Tag Archives: women’s work

Petty is as Petty Does

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Events, History, Living History, Reenacting

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

It was a simple set up: two barrels, a board, my frail, and me. (I could really use a wheelbarrow, and a rain deck. At least the rain deck is something I can make myself.) But this was more than adequate to sell luxury goods (rum, whiskey, radishes, and ginger candy) to the soldiers at Fort Dobbs.

I didn’t think it was hot– which may be thanks to that nifty new checked linen shade bonnet– but it was. Have I forgotten how to take care of myself outdoors in warm weather? Perhaps because I’ve spent so much more time lately on winter events, I’ve let the “drink all the water” mantra slide. It’s clearly time to revive the summer skills, with Monmouth not all that far away.

Making an Impression

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in History, Living History, Reenacting, Research

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Trade card for Dorothy Mercier, Printseller and Stationer; Etching with engraved lettering below. Print by Jean Baptiste Chatelain after Gravelot. 1745-1770. British Museum, D,2.3396

Dorothy Mercier: widow of an artist (and a painter herself), Mercier went into business after the death of her husband, Philip, first as a printseller and stationer, and later as a purveyor of artists’ supplies. Some of what she sold is listed below the vignette of a shop, and includes ‘all Sorts of Papers for Drawing, &c./ The best Black Lead Pencils, Black, Red & White Chalk./ Variety of Water-Colours, and Camels Hair Pencils./…English, Dutch, & French Drawing Paper, Abortive Vellum for Drawing,/ Writing Vellum, the Silk Paper for Drawing.’ She also sold “Continental prints” and “paintings of flowers in her own hand,” a pursuit considered suitable for ladies in the mid-18th century.

Evidence of widows taking over a husband’s print shop in the American colonies in the 18th century is harder to come by–there seems to be less specialization of retail sales in the colonies, certainly compared to London, which is one factor–though printers’ widows did assume their trade in Newport and Williamsburg, among other places. If we imagine a print shop in the colonies, what would we find for sale?

Nicholas Brooks’ ad from the Pennsylvania Packet of June 21, 1773 provides an answer:

Mrs. Yates in the character of Electra; Venus blinding Cupid by Strange (that’s a print by Robert Strange after Titian, no matter what glorious oddity you may imagine), and portraits of George Whitefield, John Wesley, and other religious luminaries. Whitefield and Wesley were popular Methodist ministers: Whitefield, the peripatetic evangelist, was the primary force behind the Great Awakening, and Wesley, despite his loyalty to King and Church, was an inspiration to the Revolutionary movement in America.

John Wesley after Nathaniel Hone
mezzotint, published 1770
© National Portrait Gallery, London NPG D4740

This print of Wesley is one I have seen in person, in a period frame, with a period backboard inscribed “Capt. Wm Noyes 1st Conts” and to be fair, it is one I have spent some time researching, so the titles in that Nicholas Brooks ad– which I was reading for another purpose altogether– were exciting to find. When I think about visual or print culture in the Revolutionary era, I try to imagine the ways in which people encountered imagery, and how they understood it. Wesley– and print shops– are one way I begin to fill in a picture of the past.

The Work of Women

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in History, Research

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

International Women’s Day: I may have missed it online but I have spent this day– this entire week, in fact– working with a woman I greatly admire and like. I’ve written about her before, my 96-year-old friend who was in the OSS and married a man who had fought for Chiang Kai-shek in World War II and against the Communists after the war.

It has been a week of learning about my friend, her mother, her aunts and great aunts and grandmothers; of learning about her daughters (and son), and her friends and the work she did.

Tuesday night, we had dinner with one of her friends who lives in a little red house not far from where I lived before I left Rhode Island. The Little Red House, as we always call it, was cozy and warm, built in 1793 when the East Side of Providene was rural, and the north end of it occupied by the Dexters, Morrises, Sessions and Coles on their farms.

The parlor was small, and the five of us filled it (along with a silver standard poodle who shook hands with us all). We ate in what had been the kitchen of the house, with a fire in the fireplace that had been used for cooking (and was still set up for cooking, though that was not where our meal was cooked). We ate from antique transferware, drank wine poured from antique decanters, and sat on antique chairs at an antique table in a room lit by candles. I would be lying if I tried to deny the warm magic of the setting, the scene, and the storytelling.

But the point is not that I had a wonderful time: the point is that I learned that night, and this week, about the ways that women look out for each other (when they’re not competing with each other), and the ways that women shepherd the history of families and places as they maintain collections of furniture, textiles, paintings, and prints.

As I held my friend’s hand and lit her way with my phone flashlight down a stone path to a waiting Subaru, I might as well have been holding a lantern and guiding her down a path to a waiting carriage, where wooden and tin footwarmers would replace a heater and blower motor. Some things are timeless and placeless: friendship, love, and caring. The need (the aspiration) to always care for the people around you, to be gentle and giving when you can, and to take and ask for help when you must: Those “feminine” values are what makes the world go ‘round, and keeps it steady.

Compare and Contrast

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Reenacting

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

2016’s 1770
2018’s 1770

Boston Massacre planning is underway for everyone involved at every level, including me.

I’ve made changes to what I plan to wear, in part because I have a newer gown that fits better and keeps me warmer, and because I have learned more, and looked at more, in the intervening time. Since 2016, I’ve made/upgraded a quilted petticoat (in a bronze silk, a color documented to Rhode Island quilted ‘coats), settled in to wearing my cap tied under my chin, and made both a new apron and a new bonnet.

2017’s 1777
2018’s 1770

Cap and bonnet shape and shoes help make time period distinctions between 1777 and 1770; if I could find the wool I made the gown from, I would add the cuffs it desperately needs. The heeled shoes skew earlier than 1770, but they are the only heeled shoes I have….if the weather is wretched, I will wear the flats for safety and comfort.

2016’s Bonnet
2018’s Bonnet

The bonnet, which I affectionately call “Lampshade,” is meant to have the shape of pre-1770 bonnets as seen in Sandby’s illustrations, and which I have been working on for a while.

Martha Collins, Thomas Sandby’s Cook. watercolor on paper by Paul Sandby, 1770-1780. RCIN 914339

I know from reading the standards that the understanding of mitt material has evolved, and my time this morning looking for an elusive apron shape raises questions for me as well. Here’s Martha Collins, painted by Paul Sandby. What’s that black thing on her arm? A mitt? An arm warmer? Is it knit, or woven? There’s always more to figure out, and more to make.

Cuffs on my gown don’t seem like a big enough deal to warrant buying wool for a whole new gown (with only six weeks to go), so my choices are live with no cuffs, alter the red gown of 2016’s event to fit properly, or initiate an extensive search for the scraps left over from the green gown…which may or may not be buried in storage. Tick tock.

History Hurts

23 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by in Clothing, Fail, History, Living History, Making Things, personal

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

We have been here before: terrible stays, stays in need of minor mods, and “it isn’t history till it hurts.” New this past weekend was the Busk Bust Blister (Bursting) which didn’t make History hurt, but sure did bring a sting to the wind-down afterwards.

 

Insides!
I was determined, and now they are bound.

These new stays are, so far, the best I’ve ever had and well worth the blood, sweat and swears it took to make them. Gowns do seem to fit better over these stays; they held up well at muggy Monmouth and in polar Princeton, but the last two rounds at Ti left me feeling like I’d taken a hoof to the ribs.

What gives, kidneys? At least this time I made it past Fort Ann and all the way into a private room in Glens Falls before I had to free the sisters and release the lower back.

IMG_7298

But this time, there was a bonus: the previously indicated Bust Blister. On the left side (I’m right handed), I developed a fairly robust .25” x .125” blister that crowned the top of a nearly 2” red mark, mirrored on the right by a less red and slightly less long mark. The culprit?

The Busk of Doom, of course.

 

dscn4568

Strictly speaking, I should not sport a busk when I desport as Captain Delaplace’s serving woman, or as a refugee cooking up the last of the bread, eggs, and milk. I’ve earned these marks and (potential) future scars by dressing above my station, and need to adjust accordingly.

Step one: Rounding down the busk edges (now in the capable hands of Drunk Tailor).
Step two: Foregoing the busk when working.
Step three: Wearing partially-boned stays when working.

Two is the easiest; three is the hardest. Which do you think I am, therefore, actually contemplating as a necessary next step?

But of Course: Step Three, Pathway to Finger Cracks and Stained Stays.

d'oh! surgical tape made this *much* better later.

d’oh! surgical tape made this *much* better later.

Fortunately I have people close to me who will ensure that I work through steps One and Two before embarking upon step Three, but I certainly want to know more about (and will look much more closely at images of) working women in the third quarter of the 18th century. My suspicion is that women who are performing labor that requires movement– up and down before a fire, back and forth across a floor, bending over a tub– may not be wearing stays made in exactly the way high style stays are made for ladies who bend over an embroidery hoop, glide back and forth across a ballroom floor, or move up and down the stairs of a well-built home they supervise.

Or my busk pocket is too big, my busk edges too square, and my actions too fast and continuous.

Paul Sandby. At Sandpit Gate circa 1752 Pencil, pen and ink and watercolor. RCIN 914329

Paul Sandby. At Sandpit Gate circa 1752
Pencil, pen and ink and watercolor. RCIN 914329

What are these women wearing? They certainly look fully boned. What can I change to make my stays work better for working? No matter what, where there are variables, there are experiments to run, and that’s what really makes history fun (even when it hurts).

Now Left

13 Sunday Nov 2016

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

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.

Shine On

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in Events, Living History, Research

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

dscn4553

It has been quite busy chez Calash, with What Cheer Day a little over a week away, the Warren Commission happening tomorrow, and various and sundry other things to do, like get a Young Giant into college. But results were promised and results you shall have.

Despite my lack of chemistry knowledge, I made and used the pewter-cleaning liquor with some success.

The pewter plate spent some time sitting on its edge in a basin of the liquor, and the line is pretty clearly visible in the first image. The second shows the plate after being cleaned with the liquor and a wool rag. It’s better than it was, but there are still more experiments to do. I’d apply rottenstone, but the container hasn’t made it back to New England yet, the posts being poor and the roads infernal.

As the silver bowl demonstrates, rottenstone on its own is remarkably effective at removing polish. It is certainly a fairly readily-available, non-toxic, period method of cleaning metals (andirons and fenders to plates and punch bowls) that can be easil;y employed.

Would I Lye to You?

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by in History, Living History, Making Things, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Now, really, would I lye to you?

img_7993Some people will tell you I overextend myself, and while those people may be correct, my enthusiasms compel me to do more, try more, travel more, and to that end I found myself preparing for an event by turning my 1962 Ossining kitchen into an experimental laboratory.

I was taken by Hannah Glasse’s receipt for cleaning pewter, copper, and tin in her section for The Scullion, so of course I had to try it. It’s simple enough: boil wood ash with unslaked lime for half an hour, let cool, and pour off the clear liquid. Easy-peasy, until you realize you have forgotten your high school chemistry, the Young Giant is not at home, and google searches for lime turn up too wholesome uses and unsavory quantities.

Happily, a more scientific brain than my own pointed out potash/pearl ash/potassium carbonate, which Amazon can provide in small quantities. Wood ash proved a little more challenging. Happily for me, I am one of those East Coast foodie fools with a backyard grill and a fondness for hardwood charcoal, so an overdue chore later, I had an enamel kettle of ash.

I did do a little sifting
to end up with finer ash

The receipt calls for “a pail” of wood ash to a “half- pail” unslak’d lime, boiled in four pails of soft water. Since “pails” is a general sort of term, I decided to use the quantity of wood ash I scavenged as the approximate measure of a pail, figuring that proportions mattered more than actual grams or liters. I have resigned myself to the fact that this is more art than science. Four pails of soft water included the remains of a few gallons of water stockpiled for hurricane preparedness years ago, bolstered with water from the tap.

Pail, schmail.

Pail, schmail.

Fortunately, art did not turn into science gone wrong. The boiling was rather placid, considering, and dissolved the fine ash and the potash. I filtered the liquid mixture through a screen (ok, the spatter screen for my frying pan) to ensure that when I poured off the clear, it would be as clear as possible.

Boiling. Not to stinky
sacrificed to a good cause

By the time it had cooled, I had fished out appropriate containers into which I could “pour off the clear.” This recipe, seat-of-the-pants as it is, makes a fair quantity, a mason jar of which I have left with the Drunk Tailor so that he might better clean his officer’s pewter and copper, because, yes! This does work to brighten silver and copper. Tune in next time for details on getting shiny.

Front and a center: A liquor for cleaning pewter, etc.

Front and a center: A liquor for cleaning pewter, etc.