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Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: Newport Historical Society

An Afternoon in N’port

15 Sunday Feb 2015

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

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#WalkNPT, 1820s, 19th century, 19th century clothing, common people, Costume, dress, Events, Kitty Smith, living history, millinery shop, Nathaniel Sweet, Newport, Newport Historical Society, Rhode Island history, Whitehorne House

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New coat!

I set off for Newport yesterday to spend the day at Whitehorne House with Sew 18th Century. I was pleased to have my coat, and pleased as well to see the ads for “lead colored pelisse cloths” at Nathaniel Sweet’s shop at 112 Cheapside in N’port. Everything fits better when you have some documentation.

We occupied the kitchen at Whitehorne House, interpreting the lives of mythical maids and cousins Eliza and Kitty Smith.

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The Whitehorne Kitchen

We hope to save enough to reopen our millinery shop, which flourished once in Salem just a few years ago. Times are hard in Newport, but there are some promising lotteries–a $10,000 prize in the Kennebec Bridge lottery and an incredible $25,000 prize in the New York Literature Lottery! We will have to save our wages to buy even one ticket– difficult to do with so many tempting’ wares in the shop–but the rewards would well worth our efforts.

A shop on Thames Street is to let not far from the Great Friends Meeting House. We think ’tis a fine location, for while Friends may be plain, they are well dress’d. One of our visitors offered to spread the rumor that the shop is haunted, so no one else will rent it, but I worry that such a tale might drive off custom.

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Gingerbread, bread-and-cheese and apples form’d our repast

Visitors called from as far away as New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, but found Mr Whitehorne at the Coffee House and Mrs Whitehorne out makin’ calls. As prominent citizens, they are busy about the town. Mrs Whitehorne is well-known for her receipts, and we were pleased to offer callers a sample of her fruited gingerbread. Indeed, ’tis delicious, though not as sticky as the late Mr S preferred.

Some visitors thought our plan to invest in woolen mills was a fine idea, and in addition to the mills on the island (there is one in Portsmouth), we hear there are several in Hartford. Providence has not the monopoly on industry she imagines.

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There is much washin’ and mendin’

The laundry does pile up in a household of seven children, and since we have run out of wood, I suspect the laundress has as well. The island is short of lumber now, and wood must come from Swansea. Still, there is always mending’ to be done.

Perhaps if we had known how many visitors would call, I might have taken more care in tidyin’ up the kitchen. ‘Twas a surprise to see so many, from so far away, but we do think N’port is due for a revival. ‘Tis a busier day of visitin’ than I was accustomed to in winter at the farm on Poppasquash Neck, but with Mr Smith now dead, and our lad on a brig in the coastal trade, we could not keep the lease. I am grateful to my cousin for helpin’ me find work in such a lovely house.

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Winter Workshops

05 Friday Dec 2014

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

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Tags

18th century clothes, 18th century clothing, 19th century clothing, common dress, Costume, Events, Henry Cooke, interpretation, living history, Newport Historical Society, resources, Rhode Island Historical Society, Stamp Act Protest, What Cheer Day

Interior of a Tailor's Shop, Museum of London

Interior of a Tailor’s Shop, Museum of London

Come sew with me! Well, you’ll be sewing with Henry Cooke, but I’ll be there, too.

Check the Newport Historical Society’s website for more information about workshops and conversations this winter designed to for anyone with an interest in early American history who wants to expand their understanding of material culture interpretation.

 

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Malaise or Ennui?

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Events, Fail, Living History, Making Things, Philosophy, Reenacting

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

19th century, 19th century clothing, authenticity, Clothing, common dress, Costume, Events, fashion, history, interpretation, Newport, Newport Historical Society, Quaker, Quakers, Rhode Island, Rhode Island history, style

image Hard to say which, but I am ill at ease and dissatisfied with my costuming. You might even call it bratty. But I don’t wanna be like Bridget Connor!

It started the week of the Stamp Act protest, when I felt quite tired of being the shabby, unrefined woman of the regiment and street vendor, and wanted a nice cozy shop like the milliner had. I was also looking forward to being a housekeeper again, and several weeks of moving boxes and volumes with red rot at work had me feeling generally filthy and unappreciated. Bratty.

When in doubt, sew. A new dress can’t help but cheer you up, right?

Well… sort of…

Last Thursday, we did a reprise of the Williams family letters program at the Newport Historical Society. The Williams family were Quakers, and the letters were from the early part of the 19th century, so for the program in March, I made a green silk cross-front gown based on the Quaker gown in the back of Costume in Detail. (Check out the schematic on the 19thus.come page; I didn’t see this until I was mostly done with the dress, but thank goodness I got it right!)

But it’s September, and Thursday was expected to be quite warm, so I salved my bureaucratic wounds in the $1.99 loft at the local mill store, and made a new Quaker gown, also suitable for a maid.

I ask you! Even though it’s my very own pattern based on sketches of original drawings, even though it fits, even though it cost $10, even though every seam is overcast and the whole thing is made with period correct stitches, it still fails to make me happy and cheerful and delighted.

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This brattiness has resulted in a reappraisal of my approach– and a trip to Sewfisticated in Framingham. What did I buy there? Yards and yards of pink taffeta? Gold taffeta? Blue taffeta?

No.

Because they didn’t have the right colors in the right weave– too slubby– or in enough yardage. Brace yourselves: I bought brown.

Many thanks to Sew 18th Century for taking the photos!

Many thanks to Sew 18th Century for taking the photos!

It appears I do not learn from my mistakes. When I think, “Gee, I’d like a pretty dress,” I end up buying fabric based on the texture as much as the color, and I have to tell you, that brown taffeta has the most wonderful l hand and sheen, and I will look much more like a Copley portrait than I ever have before, so that’s something.

It seems I have created a set of mental rules for myself, a mission, if you will, for the historic clothing I sew and the roles I take on, and I only play within those rules.

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Friends in Newport

28 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by kittycalash in Events, History, Living History

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Tags

19th century, 19th century clothing, Newport, Newport Historical Society, Quaker dress, Quakers

Costumed interpreters as 19th century Quakers

Interpreters at Newport Historical Society, February 2014. Photo courtesy Newport Historical Society staff

I’m so glad I have friends in Newport. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get over to the Island nearly as often as I do now.

Next Thursday, I’ll be joining friends in Newport next week for a program based on letters in the Newport Historical Society’s collection.  This program will be much like the one I was part of earlier this year, but open to the public.

The letters are really interesting and entertaining, providing a window into Newport history that I know you cannot hear anywhere else.

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The Stamp Act Protest of 2014

25 Monday Aug 2014

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

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

18th century, Colony House, common people, living history, Newport, Newport Historical Society, Rhode Island, Rhode Island history, Stamp Act Protest, Washington Square

Last Saturday, we stepped back in time to 1765 in Newport. I know: Newport always seems to be in a different time than gritty Providence, but this trip was truly different.

On the Colony House steps

On the Colony House steps

We were headed across the Bay for a Stamp Act Protest (no rioting, per police request). In this effort, we joined a large group of recruits from New England and even beyond, to fill Washington Square and other sites in the city.

18th century sailors prepare to sew a sail

Preparing the ‘sails’ for stitching. I never really noticed the cars till I saw the photos!

Stationed around the square were sailors mending or making a sail*, an apprentice-less printer, a sleepy apprentice boy, a tailor and his journeyman, a milliner, and leading citizens, one of whom was kind enough to read the newspaper to the apple seller, who wonders what has become of her son.

You must be very careful indeed around the sailors!

Up the street, some very fine ladies were having tea. Their refinement was evident in their appearance and dress, as well as in the elegant setting of their tables. They wanted none of my apples, as they had imported citrus fruits, far better than the apples the island’s trees produce. (Wasted on tea, truly: what one wants to do with a lemon is to find some rum and make a punch.)

18th century tea party in Newport

The Ladies’ Tea

Ladies at a tea table

Seated for tea

Mr Robinson marches forth

The news was very bad, and tempers flared in the square. Mistress Ellery told me that dinner parties had become impossible to hold: parties nearly come to blows over discussions of taxes, customs, stamps, and the oppressive policies of Mr Robinson, who insists on enforcing the very letter and penny of the law. (He was quite insulting on the quality of my apples, indeed, spitting one upon me even as he continued to eat it!)

The apprentice boy had charge of the effigy; the tailor sewed on.

As the afternoon wore on, the debate grew more intense and the crowd more heated. And effigy of Mr Howard was made, paraded, and hung, and then the crowd of protesters dispersed to the White Horse Tavern.

18th century men at the White Horse Tavern in Newport

Fortified!

Tensions seemed to dissipate, though when the runner came, the protesters– now fortified with ale, porter and cider–ran down the street to “plunder” Mr Howard’s house, played here by the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House.

18th century people at Want-Lyman-Hazard House

Ignoring the mistress of the house, protesters dashed to the back.

Although the mistress of the house tried to reason with them, the crowd would not be dissuaded, convinced of their mission (and perhaps more fortified than you would expect after just one glass). They carried their loot to the front of the Colony House, and heaped it up, glorying in their success.

The goods!

More goods!

In the end, the house was not looted, tensions were dissipated, and the protesters dispersed into the afternoon. We were well-rewarded with cheese and ale at the Colony House, and enjoyed discussing the events of 1765 and 2014 with the public and Newport Historical Society staff members.

*Yes, Virginia, they do look like tents. That’s because they are tents. Someday, Light Infantry soldiers will sleep beneath that canvas. But for now, keep stitching!

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