Sleigh bells ring...

Loretta reports:

To follow up on my recent post about Old Sturbridge Village, here's a short video about one of their winter events, the antique sleigh rally.




Readers who receive our blog via email might see only a rectangle or square where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

A Child's World at Old Sturbridge Village

Children Dancing

Loretta reports:

We’ve posted here before about toys as well as children’s clothes  (examples here, here, here, here, here, and here).

If you’re planning to be in the New England area between now and 27 May, you can see a great deal more, at Old Sturbridge Village.  I've posted about this living history museum before.

This time I'm excited about a new exhibition, A Child’s World: Childhood in 19th Century New England 1800-1850,” which features children’s items from the museum’s collection:  clothing, toys, games, as well as children’s furnishings from potties to high chairs.

Historian Jill Lepore’s lecture on board games at the American Antiquarian Society last June gave me food for thought about the way popular board games reflect society’s values at a given time.  But while we got to see slides, you can see the games for yourself, and speculate about the differences between board games then and now.

Skeleton suit

It’s also a chance for a look at a rare item, an 1820s “skeleton suit” (in which I garbed a young character in Lord of Scoundrels).

There’s a good deal more—about 150 items.

You can read more about it here.  Or check out their Pinterest Page.

And below is a video preview of the show.

A Child's World Exhibit - Behind the Scenes

Note:  Before going, please check on opening times.  The museum isn't always open in the daytime during December because they have major holiday activities going on in the evenings.

Skeleton suit above is from Colonial Williamsburg.

Spring bonnets at Old Sturbridge Village

Loretta reports:

There was a time, not so very long ago, when a woman (or man) wouldn’t think of leaving the house without a hat. Some of us may remember the collection of hatboxes in our mothers’ or grandmothers’ closets—or the thrill of going out to buy a new outfit for Easter, complete with hat. But nowadays even the Easter bonnet has become an endangered species.

Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum dealing with life in a New England village of the 1830s, wants us to know that it didn’t matter whether one lived out in the sticks in a community that didn’t really celebrate Easter. The ladies still cared about what went on their heads, they were far from immune to fashion, and with spring’s arrival, they burst out in new or at least spruced-up bonnets. You can read the story here.

According to the newspaper article that caught my attention, “Mid 19th century women typically owned four types of bonnets: a decorated silk or straw one for spring, a folding cotton calash* for rain or travel, a winter velvet-lined bonnet or quilted hood, and a cotton or linen bonnet for outdoor work.” This took me completely by surprise. I’d no idea they went in for ribbons and feathers. Just goes to show the assumptions one makes about New England country folk.

For a short time—because the items are so fragile—some of the museum’s collection of bonnets will be on display. On Easter weekend, costumed interpreters will hold bonnet-making demonstrations. You can take an online tour of their bonnets here on the website.

Above left is a Straw bonnet with silk pleated lining, circa 1830, from the Old Sturbridge Village collection.

*collapsible bonnet, illustrated at right.