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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: military events

Now Left

13 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting

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authenticity, Fort Ticonderoga, living history, military events, progressive reenacting, Revolutionary War, women's history, women's work

Through the barracks window on Friday night. Photo by Eliza West.

Through the barracks window on Friday night. Photo by Eliza West.

While for some events there are no second chances, Fitzgerald himself knew it wasn’t true that there are no acts in American lives.  And so it is with Fort Ticonderoga, changing hands several times throughout its existence, until British troops, retreating in 1777, did their best to raze the structure.

A day after participating in the “Now Left to their Own Defense” event at the Fort, I feel a bit destroyed myself, in the best possible way. (It isn’t history till it hurts, but sometimes cold nights on straw-filled ticks get into what’s left of my hip bones.)

Women at work.

Women at work. Photo by M.S.

Every trip to Ti teaches me something new. This time, against all odds, it was cooking. Against all odds because I usually object to reinforcing gender norms at living history events, particularly in a military setting, when women did not typically cook for mens’ messes. Fort Ti is different: both times I have cooked there, it has been as part of the women’s mess.

img_8435

Done! And no, it didn’t taste burnt. Photo by M.S.

This past Saturday, we may have gone a bit overboard, but we justified our efforts with the thought that Loyalist women would not only have used up all the supplies they could (waste not, want not) before retreating, but that they might also have striven for normal activity and to prove their worth to men whose protection they needed.

To that end, we made bread pudding. I’m a fan of Indian pudding and rice pudding, but I’ve never made a bread pudding, despite the similarity of these starch-and-custard concoctions. I like to think that rather than having reached a “throw reason and caution to the winds” point, I have, like any good 18th century cook, become comfortable enough not to rely on measuring cups but rather trust my eye and experience. Enablers help, of course, and I had the pleasure of spending my day with some of my favorites and meeting new ones, too.

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Women’s Work

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by kittycalash in History, Living History

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

barracks, cleaning, history, interpretation, military events, women's history, women's work

Paul Sandby (1731-1809) A kitchen scene circa 1754 Pen and ink and watercolour | RCIN 914332

Paul Sandby. A kitchen scene circa 1754. pen and ink and watercolour | RCIN 914332

The irony is not lost on me: I do stereotypical women’s work as I struggle to bring a feminist interpretation to a traditionally male hobby: 18th century living history or reenacting.* Even as it irks me, I enjoy being busy and believe in the importance of the everyday, the mundane, the lulls. Life moves pretty fast, as the saying goes, and the moments when you think nothing’s happening are often the most important.

Everyday work is what most of us do, and most of us will be remembered not at large, like Abigail Adams, but writ small, like Bridget Connor. But we matter, and the roles we play and the work we do matters, too, to the people close to us, and the details of our lives– not just the mugs, chairs, and shoes, but the vacuum cleaners and the way we live our lives– would matter to us in two hundred years if we were recreating 2016. So why do we skip over the domestic details?

EnglishBarracks_Malton

English barracks/ drawn & etch’d by T. Rowlandson ; aquatinta by T. Malton. [London] : Pub. Aug. 12, 1791, by S.W. Fores, N. 3 Piccadilly. Lewis Walpole Collection

Look: if  mopping barracks is good enough for Kubrick, it’s good enough for me, especially when you consider that the military understood the importance of hygiene in the 18th century, and that there are multiple treatises to be found on the subject, freely available online. Keep them barracks clean.

 

Observations on the means of preserving the health of soldiers and sailors : and on the duties of the medical department of the Army and Navy

Observations on the means of preserving the health of soldiers and sailors : and on the duties of the medical department of the Army and Navy

So I clean barracks, as a means of bringing the everyday back to life, because daily life, even in the military, is in fact remarkably mundane and domestic, centered not around the glory of battles but around the minutia of cleaning barracks, washing clothes, and preparing food.

Thomas Gainsborough, The Housemaid. 1782-86. Tate Museum, Presented by Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle 1913, N02928

Thomas Gainsborough, The Housemaid. 1782-86. Tate Museum, Presented by Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle 1913, N02928

Is this also the feminization of masculine space? Perhaps it is, in the way that our culture associates indoor domestic tasks with women. Either way, maintaining hygiene and cleanliness within a military environment is  documentable in detail and a critical, if sometimes overlooked, area of interpretation.

* I use living history to describe the re-creation of daily life. Re-enacting or enacting [the past] is, I think, better used for events of either military or date-place-and-time specific historical commemorations.

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Less is More

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Events, Food, Living History, personal, Philosophy, Reenacting

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

10th Massachusetts, authenticity, Events, food, history, interpretation, living history, military events

Though it may seem contrary to previous posts, there are times when I really believe less is more, and that’s when we’re out in the field.

Each year I’ve tried to improve our kit and impression by replacing or removing items, mostly to increase our accuracy but also to reduce what we carry. The less we have to carry, the less I have to pack and clean and think about and the more I can think about the history. This iteration of “What the heck can I quit?” was prompted by reports of a conversation with someone I respect, which caused me to rethink what we were hauling along and how I could change it.

The Box of Doom with the Pitcher of Inaccuracy

The Box of Doom with the Pitcher of Inaccuracy

We have stripped away most of what we used to bring for the comfort of the kid; as he has grown up, he’s needed less to feel comfortable and “at home.” We traded ground pads for bed sacks* very quickly, and we never had any iron to begin with. I’ve tried to keep within seasonal and historical cooking guidelines, but the largest hurdle and heaviest literal burden is the wooden cooler box.

Feeding the Young Mr is a tricky thing: he likes what he likes, and he likes a lot of it. What he likes are carrots, apples, and meat. There’s some swapping that can be done with seasonal fruit, but the largest hurdle is meat: if I can scrap fresh, needs-to-be-kept-cool meat, I can leave the cooler box at home. (At this moment, several gentlemen are suddenly feeling empty inside, with a taste of ash in their mouths. Dirt stew, boys: it’s coming.)

No iron, but what goes into the kettle?

I had gotten about as far as pease porridge when, in a completely costuming context, I came across links to The Sewing Academy.

The squeamish and childless may writhe at the handouts on dealing with nursing babies, hygiene, and winter clothes for children, but these Civil War resources have utility for all of us trying to be more accurate in our portrayals of the past.

I had not thought about packing frozen meat and storing it underground, and though I like the idea very much, it will not suit in cases where digging is forbidden. But it is certainly a way around the cooler box, and one I’m willing to entertain. (Check “No Refrigeration Required.”) “The Progressive Questions” help sketch out a responses to a variety of situations.

“Quoth the Mavens” contains this excellent definition: A truly progressive mind-set tries to figure out the logic of what was indeed used, rather than rationalizing modern logic into a period situation.

There’s nothing more to add to that pithy statement, but a renewed sense of dedication to accuracy and “less is more” thinking.

*As accurate as my attitude would be after resting arthritic bones on the ground, no one really needs to experience that. Call it a safety measure.

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Authenticity Measur’d in Moments

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Events, Fail, History, Living History, Philosophy, Reenacting

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

authenticity, historic houses, history, living history, military events

Chopping wood: it takes  a lot to cook and to keep warm in 1799

Chopping wood: it takes a lot to cook and to keep warm in 1799

In the post-What Cheer Day aftermath, when I was very tired and two houses were very messed up, I started thinking about why I bothered with living history. What exactly is this thing, and why I do it? Those questions made me think about the very best moments I have had in this business of re-creating the past in cloth and smoke and time.

In no particular order:

1. Going up to the field at Coggeshall Farm to call the boys down to dinner after spending all day in the kitchen. I was desperate to get out, and finally knew first hand how limited women’s lives could be in the 18th century, especially non-elite women.

2. Running upstairs at the John Brown House with Eliza, giggling over a joke to be played on Mr Mason. I don’t know what Mr C thought of it but I felt twelve years old, silly, carefree and light. John Brown’s housekeeper surely never felt that way, but a naughty maid might have, and for an instant I knew what it was to have no responsibilities.

We didn’t even notice the background at the time

3. Chasing the Young Mr, a wayward apprentice, across the street; mobbing Mr Howard’s house; and arguing with the Stamp Inspector, all during the Stamp Act Protest in Newport It was not until I looked at the photos that I realized we really had been in front of a theatre, and that there were actual cars! A friend confirms that he, too, forgot about the cars, to the point of nearly being hit whilst running to Mr Howard’s house.

4. Assembling with a group of friends to take tea with Mrs Silsbee in Salem, sorting ourselves into a group on the sidewalk and venturing out, only to meet Mrs Silsbee on the street. That is the most Jane Austen/Mrs Gaskell I have ever felt. The wretched cobblestones do not count, as they were from the 20th century, but walking out on the wharf, and meeting a friend who brought an umbrella as the rain began was also very Austen-esque.

Perhaps more Gaskell than Austen, here

Perhaps more Gaskell than Austen, here

None of these are military events, and the majority of them happened this year, in past three months. I think this may be because we have been to fewer military events, and I expect the concentration is due, in part, to finally getting better at this practice. They are also site-specific, and trending toward first-person interpretation.

Coats

Those coats.

For reasons explained better by the NPS and in the excellent study of NPS-Reenactor relationships, no battle reenactment can ever capture the truth of the war it attempts to recreate, and that is true even when the battle takes place on the same site, at the same time of year, and even when soldiers are dressed in as-close-as-possible replicas of the uniforms worn at that battle, on that field, on that date, 236 years earlier, and no one has brought a spinning wheel or tent chandelier to camp.

I respect the notions of moveable monuments and performances as commemoration. I like military history, I like war memorials: there is not a competition between civilian and military reenactments. But military events have not yet had the power to transcend experience for me.

My best guess as to why military events are not transformative for me is that, to this point, the business remains too much like camping in funny clothes. As I experiment more with 18th century methods of cooking appropriate rations, and as I strip away the gear we carry into the field, the military events are better (as at Bennington). But I already know how limited women’s perspectives could be (see item 1), and while Bennington was instructive in how ridiculously different the experiences of men and women could be, the military events remain more instructive experiences for the men.

18th century camp

Domesticity in the Field

Why? Because the specificity of site plays out at those events in the battle, and not in the camp. The point at Bennington and at Saratoga and at Stony Point was to use the site as it had been used. The men experienced the landscape in ways as close as possible to what soldiers and militia had actually seen. And women stayed in camp and got smoke in their eyes, cut up vegetables, or washed clothes, which is pretty much what happens at any outdoor event where we can have a fire and, with differences in technology, is pretty much what I do when I get home from work every day.

All that leaves me wondering what to make of military events, and what I want to do in the coming year. No matter how much of this is “for the public,” it still has to be rewarding for the practitioner.

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