Tag Archives: women’s work

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.

Maintain an Even Strain

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Art Rant, Events, History, Living History, personal

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

IMG_6471

Dude: I am conflicted. There are folks out there doing excellent work, but after reading some recent posts around the interwebs, I kept thinking, “Stockholm Syndrome much?”

I’m as much of a narcissist as the next person, and I think I recognize some of the folks being called out in various places for being critical of women’s roles in living history events. So, organize my own events? Come up with my own things to do?

Cool: challenge accepted.

I am, in fact, throwing down for the pleasure and pain of running a farm in late June. No, I didn’t organize it, but I was asked to take on a challenge and I have accepted, roping my favorite tailor into the effort as well. It’ll mean a bunch of studying, but in a pinch, I can always clean the house. We can rake, make refugees stay in the yard, and try as hard as we can to keep Quakers from putting radical ideas in the slaves’ heads. I think it will be hard, unpleasant, and uncomfortable—and that’s what I don’t like about the suggestions in the otherwise honestly well-intended and meant-to-inspire posts.

Playing at Quadrille. Oil on canvas by Francis Hayman. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

Playing at Quadrille. Oil on canvas by Francis Hayman. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery

They’re so nice. They reinforce women’s subordinate roles in the past and present. Children’s activities? I might die, really, I might. If that’s your bag, go for it, please! We need it. It’s simply not something I can do.

No more can I talk about What People Wore. It’s not that I don’t care (y’all know I do) but that I want to move past the surface.

It’s not enough just to look great.

The Heir: Tom Finds New Wealth. William Hogarth.

The Heir: Tom Finds New Wealth. William Hogarth.

Dive deep: find the dirt. Find the hard stuff. You don’t have to be nice. That’s my personal problem with what I’ve been reading: between the lines I keep hearing a voice suggesting that we be nice girls, that we simmer down. No, I’m sorry. I can’t. Reader, if you can, go for it.

But if you can’t, I want to tell you: Keep pushing. Keep asking. Keep speaking up. Challenge the status quo. Our Girl History did a great post on Well Behaved Women, and I fully support the work people are doing to represent the Well Behaved and the marginalized (shout out to the veteran with the knife-grinding cart: well imagined, sir!).

Russell, John; The Blind Beggar and His Granddaughter; The Bowes Museum;

John Russell. The Blind Beggar and His Granddaughter, oil on canvas, 18th century. The Bowes Museum UK.

Bring it. Bring the ordinary.

But if you can’t be ordinary or run the children’s games or be subservient or show how women dressed, that’s okay. For the love of god, someone, be desperate.

Be hungry, be angry, be resentful, be religious.

Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to speak your mind.

Mopping Up Action

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

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

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Photo by Asher Lurie

Photo by Asher Lurie

This past weekend, I took my show on the road down 95 to Trenton’s Old Barracks Museum, where once again, soldiers’ rooms needed cleaning. Hannah Glasse exhorts servants (housemaids and housekeepers) to clean household rooms daily, and I can tell you this: if you’re cleaning 18th century spaces using period techniques, daily is the way to go.

Unpaved streets and sidewalks meant people tracked significantly more mud and grit indoors, and soldiers would have brought the parade ground indoors every time they crossed a threshold. Not a pretty thing– and then there’s the straw mattresses (to be changed monthly at a minimum), wool uniforms, skin, hair, and vermin that could accumulate as well. Filth: a major contribution to ill health if not managed properly.

DSC_0348

Brandy-new broom sweeps clean. Photo by Drunk Tailor

Being possessed of a particularly detail-oriented mind, I went in search of a more 18th-century correct broom at an affordable price and found a broom enthusiast on Etsy who agreed to make and priority mail custom brooms just in time for the trip to New Jersey. On the whole, I’m very pleased with these. They make a satisfying sound as they move across the floor, and draw a fair quantity of dirt. Turns out that strewing wet sand on the floor before you sweep is remarkably effective and absolutely the way to go. The damp sand keeps the dust down and is swept out the door with the filth without harming the floor.

Mop making: surprisingly contemplative.

Mop making: surprisingly contemplative. Photo by Drunk Tailor

After sweeping, mopping. Once again, I used the lavender-infused vinegar in the mop water (though I forgot to strain the solution this time). The mixture has a unique but not unpleasant smell, and as the floors dry, the room retains the odor, a sure indication of cleanliness.

This weekend was also the first run for a new wool scrap mop, which was proven the best mop yet. Many thanks to my secret source for the contribution to the effort. It’s clear that mops could easily have been made by binding rag strips to pole handles, and whether made by poor house inmates or soldiers, mop making is cheap, low-tech busy work.

Women’s Work

04 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in History, Living History

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

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.

The Dirt on Ti

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

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

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

On the road in: dirt.

Seen on the way in to Fort Ti: dirt. (Kitty Calash photo)

The dirt on Fort Ti came home on my shoes. And my petticoats. And my gown. And possibly my face, which could explain the reactions I got when I stopped for gas on the Pike Saturday evening.

It’s incredible how how dirty, dusty, and straw-filled a room can get– and that’s just the officer’s room. For all I know, a horse had been sleeping in the back corner of the barracks room we cleaned– who else would leave so much straw?

Regular readers know I have a thing about portraying women’s work in the past, as well as historical cleaning methods and what I like to call “experimental archaeology” and other people call “that crazy hobby- thing- where you get cold and dirty.” We started with mop making, of course, and when I loaded the car on Friday morning, I was pretty well pleased with my swag.

So, what happened? How did it go? What did we do? Our Girl History provides a descriptive photo essay overview of the day. My experiences were more limited, as befits someone of my status: officer’s servant.

Every good experience begins with a meal. Friday night supper included bread, cheese, pork loin and apple, imported from Rhode Island. Yes, I also helped myself to bacon, to ensure none was wasted. Bedtime for officers’ servants comes early: I’m not a stranger to rope beds, but found this straw tick far more comfortable than a previous arrangement elsewhere. 

After formation, to tasks. I was ably assisted by Miss Sam, who was a better height for the brooms than I. The brooms are speculative on the one hand, and later on the other. The corn broom was markedly more effective than the broom straw, which disintegrated with use, though not for lack of care in making. We were up against some serious accumulation.

IMG_6361

Housekeeping and servants manuals from the period, like Hannah Glasse, tell you the cleaning must be done every day. It’s certainly something I heard within my own lifetime, though an ideal I continually struggle to achieve despite the advances of Mr Kenmore. The general rule is to begin at the top and work your way down: gravity is, at last, your friend. I use brushes– a large, soft round paint brush and a stiffer circular whisk– to remove dust and dirt from upper surfaces, and cobwebs from corners, and other wall-borne detritus. Gentlefolk: your cleaning ladies know much about you in any century.

After sweeping (yes, into the fireplace or out the door, it’s that simple), scrubbing. I scrubbed the baseboards first with vinegar and water (the vinegar infused with lavender for several years). Filth, my friends. Then we mopped. Again, filth.

IMG_6363

I would have preferred to do another dust collection on the floor– the water did pool a bit on the dry dust that remained, but swabbing seemed to work and I believe we left the floor cleaner than it had been. The three mops we tested (wool, cotton, and linen strips) each had benefits and deficits.

The cotton and wool caught on the rough floor boards, but did a good job spreading water around the floor and lifting dirt. The linen strips were better at not catching and at scrubbing.

No matter what, the water got filthy and took on the look and nearly the consistency of the chocolate we drank that day. Remember the iron museum rule: don’t lick it! That rule applies everywhere.

IMG_6364

Everyone and everything got cleaned Saturday. Miss V broached the laundry with vigor, but discovered that possibly untoward things had been done in her laundry tub. Things that might involve shoes, and blacking. Marks were left on shifts and shirts, so even the wash tub got a scrub this garrison weekend.

Some of the best comments came after the fact: I’ve never heard cleaning called “one of the coolest things” seen all day, but when someone says it helps them see a space in an entirely new way, I’m incredibly happy. There’s so much about the everyday use– and maintenance– of space and objects and each other that we take for granted in our own lives. Surely the people of the past who had servants took all that work for granted.

But for me, enamored as I am of details and of the quotidian, transforming a space through the everyday work of women is a job with doing. Thanks to Fort Ti’s staff for giving me the chance to step back in time and enjoy (really, I mean it) a day of hard work bringing the mundane back to life.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Eliza West, courtesy of  Fort Ticonderoga.