From the Archives: Guy Fawkes Crosses the Atlantic & Becomes Transformed into Pope Night, 1745

Isabella reporting:

Because our friends in Great Britain celebrated Guy Fawkes Day yesterday (and because I'm presently in Boston), it seems like an excellent time to revisit this post. 

Guy Fawkes Day is a holiday that may have a dark past, but it's certainly alive and well and full of bonfires and fireworks. Yet while it may seem a quintessentially British holiday, there's also a strong history of the celebration in New England as well as Old.

The Massachusetts colony was largely settled in the early 17th c. by English Puritans, and those conservative Protestant values continued to rule the colony. The bonfires and effigy-burning of the Fifth of November was one of the transplanted traditions that prospered, but by the middle of the 18th c., it had developed a few distinctly Yankee quirks. Several colonial wars against the French served to increase distrust and fear of Catholics. While the memory of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot weren't forgotten (the "Remember, Remember" song was duly sung), in all the northern colonies the celebration was now called Pope Night, and a rowdy time it was.

In Boston, crowds of  young men, sailors, and apprentices thronged the streets, dividing into two rival gangs, while costumed boys thumped on doors and begged money for drink. Each gang had their own procession and effigies of the Pope, friars, priests, and devils, and after a fierce brawl between the two gangs (ah, American contests of sports supremacy!), the winners captured the losers' effigies, and everything was finally burned in a satisfying bonfire. Special noisemakers, fashioned from conch shells and called "Pope's horns", added to the din, like 18th c. vuvuzelas.

As political tensions in Boston increased with England in the years before the Revolution, other effigies of unpopular public figures found their way into the procession, including the Catholic Pretender to the British throne James Stuart, Lord North, and Lord Bute. Later infamous Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold earned his place in the flames, too. A 1745 newspaper described the scene:

Tuesday last being the Anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, two Popes were made and carried thro' the Streets in the evening...attended by a vast number...armed with clubs, staves, and cutlashes, who were very abusive to the Inhabitants, insulting the Persons and breaking the windows, &c., of such as did not give them money to their satisfaction...the two Popes meeting in Cornhill, their followers were so infatuated as to fall upon each other with the utmost Rage and Fury. Several were sorely wounded and bruised, some left for dead, and rendered incapable of any business for a long time to the great Loss and Damage of their respective Masters.

For more about Pope Night in the American colonies, check out this excellent site commissioned by The Bostonian Society. Also see one of our favorite history blogs, Boston 1775, which has numerous posts on the subject.

Above: Detail from Extraordinary verses on Pope-night, or, A commemoration of the Fifth of November, giving a history of the attempt, made by the papishes, to blow up king and Parliament, printed in Boston, 1768. Collection, Library of Congress

Fashions for November 1823

View online here

Loretta reports:

I know that many Regency dress aficionados find the 1820s fashions fussy and weird, but after dealing with my characters’ 1830s garb, with their vertical coiffures and sleeves the size of beer barrels, I find these 1823 fashions delightfully understated.

Some delicious accessories here.  I was taken by the lady in blue’s “large perspective eyeglass,” as well as the veil on the side of her hat.  This look was very fashionable.  And I’d love to see in real life the necklace the lady in lavender evening dress is wearing.  The illustration makes it look rather like a scarf, but the description promises a beautiful piece of jewelry, with the gold “Arabian talismanic ornaments,” and turquoise bead tassels.

View online here

Read online here

Fashions from La Belle Assemblée, November 1823

Tales of 18th c. Foundlings: "Threads of Feeling" Comes to Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

Last week I attended the conference connected with the "Threads of Feeling" exhibition now on display in Colonial Williamsburg. The exhibition was originally shown at the London Foundling Museum, and the conference's keynote speaker was John Styles, the show's curator. Through the records of the children left at the Foundling Hospital in the 18th c., this poignant exhibition shows the plight of the mothers - and occasionally the fathers - and the children for whom the Hospital offered one last chance at hope and survival. Not all the foundlings were the children of single mothers; nearly a third came from parents who were wed, but too poor to raise the child.

I've written about the Hospital and the textile tokens that are the major feature of the show here, and also linked to the slideshow made for the Museum here. The exhibition is small, with two rooms of cases displaying the open billet books with the tokens. Only one page and token from each book can be displayed at a time, but the size of these thick books still manages to represent the sheer number of foundlings taken into the Hospital. The first time I visited the exhibition, the galleries were crowded with visitors discussing what they were seeing, and along with the others I admired the scraps of textiles and read the sad little notes that were attached.

The second time I went at the end of the day, when I was the only visitor in the galleries. Yet I wasn't alone: I heard the desperation of those long-ago mothers in every scrap of fabric, their voices clear in the handful of words that they left with their children. There were heartfelt pleas to look after special babies, notes of names that had been carefully chosen, and pledges to return one day to reclaim the children when their own circumstances improved.

The statistics accompanying the show told the grim truth. Between 1741 and 1760, 16,282 babies were admitted to the hospital. Nearly 11,000 of them, or roughly two-thirds, died. Only 152 were reclaimed by their mothers.

Still, that also meant that a third did survive to adolescence, and were launched on useful lives to learn various trades as apprentices. In fairness, too, the staggering rate of infant mortality didn't reflect abuse or deprivation in the Hospital. According to Professor Styles, the figures were much the same for the rest of mid-18th c. London.

The print, above, represents the Hospital's admission lottery, c. 1749. Run as a private charity, the Hospital's limited funds in its early years meant that only a fraction of the thousands of infants brought to the gates could be accepted, with only 200 children admitted annually. The lottery was devised to bring some measure of fairness to the admission process. As shown in the print, mothers reached into a bag and drew out a colored ball. White meant the infant was accepted, pending a health review. A black ball - which the majority received - meant rejection. Observing the proceedings are a group of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, whose presence must have made everything even more difficult for the poor mothers.

One of the lucky ones must have been the mother of little Florella Burney, who was admitted to the hospital on the day of her birth, June 19, 1758. Her token was a scrap of floral cloth, below, and the accompanying note begs that "particular care be take'n off this child, As it will be called for Again." Florella was baptized and given the more sensible name of Mary Dench (renaming was the Hospital's policy), and when she was eleven, she was apprenticed to a milliner: a success story. Her mother, alas, never returned.

"Threads of Feeling" continues at Colonial Williamsburg (the only American location for the show) through May 26, 2014; more information, plus a podcast with the exhibition's curator John Styles, here. The exhibition's catalogue includes many photographs, and is available here and here.

Top: An exact Representation of the Form and Manner in which Exposed and Deserted young Children are Admitted into the Foundling Hospital, 1749, etching by Nathaniel Parr after a painting by Samuel Wale. The Foundling Museum.
Below: Florella Burney, Foundling number 8959, textile token. The Foundling Museum.

Breakfast Links: Week of October 28, 2013

Because of Halloween, this week's Breakfast Links have a decidedly spooky flavor to them. Look for all our fav links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images, gathered for you from around the Twitterverse.
• Fit for a king (or queen): house once owned by Henry VIII up for sale.
• Employing "a fish bladder filled with blood": the useful art of faking virginity in the 17th century.
• This amazing bat hat c. 1917 must have been an unsettling fashion accessory.
• The most terrifying trousers ever: 17th c. necropants made from the legs of a corpse.
• A humble occupation for the talented in 1911: street pavement artists.
• The strange and mysterious history of the Ouija Board.
• Behold Jane Austen: a massively multiplayer role-playing game that explores the world of Jane Austen's novels.
• "The novel is a wonder": this week in 1924, F. Scott Fitzgerald sent his editor an early draft of The Great Gatsby, and this letter.
• The Queen's Halloween: how Queen Victoria enthusiastically celebrated the holiday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
• How to be black-balled, Georgian style.
• It's alive! For the first time, explore original Mary Shelley manuscripts - including Frankenstein - via online archives.
• What to do with all those leftover pumpkins? Inspiration from a Regency cookbook.
• The hill of bones: the macabre story of the burial ground at Bunhill Fields.
• Hobgoblin classification in the 18th century.
• Satanic seduction: 17th c. witches, the devil, and fertility.
• A beautiful white enamel mourning ring for Sarah Nicholls, c. 1755.
• This 1920s-style costume, made from an antique table cloth, has appeared in many productions, including Downton Abbey.
• Armed and dangerous: the wide variety of Victorian prosthetics.
• London's market gardens: the Neat Houses.
• How to avoid dancing with death, according to an 1808 Cruikshank print.
• "Studies in Passions and Emotions": yes, they're 19th c. emoticons.
• Why did J.P.Morgan's prize bulldog die of shame?
• If only we had deeper pockets! Auctions featuring Jane Austen-related items.
• A piratical haul: five of Blackbeard's cannons lifted from the Atlantic off the coast of North Carolina.
• The Statue of Liberty turned 125 years old this week; the unveiling in 1886 did not go as planned.
• Impeccably dressed English tourists on donkeys distinguish an Edwardian excursion to view the Sphinx in 1910.
• in 1854, a father gave his daughter a unique betrothal gift: a scrapbook of engravings decorated with blood drops.
• The influence of World War One on fashion meant military coats and black evening gowns.
• Lovely photographs of Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn's family home.
• One remedy for barrenness in the 17th c.: aphrodisiacs.
• Made in Taiwan? An 18th c. Frenchman aims for the bestseller list with his account of a fantastic, fictional Formosa.
• In case you missed National Cat Day this week: coveting the craziest cat-people collectibles.
• Les Diableries: 19th c. French stereo views of daily life in Hell.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

Casual Friday: Royal Bedchamber

Loretta reports:

A friend recently returned from London reported happily on an exhibition at Hampton Court Palace, “Secrets of the Royal Bedchamber.” 

As one who only a few years ago discovered Hampton Court Palace’s delights (blogs here and here and here, and here and here, for instance) and who spent some time studying the royal bedrooms (and the lavatories), I was very excited to visit online.  The Historic Royal Palaces website offers several wonderful, short videos about the exhibition, as well information about how to conserve your own precious objects.

This made it hard to choose among the riches.  But I thought our Nerdy History readers would be as fascinated as I was by the painstaking methods used to conserve a bed rail.








Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.