Tag Archives: maids

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.

You Wear What You Are

02 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Reenacting

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Part two of a series

Mrs Garnett, Housekeeper, oil on canvas by Thomas Barber. NTPL Ref. No. 42286

Mrs Garnett, Housekeeper, oil on canvas by Thomas Barber. NTPL Ref. No.
42286

I’m minding my own business checking out my friends’ business on Facebook, when Mrs Garnett appears on Joanna Waugh’s blog. Mrs Garnett had been rattling around in my head as “Wait, there’s that housekeeper painting, and she’s got, like, this great bonnet…” which is the art historical equivalent to an ear worm.

Yes, the Kedleston Hall housekeeper. A bit grand for Mr and Mrs Brown, if you compare a fine mansion in Providence to a English County House with a Collection and its Own Catalog, but not too grand if you compare John Brown’s House to Jeremiah Dexter’s, or Stephen Hopkins’.

We are talking about a man who asked his son-in-law to fetch back marble busts from Versailles, during the time of the French Revolution when the scent of blood was, literally, in the air. Mr Brown had pretensions.

This is tough to hang on to because I see that house every week and it is now so familiar that I don’t see it: it’s background. This is both good and dangerous: I need to hold on to the magic and mystery of the overwhelming high style decorative arts of the house, while also feeling ownership and pride in that house. The catch is that the meaning is so different to me now than it would have been to me then. Though to be honest, being a curator is not so different from being a housekeeper. Curator has its roots in the Latin “cura,” to care, and in that root lies the similarity of roles.

So I will care for the house, and care how I represent it: those are keys, I think, that, as Sharon Burnston says, point to a solid, sober-colored worsted. She referred me to the Francis Wheatley “Cries of London” series, which you may recall from earlier posts.

Again, it is hard to shake the familiarity with the street vendor/woman of the army/runaway apprentice chaser I am accustomed to being. But I think the solution to my desire for playfulness lies in thinking closer to 1800 in style, and in a contrasting petticoat. Also, a bonnet. You can never have too many bonnets.

But this is academic, in a way, until I get my fabric samples. I shall will myself to patience, and instead keep sewing the Wasmus Coat for Saratoga. Yes, I realize my idea of a brown gown and pale blue petticoat will replicate the contrast of the coat body and facings. But I do really love those coats!

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.

Poetry in Papers

17 Saturday Aug 2013

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From the Newport Herald, 6/26/1788

From the Newport Herald, 6/26/1788

It’s quite the poem, isn’t it? In October, I’ll be part of an 1800 event at work, and I will be portraying a housemaid, if not quite the housekeeper (we are still trying to sort out the domestic staff; what we can document is far too small a staff for the size of the house).

One of the things I will need is a name, and I thought perhaps I should check my instinct that “Kitty” was an acceptable name for women in the 18th century, and not just for sloops. So to the newspapers I turned, and among listings of the graduates of Philadelphia Seminaries for Girls, and ships cleared through the custom house, I found this poem. It reminded me of Mr S, and I recommend you read it aloud.

The early nineteenth-century maid. By William Brocas (1762-1837), pencil drawing c.1800 (National Library of Ireland)

So, a name: we’ll go with Kitty for now, and I can imagine building a complicated back story that pulls together all of the things I do, from running away outside Philadelphia to encountering soldiers and following them, to ending up a maid in a house in Providence. Except that what I believe about a life like that is this: It would be highly improbable, and I would look wa-a-a-y older than my actual years.

Instead of getting carried away with extreme historical fictions, let’s look at what we can know.

For one thing: clothing. Do you find yourself concerned, ever, that you focus so much upon your historic clothing? Well, you can stop. After a long and excellent conversation this week, think of this: the historical clothing you wear to events of any kind requires a lot of lead time. So you do have to think it through carefully, because every minute will count. It is also a visitor’s first impression of you, from a distance and up close. Getting it right matters, and since that takes so much time, you have to think a lot before you commit scissors to cloth. It does not necessarily mean that you’re a shallow, clothes-obsessed freak. There’s no 18th century mall to go hang out in and watch the leather-breeches boys  posing while they smoke clay pipes.

Benjamin West, Characters in the Streets of London, 1799, YCBA, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.6314

I’ve just about convinced myself that the silhouette we’ve been wearing at the house and formerly at the farm is acceptable. I went looking through the turn-of-the century images I have on Pinterest and I think that a maid would have worn the fashionable silhouette. Another question is age (sigh); all the women in the Benjamin West are younger than I am.

Francis Wheatley, Cries of London. New Mackerel, New Mackerel.

This print from a Wheatley (1792-1795) is useful, though he is such a genre painter and idealizes so much that I use him with caution. (Think of how much grittier–and funny–Sandby is: I trust Sandby more.) But, what can I learn from this? One thing is that I often think and dress more like the people in the street than the people in the houses. This will happen when you spend a lot of time outdoors, with soldiers: you are one of the people in the street. It can be a bit of a trap, historically speaking, and it’s good to challenge yourself to think about another class from time to time.

Back to the doorstep: what I learn here is that I need a white apron that I haven’t spilled on, a white kerchief, and a fancier cap. That cap will tie under my chin, because that’s the cap I see in Providence most often, and that’s the cap that will stay on. I’m not sure if these are maids–I think they are– but they’re women in a brownstone city house. And I can see from the clothes around me that they’ve been made for a woman who sells milk in the street, or works on a farm, or cooks over a fire. They’re not what the richest man in Providence would want his maid to wear answering the door.

You’ll have noticed, too, the different waistlines. The drawing from the National Library of Ireland and the Benjamin West have higher waistlines than the women in the Wheatley. Some of this will depend upon the available corsetry: I have stays that will work for the higher waistline, and I have stays for 1770.  I have a not-quite-right 1790s pair that need revision, but that’s not likely to happen: I have a brown and sea-green coat to make.