Tag Archives: interpretation

Bag and Baggage

29 Thursday Aug 2019

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

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Shopping with a basket at Fort Fred. (photo by Denise Wolff)

The subject of carrying things at living history events never seems fully resolved. There were the fireworks I like to call Basketgate, and in the four years since, more women have been carrying frails than firm-sided baskets. But here’s the thing: baskets were not used as purses. They were used for shopping, and for babies (thanks, Ruth!), not for toting about one’s personal effects. That’s what pockets were, and remain, for.

Pocket, silk on linen, ca. 1780. Martha Elizabeth Spach (probably). MESDA 2400.

18th century women were not cursed with the tiny pockets of today’s fashionable jeans. No, they had voluminous pockets capable of holding a vast array of items: pocket journals, purses (like our wallets), game tokens, an orange, keys, and almost anything else you can think of. The pocket shown in the image is 15″ long by 11″ wide, which is a fairly typical size, though some were even larger. When I made these, I described them as “large enough for a puppy,” and Facebook wouldn’t let me post them. There is now a full-length book on The Pocket and I look forward to reading it next year, when my ILL will finally request it ($50 being too dear for my budget). In the meantime, the Victoria and Albert Museum will get you started if pockets are new to you.

So, baskets for shopping and pockets for personal things. What else might you use to convey something from one place to another?

Paul Sandby RA, 1731–1809, British, London Cries: A Man with a Bundle, Old Clothes, undated, Watercolor on medium, cream, slightly textured laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

A wallet, of the kind reenactors call a “market wallet,” though that was not the period term. You can read about these in an article by Charles LeCount. The man in the watercolor has a very full wallet over his shoulder, demonstrating the larger end of the wallet spectrum.

And to carry your money in? A purse or pocketbook, sometimes in leather, sometimes in flame stitch, and sometimes in silk.

Leather…
flamestitch…
and silk

Which one you choose depends on who you portray, and where. Silk wallets or pocketbooks belong to a particular class and the ones in museum collections are often from France. Flamestitch wallets are reasonably common in North America among people with the time to make them. The really neat thing about these is that the patterns show regional differences, so you can tailor your choice to your place. (I lack the patience, skill, or time to really make headway on mine, but in addition to a wonderful custom pattern, I found kits here.) I have a leather one I love, made by this fellow craftsperson and friend.

Miser’s purse, early 1800s, maker unknown. Purchased 2002. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Te Papa (GH009865)

Your coins? A purse. (we call these miser’s purses, though long purse or ring purse might also be used. The forms originates in the 17th century, and although it is most popular in the 19th century, it does appear in the 18th century. It’s just not common, so no, not everyone should have one. A simple bag will do for those with coins they wish to keep wrangled.

Servant Returning from the Market, 1739, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin. Louvre Museum,
MI 720

A bag, a pillow case, or even a tied cloth, as seen in the painting by Chardin.

There are lots of options for carrying chattel, lumber, and personal items, and most leave your hands free. But for women, the first place to start is tie-on pockets, and for men, the pockets in your coat. After all, the pocket bags in a typical Henry Cooke frock coat will hold a six pack between them. 

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Women in Business

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Living History, personal, Philosophy, Reenacting

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One of things I’ve struggled with in living history is reconciling my own life as a 21st century working woman and feminist with interpreting the lives of 18th century women.

Mrs. James Smith (Elizabeth Murray)
John Singleton Copley (American, 1738–1815) 1769

It takes a while– and a bunch of reading– to get past the notion that these women lack agency in their own lives. Sure, there are notable exceptions: Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Elizabeth Murray, but those wealthy Boston women aren’t the kinds of women I’m interested in portraying. What about more everyday women? What about the women more like me? They’ve proven harder to find, but not unfindable–though even they, by dint of being findable, are more exceptional than the vast majority of 18th century colonial American women.

Elizabeth Weed carried on her husband’s business as a pharmacist, noting that she “had been employed these several years past in preparing [his receipts] herself,” and was therefore well-equipped and trustworthy to carry on in his business. Rebecca Young advertised as a flag maker, and as a contractor, made flags, drum cases, cartridges and shirts for the Continental Army, thanks to her brother Benjamin Flower’s position as a Lieutenant Colonel.

In researching Elizabeth Weed, I read about other women running businesses in Philadelphia, and practicing as “doctoresses” in nearby New Jersey, demonstrating that Mrs. Weed operated in a context of other successful women, including some practicing medicine, or at least “medicinal arts.” What I would really like is to track down the records of a mantua maker or milliner in 18th century America, and not only because I make and sell gowns and bonnets, but because in doing so, I’m carrying on with the kind of work that my grandmother and great aunts did.

Elsa, Studio Portait ca 1935

For fifty years, my grandmother ran a dress shop in western New York state, dressing the women of Jamestown and the surrounding counties in fashionable and flattering clothes. My aunts made hats and accessories in their own shops, completing the look. I come from a family of makers (including a great-grandmother who made her own shoes), who care deeply about fit and helping people look and feel their best. My grandmother ran a successful shop for fifty years, until she sold it in the mid-1970s. I have many fond memories of sorting costume jewelry upstairs, and gift-wrapping boxes in the basement, with a rack of ribbons in all colors handy on the wall.

She was exceptional in her own way, though you will be hard-pressed to find much (if anything) about her on the interwebs, but maintaining a business through the Depression and World War II was challenging. She gave back, as a member of the YWCA and Women’s Hospital boards, recognizing the importance of sustaining the community you’re part of. When I portray Elizabeth Weed or Rebecca Young, or the Hawthorns of Salem, I think about my grandmother. Maybe it’s a step too far to say the living history work I do or the business I’ve started honors her and the other working women of my family, but I like to think that it helps make visible women who, though now forgotten, were as important to their own communities as she was.

Living the History Life

29 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Living History, personal

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man in historical clothing smoking a pipe

Pre-event PR photoshoot. Photo by J. D. Kay

The recent BBC video making the rounds on social media got me thinking about how we live our lives, and what commitments we make to being our true selves, how we follow our bliss, if you will. It takes a lot of courage, willpower, and hard work to achieve one’s deepest inner dreams and although I have taken some steps towards mine, I have not let go all the way (as one does not when one is putting a child through college). 

I think about this desire to be true to one’s own internal vision, and I think about my friend Justin, who found a place and fell in love with what he saw, past and future. It’s hard work to run a farm and a business, but Justin does it beautifully, with grace and integrity. What he achieves makes me ache with want, not for the house, or the frozen cat’s water dish, or the work, but for the courage. 

Working with Justin pushed me into places where I found, if not fear, at least discomfort. As we said, It isn’t history till it hurts. The first What Cheer Day we ran, I remember standing behind the door on the second floor landing of the servants’ quarters, knowing it was show time. I looked at Justin and said, “What the hell have we done?” terrified to go out and “be” John Brown’s housekeeper. But, out we went, and it was amazing. That work inspired me to push myself harder, to try the things that scared me and made me uncomfortable. That’s where the meat is, and the truth: where things hurt.

woman and man in historical clothing looking at a book

The housekeeper was caught reading naughty novels. Photo by J. D. Kay.

As with all things I tackle, I could push myself harder, not to sew better or more authentically (that’s the easy part, really) but to live the way I want to, authentically. To decide what matters and what doesn’t, and stick to it. That’s the real lesson of these men, and why they’re inspiring. I just happen to prefer the one with mud. 

In the Flag-Maker’s Shop

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in Events, Living History, Making Things, material culture, Museums, Reenacting

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Saturday’s arrangement. Image courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution

The biggest challenge in interpreting Rebecca Young and the shop she ran was not how flags were made (an appointment at the Cultural Resource Center of the National Museum of the American Indian answered that question*), but rather how to make sewing interesting, and how to create a more interactive experience for ourselves and for visitors. Some of my favorite living history experiences involve playing off other interpreters and the public, especially when trying to convince visitors to pick a side, carry a message, or share a secret. Saturday’s set up made that harder, with Rebecca’s shop of women behind a table (we wanted to be sure to be open to visitors, and not make the dreaded reenactor circle), and with Drunk Tailor rolling cartridges in a niche.

Nobody puts Drunk Tailor in a niche.

But what we saw on Saturday– a day with 800 visitors–was that boys between roughly six and 16 skipped from Drunk Tailor to the tailors, bypassing a table of women altogether. Older men (say, 45+) visiting alone also skipped our table, while the majority of our visitors were girls and women. This was not a surprise. Children begin to develop gender segregation around ages five to six, and sewing is often dismissed as “women’s work,” as the table of tailors experienced. These cultural biases were somewhat compounded by the nature of our work.

Tailor’s Art: Containing the men’s suits tailor, the skin breeches, the women & children’s body suit, the seamstress & the fashion merchant / by M. de Garsault, National Library of France

Sunday’s set up. Image courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution

Sewing is one of those tasks that is downward-facing, internal, and meditative (until the thread tangles or snaps). It’s dull to watch, really; the exciting parts of sewing and making are draping, fitting, and cutting. Cutting. There’s something to that.

Combining the desire to interact more with our co-interpreters and the need to disrupt expectations of sewing, we rearranged the tables on Sunday, moving Drunk Tailor to our end of the atrium, postulating that his tea table and powder keg were in the yard of the townhouse, while we pushed our table closer to the tailors and against the railing, pulling our chairs to the side. We also draped shirts and fabric over the railing to display shirts and their component parts, along with bunting. While this “messed up” the atrium, it helped create a context for our work.

Sunday, workshops in a row (house). Image courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution

But the best, most participatory change was Mistress V cutting flag strips on the floor, with the help of two young boys. This literally disruptive activity (you had to walk around her) changed perceptions of what we were doing, and helped people imagine assembling a large item (a Continental Standard) in a small rowhouse room.

If we take the Betsy Ross house** as an example of a Philadelphia rowhouse, , its exterior dimensions, roughly 16 x 25, yield an interior per-floor area of not more than 400 square feet. The Star-Spangled Banner was 30 x 42 feet; a second “storm” flag was 17 x 25 feet, large enough to cover the floor of a room in Betsy Ross house.

dark wooden drop leaf table with trifid feet

Dining Table (drop-leaf, gateleg table), probably Pennsylvania, 1750-1770. Walnut, oak. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994-20-60

While we do not know the exact dimensions of the flags Rebecca Young and her shop produced, it seems likely that any flag would have exceeded the size of a domestic table, since even drop-leaf dining tables of the period are not usually more than 52” x 41” or about 15 square feet (4.3 x 3.5 feet). The limited size of the table, and the need for multiple feet of cutting space makes it likely that flags larger than 3 x 5 feet were cut and pieced on the floor.

This combination of thought experiment and interpretive change up was reasonably successful, giving us greater understanding as we talked about assembling goods in pieces and working in a small shop while interrupting the visitor’s expectations.

*More on this another time.

**You have to start somewhere– and while I’m on #TeamYoung when it comes to flag making, Rebecca’s rented house has long been razed.

 

Research and primary source materials on Rebecca Flower Young were provided by Matthew Skic of the Museum of the American Revolution; compiled information used by gallery educators at the MoAR was compiled and provided by Katherine Becnel of the MoAR.

In Defense of Bad History

19 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by in Events, Living History, Reenacting

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A City Shower. Oil on canvas by Edward Penny, 1764. Museum of London

Not inaccurate or badly researched history, of course, but the “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know” kind of history.

Without wading into the murky waters of canceled reenactments (not my time periods– yet!) and the politicization of historical facts, I advocate the recreation of the “bad” people of history. Not the Hitlers and Himmlers and Stalins and Amins, but the everyday bad. The lazy. The feckless. The annoyed. The I’m-just-now-waking-up-to-the-bad-choice-I-made.

The Female Orators. Printed for Jno. Smith, No. 35 Cheapside, & Robt. Sayer, No. 53 Fleet Street, as the act directs, Novr. 20, 1768.

I think about these people– the ones who slack off while working, the ones who steal shirts, assault officers, throw bones out of barracks doors— periodically, especially when an event is being planned. It’s not that I don’t want to work, mind you: I enjoy working, even the cleaning and scrubbing of history. But it strikes me, especially in summer, that we approach the recreation of history with such excellent intentions. We will Do Our Best. We will Lend A Hand. We will be Always Cheerful.

Why? Why do we not represent the people who shirked? Why do we not represent the people who resented being told what to do, and when? Why do we not take into account our industrialized notions of labor (shifts, clocks, production levels( when we step backwards into a period where there was no factory whistle to set the pace?

painting of a shabbyily dressed family in a decaying room

The Miseries of Idleness. Oil on canvas by George Morland ca 1788. National Gallery of Scotland, NG 1836. Presented by Alexander and Lady Margaret Shaw, later Lord and Lady Craigmyle 1935

Granted, within a military environment, there are rules, regulations, clocks, and enforcers. But I cannot help thinking that the pace of labor, the speed and drive with which people tackled tasks, was different one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, years ago. Of course there were strivers and doers: the American army in the Revolution was populated by adherents to piety and discipline. But it’s clear from the orderly books that there were miscreants and slackers, too.

painting of a well dressed family in a cozy farm house kitchen

The Comforts of Industry. Oil on canvas by George Morland, before 1790. National Gallery of Scotland, NG 1835. Presented by Alexander and Lady Margaret Shaw, later Lord and Lady Craigmyle 1935

And I’m not saying everyone should be a slacker, but you know as well as I do that every workplace today has a slacker or two: the long-term federal employee who watches football at work; the retail clerk whose breaks last a little longer every time; the shelver in the library who catches a nap whilst shelf reading. There are consequences (usually) for those (in)actions, and that’s kind of the point. The slattern and the slacker of history throw into higher relief the purpose of the discipline an army (or housekeeper or master cabinet maker) is trying to maintain. When we all strive to do our best, we lose the depth of interpretation that doing “bad” history can provide.