creature that looks like an oryx but may be an elk. Birds are represented as well, peacocks and stylized songbirds as well as an owl, and even what seem to be roosters.

I drew these conclusions not only from reading, but from examining two quilted petticoats in the RIHS Collection, the lighter one made ca. 1745 by Alice Tripp [Casey], accession number 1985.7.1, and the darker one made in 1770 by Anna Waterman [Clapp], accession number 1982.76.3. In the catalog record, the images for 1985.7.1 are incorrect–they are for 1982.76.2, and the confusion testament to cataloging and linking records in a building several blocks from where the petticoats are stored. Now, at least, we can work on correctly them.

The quilted petticoat that I plan to make will use the typical Rhode Island elements. The top portion will be quilted with an overall diamond pattern, while a feather border will set off the bottom band. Within that, I will quilt squirrels, chickens, and probably an owl and a cat, because they are favorite creatures in my household. I’ll also quilt in my initials, just as Anna Waterman did in her quilt.

You can join us at Coggeshall Farm Museum this weekend, September 15 & 16, starting at 10 each day, and see RIHS staff members in action! We think it will be a good warm up for What Cheer! Day, coming to the RIHS on Saturday, October 13.

[i] “Sarah Halsey’s Mermaid Petticoat.” PieceWork. January/February 2003

[ii] ‘..a dull business alone’: Cooperative Quilting in New England, 1750-1850.” Textiles in New England II: Four Centuries of Material Life, The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual Proceedings 1999. Boston University Press, 2001.