Recreating (and Wearing) a Pair of 18thc Pattens

Susan reporting,

Writing about the past is an ever-changing (and ever-exciting) challenge, and research is one of my absolute favorite parts of the process. I'm always eager to read or hear of new discoveries or fresh perspectives on old ideas, and I never know what may inspire a new character or plot twist.

All of which has brought me back to pattens, a kind of 18thc under-shoe raised up on a metal ring. I've already written a post about them here on the blog.

But while on a recent visit with some of my friends in the Historic Trades program in Colonial Williamsburg, I've come to realize that the subject of pattens is much more complicated.

Fragments of c1770s pattens with a wave-like base, or ring, were discovered in several archaeological digs in Williamsburg, Virginia, and inspired a project at Colonial Williamsburg to recreate them. While pattens would have been the specialized work of a professional patten-maker in 18thc England, in 21stc Colonial Williamsburg they required the skills of several different tradespeople.

Aislinn Lewis, journeywoman blacksmith, made the wavy rings and hardware that held the ring and straps to the sole, and completed the final assembly. Jay Howlett, journeyman artificer and leatherworker, made the leather straps and leather laces. Paul Zelesnikar, journeyman wheelwright, carved the wooden soles from ash. Jenny Lynn, apprentice tinsmith, has worn the finished pattens as part of CW programming. All of them contributed historical research and construction suggestions.

While the fragments were clearly worn in colonial Virginia, no documentation has yet been found to prove that pattens were being made or even sold in the colony at that time. It's probable that the pattens were imported from England, and possibly considered such mundane objects that they weren't listed for sale in newspaper advertisements.

The replica pattens are based not only on the fragments, but also on other, more complete examples that survive in other museum collections. Pattens were inexpensive, workaday footwear that likely didn't have a long life. The flat wooden soles were carved to fit beneath the wearer's shoes, and were held in place by a leather strap that tied across the instep. The metal ring raised the wearer about an inch above the muck of 18thc life, protecting her shoes.

But as Jenny Lynn actually wore the pattens, she discovered a number of things that scholars hadn't realized. First of all, walking in pattens is an acquired skill. Jenny likens it to walking in high-heeled mules. Because there's no back-strap, the wearer's weight must push forward onto the ball of the foot, or she'll walk right out of the soles. An 18thc woman who wore pattens regularly would have been familiar with how best to walk in them, but a certain amount of shuffling must have been unavoidable.

While the assumption has always been that pattens were worn on the notoriously unclean 18thc city streets, Jenny found that this kind of patten would be almost impossible to wear on cobblestone streets, where the rings would slip and tip and lead to sprained ankles and falls. They seem much better suited to the softer surfaces of a more rural life, like an unpaved path or street. Jenny found they work particularly well in mud or wet grass, though if worn by a wealthier woman than a lowly apprentice (sorry, Jenny), the pattens also probably served for making a short journey from a house to a waiting carriage.

The photos here show Jenny (in the blue petticoat) and Aislinn (in the red petticoat) holding the various components to the pattens, as well as close-ups of the soles and rings, and the pattens both on and off the foot. Perhaps my favorite photo is lower right, with the distinctive marks left by the patten-rings mingling with the modern sneaker-treads of CW visitors. The video, below, shows Jenny walking in them.

Many thanks to Jenny Lynn and Aislinn Lewis for their assistance with this post!

All photographs ©2018 by Susan Holloway Scott.

From the Archives: A Beautiful (and Romantic) 18th c. Man's Shirt

Susan reporting,

Today I'm reposting one of the breathtaking examples of needlework from The Diligent Needle: Instrument of Profit, Pleasure, & Ornament, a 2014 exhibition at Winterthur Museum. 

Hung against a dark wall, this 18th c. man's linen shirt was almost sculptural in its pristine perfection. I've written other posts about similar shirts here and here, so I won't repeat how they're made, how often they're laundered, or who wore them.

So why write about another one here (except, of course, because it's so stunningly beautiful)? While most men of every class purchased shirts made by tailors (remember that at this time, the primary cost of any garment lay in the fabric, not the labor), shirts were one of the few garments that wives and mothers could, and did, make at home. The economical geometry of 18th c. shirts made them comparatively easy to cut out and sew, and the voluminous shape did away with any challenging issues of fitting. The simple construction focused the attention on the stitching, and an accomplished seamstress could display her gifts for perfect tiny stitches and neat hems, left. Fancy needlework was admired, but skillful plain sewing like this was almost considered a wifely virtue.

Shirts were also intimate garments, worn next to the skin, and for most men at this time who still had not adopted the new-ish fashion for underdrawers, the tails of shirts also served as underwear. All of these reasons made a well-stitched shirt a popular gift from a bride or newlywed wife to her husband, and they are often mentioned in letters and diaries of the time. A new wife could happily clothe her husband with her own labors and romantically think of him with every stitch, while he in turn would also be proud to wear a shirt that showed his new wife was accomplished and frugal.

Although the curators at Winterthur don't know either who made or wore this shirt, their guess is that it was one of these "newlywed" shirts. Not only does its sparkling condition hint at a shirt that was perhaps put aside as a keepsake, but the stitcher also added a small, sentimental touch: at the bottom of the neck-opening, serving as a reinforcement, is a small appliqued heart, right. Awww....

Above: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum.
Photographs © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.

A Scandalous Sketch of Benjamin Franklin with a Lady, c1768

Susan reporting,

It's easy to think of America's Founders only through the images that are left of them, the stoic and often-idealized portraits painted by John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Charles Willson Peale. But regardless of how posterity venerates them, the Founders were a decidedly mixed group in their behavior, beliefs, and morals, as just about any group of white, English-speaking gentlemen from a sprawling colonial society in the 1770s were bound to be.

These sketches of Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) - a writer, inventor, diplomat, printer, Freemason, scientist, and true polymath as well as a Founder - will probably bump those textbook images of him with his kite and printing press right out of your head. I saw the sketchbook on display last fall at the museum of the American Philosophical Society (Franklin was one of the founders of the Society, too, in 1743) as part of their wonderful Curious Revolutionaries: The Peales of Philadelphia exhibition. I've been meaning to feature the drawings in a blog post, and perhaps the last day of the merry month of May is appropriate.

Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was another 18thc man with many interests, and in the course of his long life became a soldier, artist, naturalist, scientist, collector, inventor, politician, museum-owner, and the pater familias of the artistic Peale clan. But in 1767, however, he was still an unknown young portrait painter learning his craft, newly arrived in London to study with fellow-American artist Benjamin West. Like most 18thc travelers, Peale hoped to build his network of connections and possible commissions by calling on other, more established Americans also in London. Among those was Benjamin Franklin, already a celebrated diplomat, philosopher, and bon vivant. Like all artists, Peale also carried his sketchbook with him wherever he went - including social calls.

Here's the APS caption for the above sketch:

While studying art in London, Charles Willson Peale called upon Benjamin Franklin uninvited. Peale accidentally witnessed the well-known Franklin engaging in promiscuous behavior with a lady. Instead of leaving, Peale secretly sketched the scandalous scene for future generations.

There's no record of the amorous lady's name; most likely Peale never learned it himself. He made two sketches on facing pages in in his sketchbook of the couple, right. In the APS records, one is titled as Sketch of Franklin and Lady, lower left, while the one above left is called Scandalous Sketch of Franklin with a Lady.

It's interesting to consider which one he drew first....

Above: Diary Sketch by Charles Willson Peale, c1768, American Philosophical Society.

Women and the Continental Army at Valley Forge, 1777-78

Susan reporting,

I'm fortunate to live near Valley Forge National Historical Park, which is not only the site of the 1777-78 winter encampment of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, but also a beautiful 3,500 acre park that includes a rivers, streams, forests, and tall-grass meadows.

On Saturday, I visited the park for the history, and a special program devoted to telling the stories of the approximately 400 women (along with about 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 support staff) who were part of the encampment.

Too often the role of women in connection to the 18thc army is overlooked, ignored, or reduced to mean-spirited camp-follower jokes. In reality, women were an important part of the army's day-to-day life, especially during the months-long winter encampments. Women (and children) who followed the army were paid to wash the army's laundry, sew and mend garments, cook food and bake bread, and tend the sick and wounded. The majority of these women were wives and other family members of the soldiers, who ate and slept as families with their husbands' messes. They also remained connected to the army during the summer campaign season, following at a distance from the army on foot behind the baggage wagons. These were strong women, in every sense of the word.

At the other end of the social scale, the wives of officers - including Martha Washington, the wife of the army's Commander-in-Chief George Washington - often left their homes during the war's "off season" and traveled to join their husbands at the winter encampment. Their primary role was undeniably less arduous, but also important. In addition to providing an air of genteel civility for their husbands and the other officers, these ladies helped entertain influential foreign dignitaries visiting the camp as well as members of Congress who came from Philadelphia to review the troops and conditions. In this capacity, they were often unofficial lobbyists who helped promote the army's needs and concerns. They also sewed, knitted, and mended for the soldiers - although, as officers' wives, they weren't paid for their labors.

Local women also participated in the market area near the encampment. Opened by Gen. Washington's proclamation in February 1778, the market helped supply fresh provisions to his army by permitting the inhabitants of local farms to sell their goods directly to soldiers. Strictly regulated, the market was a beneficial arrangement for both parties. Not only were the soldiers able to obtain fresh food at a fixed, fair price, but the farmers in turn were able to preserve their crops from foraging soldiers. Although small in scale - the wares of the market vendors would vary from week to week depending on what was available from farms - these local women provided fresh food to augment the soldiers' diets. The market was successful for another reason as well: any food sold to the Continental encampment was food that would not end up in the hands (and mouths) of the British army occupying nearby Philadelphia.

The program at the park showcased many of these women. There were farm women selling the first onions and cabbages of the season, laundresses washing linens, seamstresses stitching shirts, a weaver weaving on a portable tape loom, spies ready to explain secrets and codes, bakers baking bread in a hillside bake oven, and cooks cooking a sausage, onion, and apple stew over an over fire which smelled mighty tasty indeed. There was even an experienced medical woman with a fine display of lancets and scarifiers (I must have missed the leeches) who would have been happy to bleed you to relieve your foul humors.

And in one of the cabins, General Nathanael Greene's wife Catharine Littlefield Greene was charming James Lovell, the visiting Congressman from Massachusetts, with tea, tarts, and 18thc jests from a popular magazine of the time.

Hosted by the Park and their "Mom's Army" programming, Saturday's immersive event was largely the creation of two related reenactment groups: Colonel Ogden's First New Jersey Regiment, and the Continental Line (CL) Laundry and Women's Activities Club, led by organizer Samantha Vogeley.

The members of these groups were engaging and incredibly knowledgeable, and generous with that knowledge, and I can't thank them enough for putting up with all my questions. It was also an opportunity to meet in person fellow history-fans that I've known only through social media.

I can't say exactly where or when all this new 18thc knowledge will be put to use, but I can pretty much guarantee it will turn up someday in a book. How can it not, when the research was this much fun?

One final note in light of some of our recent discussions here at TNHG: Every woman participating in the event was wearing period-correct clothing, including boned stays (18thc corsets.) I'm happy to report that despite the many heavy iron kettles hoisted over fires and water-filled oak buckets lifted, no one fainted.

All photos ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott.
There are many more photographs from the event on Facebook, taken by Molly Pictures Studio. The link is here.

From the Archives: What the Mantua-Maker's Apprentice Wore, c. 1775

Susan reporting:

Since I'm currently mired deep in deadline-itis, I'm sharing another older post from 2012 featuring the clothing of 18thc. working women.

Collections of historic clothing are usually filled with the clothes of the rich and famous, which can give the misguided impression that everyone in the past wore silk and lace. Not quite; but the dress of ordinary folk is more difficult to find (and, for us writers, to imagine), because not much of it survives. Clothing was expensive, and most was worn until it was worn out. Garments were patched and mended and handed down, refashioned (see here) and recut until there was often nothing left. Even rags were useful, with a gentleman's fine linen shirt eventually ending up as bandages or rags for the paper maker.

All of which is why I especially enjoy seeing what our mantua-maker friends in the Margaret Hunter Shop, Colonial Williamsburg, are wearing to work. While they might be stitching fine silk, for the most part they're dressed as their 18th c. counterparts would have dressed. A shopkeeper's assistant or apprentice in the fashion trades was expected to dress as stylishly as possible within her means, and their clothes often reflected the latest fashions sewn in more modest fabrics. Stylish was good for trade - she was, after all, a walking advertisement for the shop - but not so stylish that she rivaled the customers by dressing above her station. (As always, please click on the photos to enlarge to see details.)

Here Sarah Woodyard is dressed as a mantua-maker's apprentice c.

1775. Her gown is a reproduction of a closed-front English gown with the skirts looped up into two puffs in the back. While this style would have been most fashionable in silk, it's here made up in block-printed cotton. The printed pattern features a meandering vine and tassel motif which would also have been copied from expensive woven silks. The single color would have made the fabric more affordable, too, but the design of the gown – carefully cut to make the most of the cloth's pattern – more than compensates.

While the gown has no costly silk ribbons or trimmings, the apprentice's fine linen cap features not only a wide silk bow, but also extravagant pleating for maximum effect. Her kerchief and apron are also fine white linen, and her white thread stockings and quilted petticoat also contributes to the impression of a neat and tidy assistant. I like the subtlety in the white-on-white textures; if you look closely, you'll see that there's a woven check in her neck kerchief, and diamond-patterned quilting in her petticoat. There's another spot of color in the heart-shaped red pincushion - an essential part of the trade - that hangs ready at her waist, and more in her red ribbon garters. Everything except the stockings was cut and stitched by hand by Sarah herself, just as any good apprentice should.

But it's her shoes that are truly eye-catching. As we've seen before, the 18th c was a glorious time for women's shoes, and these are no exception, made from red silk with yellow leather-covered heels and brass buckles. Sarah is particularly proud of these shoes, since she made them herself while working in CW's shoemakers' shop – see her carving the heels from wood here.

Many thanks to Sarah Woodyard for assistance with this post.

All photographs copyright 2012 Susan Holloway Scott.

From the Archives: What the Maidservant Wore, c1770

Susan reporting,

A reader recently left this comment on one of Loretta's posts:  "It is hard to see a woman dressed in some of the outfits of the 18thc or post-1820s doing something as normal as changing a diaper or holding a teething baby. The clothes are for women as objects and not clothes for women who did anything." 

I can't answer for the 19thc clothes (I'll leave that for Loretta), but the majority of women in the 18thc did manage to lead active, fashionable lives in the clothing of their times. True, the elaborate dresses worn for court appearances were designed for display rather than practicality, but no one today expects a woman in a $20,000 wedding dress or in haute couture for the red carpet to be tending an infant, either. But the silhouettes and styles created by the very best mantua-makers of the elite class in Georgian times would have gradually filtered down to women of lesser means, who adapted and modified and made the fashions their own. It might have been only a ribbon rosette, or petticoats looped through pocket holes to copy the look of a dress a la polonaise, but fashion was a part of everyday life.

As for the practicality of 18thc clothes: elite women in hoops, stays, and powdered hair danced all night in heeled shoes. They rode to the hunt, made perilous voyages by sea from Europe to America and India, and explored classical ruins. Women wearing stays, ruffled caps, and heels worked in nearly every one of the traditional skilled trades, as blacksmiths, printers, weavers, cooks, bakers, tinsmiths, jewelers, silversmiths, and much more. Women in stays and layers of petticoats followed their soldier-husbands to war, carrying their belongings as they marched behind the army. And while some of these women did have nursery maids (who were also usually wearing those same stays, ruffled caps, and heeled shoes) to help with child-rearing, the majority did not, and did it themselves. 

I'll climb down from my soap-box now, and introduce a post from 2012 that echoes these same themes. 

We've seen what a stylish British mantua-maker's apprentice might wear in the shop in the 1770s, what a female blacksmith or other laboring woman might wear at her work, and, what, too, a housewife might wear as she went about her day. Now Abby Cox, one of our knowledgable friends from Colonial Williamsburg, shows us what a woman in domestic service might wear. (Her clothes are modern replicas, not 18th c originals, but cut and sewn entirely by hand in true 18th c fashion.)

Uniforms for female servants were a 19th c. innovation. While Georgian-era male servants were often provided with livery, their female counterparts - whether at the top of the servant-ladder as ladies' maids or lowly maids-of-all-work - were expected to provide their own clothing from their meager wages. They were also expected to dress in a manner that was modest, fit for their station, tidy, and clean. Samuel Johnson noted that "women servants. though obliged to be at the expense of the purchasing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men servants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male."

Here Abby is wearing an untrimmed English-style gown of a woven striped cotton. The gown has inverted back pleats to shape the waist, and is worn over a plain dark linen petticoat (the under-skirt) and a white linen apron. She has looped her skirts up both to help keep them clean, and to mimic the elaborate skirts of more fashionable gowns - though the effect in the soft cotton fabric lacks the exuberance of poufs of crisp, costly silk.

She also wears white thread stockings, low-heeled buckled shoes, and a linen kerchief tucked around her shoulders. Beneath her gown, her figure is shaped by her stays (corset), which every respectable young woman would wear - see here for more about her stays. Her only indulgence is her cap, ruffled white cotton trimmed with a silk ribbon. While Abby's dress is suitable for a servant, it could be equally worn by a young woman working in a tavern or shop, or simply at home.

Like nearly all 18th c women's clothing, regardless of cost, Abby's gown is pinned closed in front (see detail, left). While men's clothing fastened with buttons and ties, women pinned their clothes together with straight pins; the points of the pins were safely buried in the multiple layers of gown and stays. Pinning was not only a neat finish, but also offered an endless, practical range of adjustments to a woman's changing body.

Photographs by Susan Holloway Scott. Many thanks to Abby Cox for being our maid servant!

From the Archives: How Many Handsewn Stitches in an 18thc Man's Shirt?

Susan reporting,

Since Loretta's last post featured men's neckcloths, it seemed like a fine time to share this post from the archives about the shirts worn with those neckcloths.... 

In the 18thc, a man's linen shirt was perhaps the most democratic of garments. Every male wore one, from the King of England to his lowest subjects in the almshouse, and though the quality of the linen and laundering varied widely, the construction was virtually the same.

Contrary to the modern belief that the people of the past were dirty slobs (a bugaboo we NHG are always trying to banish), Georgian men were fastidious about their shirts. Men were judged by the cleanliness of their linen. From laundry records of the time, it's clear that the majority of men changed their shirts daily, and in the hot summer months, it wasn't unusual to change twice a day. This wasn't just a habit of wealthy gentlemen, either. Tradesmen, shopkeepers, and others of the "middling sort" had a good supply of shirts in their wardrobes, a dozen or so on average.

While most of these shirts were purchased from tailors, shirts were one of the few garments that women could make at home for their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. Eighteenth century shirts were loose-fitting, geometric garments, all precise squares and rectangles with straight seams. They weren't difficult for the average seamstress to construct - keeping in mind that everything was being sewn by hand before the invention of the sewing machine. The precision of that seamstress's stitching would make them not only more attractive, but also more long-wearing through the rough-and-tumble laundering (no gentle cycle) of the time. But how long would it take to make such a shirt? And how many stitches must be taken in the process?

When I was visiting the Margaret Hunter millinery shop in Colonial Williamsburg last month, the mantua-makers (whose seamstresses can make men's shirts just as readily as the tailors) were pondering this exact question. A chart in the July, 1782 issue of The Lady's Magazine, right, calculated the "number of stitches in a plain-shirt", perhaps to provide the amateur seamstresses among their readers with a number to impress the home-stitched shirt's wearer. The Magazine's estimated total was an impressive 20,619 stitches for a man's shirt.

The Margaret Hunter seamstresses took these calculations a step further. Working an average of 30 stitches per minute at a gauge of 10 stitches per inch, it would take approximately eleven and a half hours to stitch a shirt. Of course that doesn't take into account the time for cutting threads, finishing a thread, or threading needles, nor for cutting out the pieces to be sewn, and it also doesn't make allowances for the individual seamstress's speed. While the needles in the Margaret Hunter shop seem to fly, the ladies freely admit that they'd probably be considered slow in comparison to their 18thc counterparts who sewed from childhood.

More about 18thc shirts here and here. Many thanks to Janea Whitacre, mistress of the mantua-making trade, Colonial Williamsburg, for her assistance with this post.

Left: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum.
Photograph © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.
Below: Excerpt from The Lady's Magazine, July, 1782.

How Many Hours to Stitch a Woman's Gown in 1775?

Susan reporting,

For an 18thc mantua-maker (dressmaker), time truly was money. Unlike today, when we put the premium on the labor and skill that goes into creating something by hand, the most valuable part by far of a garment in 1775 was the fabric.

In an era when nearly all new clothing was custom made to order, the fabric was selected, the design was chosen, and a price agreed upon, including the cost of cutting, sewing, and fitting the garment. That last part - the actual creation of the garment - was the smallest part of the overall cost, and it wouldn't change whether the sewing was done by one woman, or three. Labor was charged by the garment, not by the hour. The mantua-maker and her seamstresses had to be able to work fast. Keep in mind, too, that sewing machines had yet to be invented, and every stitch was done by hand.

According to advertisements in English newspapers of the time, the cost for making up a "common gown" or "English gown", a relatively plain dress worn for everyday, was 2-3 shillings. That same sum was also the daily wages for a journey-woman mantua-maker: a woman who had completed her apprenticeship, but was still comparatively new to the trade. In other words, to make a profit, that journey-woman had to make that gown in less than a day.

How long was that workday? For most 18thc tradespeople, the workday was measured by daylight. Therefore a workday in the summer would be much longer than one in the depths of December, averaging to about a twelve to thirteen hour workday. Although work could be done by candlelight or firelight, the cost of those candles or firewood would eat into the already-slender profit. Sunlight, however meager, was free, and every minute treasured.

Could a modern mantua-maker work this fast as well? Janea Whitacre, mistress of the trade in the Margaret Hunter shop, Colonial Williamsburg, recently conducted a time-study of how quickly she could create a 1775 common gown. The gown was made of cotton, a reproduction of a block-printed cotton in Colonial Williamsburg's collection, and complete with the slightly misaligned pattern typical of 18thc printed textiles. About five yards of fabric was used; the fabric's width of 42"-45", still the most common width today, was also the standard English ell in use in 1775.

The petticoat (underskirt) was not included in the trial. Gowns of this style were often worn with a contrasting petticoat - consider this 18thc "mix and match" separates - and it's likely that a woman would already have a petticoat in her wardrobe to wear with the gown. The gown's customer would have been a woman of the middling sort, who would have worn this style for "undress," or informal daily wear.

Janea kept track of her time by a stop-watch instead of the sun, and unlike her 18thc counterparts, she periodically paused in her sewing to interact with CW visitors to the shop. Although speed was Janea's goal, she wanted to please her fictitious customer as well. She took care to incorporate the fabric's stripes with the gown's design with inverted back pleats towards the center, and added contrasting cherry-red bows to the bodice and skirt.

High fashion for her customer, and a profit for her as well. Janea's final start-to-finish time for this gown was ten hours, seven minutes: well within that standard twelve-thirteen hour workday. Best of all, her customer (here represented by apprentice Rebecca Starkins ) looks most pleased with the final result.

Many thanks to Janea Whitacre and Rebecca Starkins for their assistance with this post. For an example of a more elaborate (and therefore more expensive) 18thc dress made by the Margaret Hunter mantua-makers in a day, see my earlier post here.

Photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott

Keeping Warm in the 18thc: Buzaglo Stoves, Revisted

Susan reporting:

After my recent post about coping with a cold winter in 18thc America, I decided to revisit and update this post from several years ago, featuring the very latest in Georgian heating. 

Perhaps the most prominent building in Colonial Williamsburg is the reconstructed Governor's Palace. The palace was the official residence of Virginia's royal governors, and also served to bring royal grandeur to the colony. The governors reflected the king's majesty through rich furnishings, an imposing display of weapons in the front hall and staircase, lavish entertaining, and the latest in technological home improvements. For Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt, and royal governor of Virginia from 1768-1770, this included the towering (it's over seven feet in height) cast-iron stove, left, ordered from London in 1770.

Also called "warming machines," coal-burning cast iron stoves like this were popular in elite homes in London, where they were prized for being effective, fashionable, and exclusive because of their cost. The stoves were the work of a famous inventor of the time named Abraham Buzaglo (1716-1788.) A Moroccan who immigrated to England in 1760, Mr. Buzaglo immediately amazed Londoners with his cast iron warming machines, which he patented in 1765. 

Mr. Buzaglo's trade card modestly promised that his stoves "surpass in Utility, Beauty & Goodness any thing hitherto Invented in all Europe". They "cast an equal & agreeable Heat to any Part of the Room, and are not attended by any Stench," with "a bright Fire to be seen at Pleasure." More importantly, the stoves"preserve the Ladies Complexions and Eye Sight" and "warm equally the whole Body, without scorching the Face or Legs," plus "other Advantages too tedious to insert."* The stoves were also considered decorative, covered with lively rococo and classical motifs, and featuring urn-like finials topped with flames.

The warming machines were so popular that they became known by the inventor's name (though incorrectly, if inevitably, pronounced by the English as "Buzz-aglow" rather than "Bu-ZAH-glo".) Buzaglos warmed drafty gracious homes as well as university libraries and the shops of tailors and weavers.

The original stove helped heat the Palace, and was so successful that Lord Botetourt ordered an additional one for the House of Burgesses. When Richmond became the seat of the new commonwealth's government in 1780, the stove was taken across the state to help warm the Richmond Capitol well into the 19thc. In 1933, it was returned to Colonial Williamsburg on a long-term loan, and now can be found on display in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. Two modern reproduction stoves - one is shown right - stand in the ballroom of the Governor's Palace.

So do Buzaglo stoves work? Modern-day fire and pollution regulations frown on combining coal-burning stoves with crowds of tourists. But to a lady shivering in a silk gown two hundred years ago, I'm sure they were a very welcome upgrade from the sparks, soot, and limited warmth of an open hearth.

And, of course, there must have been all those "other Advantages too tedious to insert."

Above: Buzaglo Warming Machine, c1770, Colonial Williamsburg. Image via Colonial Wiliamsburg Foundation.
Below: Reproduction Buzaglo stove, Colonial Williamsburg, photo ©2010 Susan Holloway Scott

* "Hot Air from Cambridge", an article by J.C.T. Oates appearing in The Library

January in the 18th Century, and the Ink is Frozen

Susan reporting,

The eastern coast of the United States is currently suffering through a record-breaking cold-spell, with temperatures below zero and piles of snow as the literal icing on the cake. Everywhere you go, the cold is an unending source of conversation and complaint.

It's weeks like this that I consider one of the inevitable questions by readers regarding my books: "You make the 18th century seem so real. Don't you wish you lived then?"

Well, no, and especially not in an 18thc January, which was probably even colder than this 21stc version. Aside from all the obvious modern amenities (I'm sure without antibiotics, I'd probably already be dead), winter weather would have brought its own special awfulness.

Most houses depended on fireplaces for heating, and with no insulation in the walls or storm windows doubling up the panes, that heat didn't linger long in a room. Anyone who's stood in an old house heated exclusively by a fireplace knows that the circle of warmth from a hearth was small indeed. Sitting, working, or sleeping more than about six feet away from the fireplace meant you were...unfortunate.

Anyone trying to write would have had special challenges. Fingerless mitts or old gloves with the fingers cut away would have been necessary to keep hands sufficiently warm to hold onto a quill pen. A portable desk (see my blog post about the one that belonged to Alexander Hamilton here) could have been moved closer to the fire, or even taken into bed along with an extra layer of coverlets over the knees.

But then there was the freezing ink. If the water in the pitcher on the corner washstand in your bedchamber was frozen, then the ink in the inkwell would be, too. I thought of this yesterday when I saw a video posted on Instagram by Jenny Lynn, an apprentice tinsmith in the Historic Trades program at Colonial Williamsburg. The tinsmith's shop is historically accurate to records of 1775, meaning that it's heated exclusively by the fireplace at one end of the single room. Clearly "heated" is a subjective term, because that inkwell in the video contained a solid chunk of frozen ink: an ink-cube.

First Lady Abigail Adams could share that pain. In a letter to her husband John (then president, and unhappily apart from her in the capital city of Philadelphia), written on January 6, 1799, she described the weather in Massachusetts:

"Ever since thursday [stet] the weather has been most severely cold, so as to freeze my ink in my warm Room; it has been as cold ever since Jan'ry came in, as it was intensely Hot last July, The Snow is very deep, and [...] is now adding to the quantity; tho whilst it is so cold there cannot be much"

(Thanks to the Adams Family Papers electronic archive at the Massachusetts Historical Society, you can read the entire letter here, both as a scan of the original, and as a transcription.)

One of my Facebook followers, Karen Harris, suggested this solution to freezing ink from The Instructor, Or Young Man's Best Companion (Twenty-sixth Edition), by George Fisher, printed in London in 1786.

"To Keep Ink from freezing.... In hard frosty weather Ink will be apt to freeze; which if once it doth, it will be good for nothing, for it takes away all its blackness and beauty. To prevent which (if you have not the conveniency of keeping it warm, or from the cold,) put a few drops of brandy or other spirits into it, and it will not freeze."

The Instructor is also available to read for free online here. Thank you, Karen - and may all of you keep sufficiently warm that your ink (or your smartphone) doesn't freeze.

Above: January, published by Carrington Bowles, 1767, British Museum.

From the Archives: The Unsupervised Tailor's Apprentice & the Christmas Coat for a Cat, c. 1775

Susan reporting,

Most memoirs written by veterans of the Revolutionary War concentrate on glorious battles won, comrades lost, and patriotic fervor, and the memoirs of James Potter Collins (1763-1844) are no different. Born in Tryon County, NC, Collins enlisted in a local militia company at the age of seventeen, and saw action in several of the most important battles of the southern campaigns. But Collins's memoirs also include this entertaining anecdote from his days as a twelve-year-old tailor's apprentice with a bit too much unsupervised time.

"I had been at work about two months when Christmas came on – and here I must relate a little anecdote. The principal [the tailor] and his lady were invited to a party among their friends...while it devolved on me to stay at home and keep house. There was nothing left me in charge to do, only to take care of the house. There was a large cat that generally lay about the fire. In order to try my mechanical powers, I concluded to make a suit of clothing for puss, and for my purpose gathered some scraps of cloth that lay about the shop-board, and went to work as hard as I could. Late in the evening I got my suit of clothes finished; I caught the cat, put on the whole suit – coat, vest, and small-clothes [breeches] – buttoned all on tight, and set down my cat to inspect the fit. 

"Unfortunately for me there was a hole through the floor close to the fireplace, just large enough for the cat to pass down; after making some efforts to get rid of the clothes, and failing, pussy descended through the hole and disappeared; the floor was tight and the house underpinned with brick, so there was no chance of pursuit. I consoled myself with a hope that the cat would extricate itself from its incumbrance, but not so; night came and I had made on a good fire and seated myself for some two or three hours after dark, when who should make their appearance but my master and mistress and two young men, all in good humor, with two or three bottles of rum. After all were seated around the fire, who should appear amongst us but the cat in his uniform. I was struck speechless, the secret was out and had no chance of concealing; the cat was caught, the whole work inspected and the question asked, is this your day's work? I was obliged to answer in the affirmative; I would then have been willing to take a good whipping, and let it stop there, but no, to complete my mortification the clothes were carefully taken off the cat and hung up in the shop for the inspection of all customers that came in."

–– Autobiography of a Revolutionary Soldier, by James Potter Collins, published 1859

With his own master away from the shop for the holiday, Michael McCarty, above, a tailor's apprentice in the Historic Trades program, Colonial Williamsburg, was inspired to copy Collins' achievement, and make a miniature red hunting coat for his own cat. The coat was made to measure like every 18th c. gentleman's coat would have been, and cut and sewn entirely by hand of fine red woolen, trimmed in black with tiny covered buttons and gold-thread buttonholes. And just like young Collins' cat-coat, Michael's handiwork was on display in the shop window throughout the Christmas season, below left – although someday I'd really like to see it on the cat, too.

Update: I visited Colonial Williamsburg this past weekend, and although the tailors have now moved further down Duke of Gloucester Street to a new shop of their own, I'm happy to report that their holiday decorations still include the little red cat's coat, prominently pinned in the window.

Photographs copyright 2013 by Susan Holloway Scott. 

Research Books Before Post-Its: Hamilton's Manicules

Susan reporting,

One of my rituals after I finish writing a research-heavy manuscript is the removal of the Post-Its. I write surrounded by stacks of research books on the floor, each book bristling with multi-color flags to mark inspiring and important passages, facts, and images. Peeling off all those Post-Its means they've done their job, and it's time for the books to return to their shelves.

Post-Its are perfect for me, because I've never been able to bring myself to write in books. I like my pages clean, my spines intact. Even as a college student, I was horrified to see other people's textbooks striped with neon-yellow highlighter. In my generally cluttered world, unmarked books are one of my few attempts at order.

It's also a habit that would have marked me as clueless in an 18thc personal library. First of all, of course, I would have been the wrong gender to possess an extensive collection of books. Even the most well-read of 18thc American women - such as Abigail Adams, or Mercy Otis Warren - relied on libraries owned by husbands, fathers, and brothers. Studies, libraries, and offices were the male domains where books were kept in private homes, intellectual retreats that women entered by invitation (or to clean.)

Books were expensive, a sign not only of the prosperity necessary for such a purchase, but also proof that the gentleman possessed the luxury of sufficient leisure time for reading. Living in a country far removed from the great universities of Europe, books provided an intellectual connection to great minds of the past and the 18thc present, linking Americans with the Age of Enlightenment. Books were read and reread extensively, considered and referred to and used to settle disputes and discussions. Books were the primary source of knowledge and authority, and prized as such by their owners. They were symbols of continuing self-education, as well as of literacy.

All the American Founders possessed personal libraries of varying sizes. Many of these men were trained as lawyers, and their libraries were filled with the legal books required by their practices, but also filled with ideas that also helped shape the most important documents in American history. Benjamin Franklin's library alone had over three thousand volumes. Thomas Jefferson's library was the largest in the country; after the Library of Congress was burned by the British during the War of 1812, Congress purchased most of Jefferson's personal library as a replacement - nearly 6,500 books.

To men like Jefferson and Franklin, reading and studying a book included annotating it. Whether making comments or asking questions in the margins, underlining important ideas, or even "editing" by physically cutting a page, they viewed these notations as a way of personalizing the book and tailoring it to be more useful for their individual needs.

As can be imagined for a successful lawyer and statesman, Alexander Hamilton, too, possessed an extensive library. (Yes, I know, I've managed to include another Hamilton reference - but since he's the husband of my heroine in I, ELIZA HAMILTON, I've looked at far more examples of his books and handwriting lately than of Jefferson's or Franklin's.) Although the Revolution had interrupted Hamilton's studies at King's College - he was granted an honorary degree later in life - he was a voracious reader on topics that ranged from medicine to history, agriculture to military science, and famously prepared himself for the bar in a matter of months.

And as can also be imagined for someone who was so opinionated, Hamilton freely wrote in his books, and his law books in particular were often marked to highlight a precedence or argument useful to a particular case. One of these - a copy of the 1738 The Rights of War and Peace by Hugo Grotius - has recently been shared online by a private collector; thanks to his generosity, you can view it here, as well as learn why Hamilton's annotated copy is considered an important volume to legal historians.

Hamilton not only wrote his name in the book, right, but he underlined, labeled passages alphabetically, and corrected printers' misspellings and translations. One of his favorite ways to call attention to a salient point was with a manicule, a decorative notation in use since the 12thc. Manicules are tiny hand-drawn hands, pointing into the text, and are as varied in style as the writers who made them. Some have exaggerated index fingers for emphatic pointing, and others have elaborate lace cuffs around the hand.

Hamilton devised his version of the manicule as a single calligraphic line, a pointing hand that often ends in an elegant curl, above left. He was, however, a bit breezy about anatomy; some of his manicules have only four fingers (much like Mickey Mouse), or even just the thumb and forefinger, lower left, with only a hint at the other digits. Still, they're distinctive, and variations appear throughout his books, and in drafts of his own work, too. Manicules are also elegantly utilitarian, because they do catch your eye, and make you look at what they're marking.

Hmm. Perhaps with a little practice, they might even replace my Post-Its.

Many thanks to Robert Pattelli for sharing this book from his personal collection, and for his assistance with this post.

Visiting the c1765 Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY

Susan reporting,

This weekend I visited one of my favorite historic houses, the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. Originally known as The Pastures when it was built in the 1760s, the large brick house was built by Philip Schuyler (1733-1804), who was one of George Washington's original four generals during the American Revolution, a state senator, and a successful business entrepreneur.

The Pastures was surrounded by nearly a hundred acres of orchards and formal gardens, and filled with costly furnishings imported from London. Guests (who included George and Martha Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and Francois Alexandre, the Duc de La Rouchefoucauld-Liancourt) remarked both upon the house's grandeur and the Schuylers' warm hospitality.

Philip Schuyler's grand house remained in the family for only a single generation, however, and was sold by his children after his death. The house passed through numerous owners, and in the late 19thc it became the home of the St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum Society, serving as a dormitory for orphans. In 1911, the diocese sold the house to the State of New York for $40,000. A Board of Trustees (including three women) oversaw the house's preservation and restoration. Renamed the Schuyler Mansion, the house opened to the public on October 17, 1917, fittingly on the anniversary of the British defeat at the Battle of Saratoga.

Now operated under the auspices of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYS OPRHP), the Schuyler Mansion has celebrated its centennial as a historic site this year in grand style with projects that have included restoring the steps leading to the house's front door; recreating the "Ruins of Rome" scenic wallpaper in the halls (see my earlier blog post here, and another about the elaborate wool flock wallpaper found in several of the rooms); restoring Schuyler family silver and china for display; replacing the roof and repairing exterior woodwork; and restoring and reupholstering an elegant set of 1790s chairs and sofa that had belonged to the family.

The Schuyler Mansion was also the childhood home of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the heroine of my new historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton. The house was also the site of Eliza's marriage to Alexander Hamilton and the birth of their first child, and she continued to return to it frequently through her parents' lifetimes.

This weekend the house welcomed Schuyler Family descendants (as well as this non-family-member.) With the shutters opened to the bright autumn sunshine, the rooms and furnishings were beautiful; the 18thc Schuylers would have been proud.

While the Schuyler Mansion's visitor season is winding down, the house is open for various tours and events and by appointment throughout the year. See the house's Facebook page for more information.

Many thanks to Jessie Serfilippi for the private tour, and thanks, too, to the Friends of Schuyler Mansion and the Schuyler Family reunion for welcoming me so warmly to their events this weekend.

All photos ©2017 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Recreating the 18thc "Ruins of Rome" Wallpaper in the Schuyler Mansion

Susan reporting,

When Philip Schuyler (1733-1804) began building his estate near Albany, NY in 1761, he was determined to make it a suitable home for his growing family as well as for his stature as a gentleman of wealth and property.

Called The Pastures, the brick house was to be elegant and substantial in its Georgian symmetry, and sit grandly on eighty acres high on the hill overlooking the Hudson (or North) River so that visitors coming to Albany from New York City would be sure to see it first. Twenty-eight-year-old Philip wanted his house to be as impressive inside as it was commanding from the exterior, and while the house was being built, he combined a business trip to London with something of a decorating spending spree.

I've already shared the dramatic wool-flocked wallpaper that Philip bought, replicas of which can be seen today on the walls of the house (now called the Schuyler Mansion.) But even more impressive was the scenic wallpaper he bought for the upstairs and downstairs halls. Unlike most 18thc wallpaper which was block-printed, or "stampt", this paper was painted entirely by hand in tempera paint in shades of grey - en grisaille was the term - to mimic engraved prints. In fact, the entire scheme of the papers was an elaborate trompe l'oeil to represent framed paintings and cartouches, all custom designed for the walls and spaces they would occupy.

This was, of course, extremely expensive, and as much a sign of Philip's deep pockets as his taste. The wallpaper he ordered featured romantically scenic landscapes by the Italian painter Paolo Panini, and was called "Ruins of Rome." The "Ruins of Rome" wallpaper was so rare and costly that there are only two examples of it known to survive in America: in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion in Marblehead, MA, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, which has installed the paper taken from the now-demolished Rensselaerwyck, the home of Stephen Van Rensselaer II, also near Albany. (Yet all status and expense is a matter of degrees; the scenic wallpaper was inspired by aristocratic rooms like this one from Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, UK, which features real Panini paintings in gilded, carved frames and Genoese cut velvet on the walls.)

But for colonial New York, the wallpaper was grand indeed. Philip became a general during the American Revolution, and the wallpaper formed the first impression of the house's many illustrious guests during that era, including Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Chastellux, and George and Martha Washington, as well as gentlemanly British "prisoners" such as Major John Andre and General John Burgoyne.

Oh, and there was that one other young officer who ended up marrying the Schuylers' second daughter Elizabeth: Alexander Hamilton. (Eliza often returned to The Pastures throughout her married life, and the house is something of a secondary character in my new novel, I, Eliza Hamilton.)

Tastes change, however, and cities and families change, too. After General Schuyler's death in 1804, the family sold The Pastures, and the land around it was divided and developed. Albany grew to surround the house, which passed through various owners before finally being purchased by the State of New York and opened as a historic site in 1917.

The scenic wallpaper had long been removed. But over the last few years, the state's Peebles Island Resource Center, led by Rich Claus and Erin Moroney, has painstakingly recreated a high-quality digital reproduction of the "Ruins of Rome" based on the wallpaper from both the Lee Mansion and the Van Rensselaer installation in the Met, but redesigned to fit the Schuyler Mansion's walls and woodwork as perfectly as the original once did. The new wallpaper was completed and hung as part of the Mansion's centennial celebration this year. As you can see from these photos, it's a glorious recreation, ready to impress modern visitors just like their 18thc counterparts.

Many thanks to Danielle Funiciello of the Schuyler Mansion, and social, cultural, & architectural historian Judy Anderson (former curator of the Jeremiah Lee Mansion & author of Glorious Splendor: the 18thc Wallpaper in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion)  for their help with this post.

The Schuyler Mansion is open for tours; please check their Facebook page or call for days and hours.
All photographs ©2017 Susan Holloway Scott.

Read more about Eliza Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton in my latest historical novel, I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.