What the Cherokee Woman Wore in Williamsburg, 1775

Isabella reporting,

I've often written here on the blog about the 18thc clothing of the British women of colonial Virginia as worn today by the interpreters of Colonial Williamsburg. I've mentioned how they took the fabric, ribbons, and accessories imported from Europe and created their own fashion statements and style. But as I learned this past weekend, I've been guilty of forgetting a large group of equally fashion-conscious women in the 18thc: the Native American women of the Cherokee nation.

Native Americans were very much a presence in the colonial capital, and Colonial Williamsburg now incorporates Native American interpreters and programs into the greater "story" of the city. There was a large Native presence in 18thc Williamsburg. Members of the Pamunkey, Nottoway, and many others were involved in trading, and it was was common to see young men from various Nations in town to attend the Brafferton Indian School at the College of William & Mary.

This past weekend Colonial Williamsburg featured a special event called "Return of the Cherokee", highlighting the Cherokee delegations that traveled to 18thc Williamsburg - about 500 miles from their homes in the more southern colonies - to negotiate treaties, trades, and alliances. The delegates might arrive by themselves or with their families, and they often camped within the city. One of these encampments was recreated this weekend, and became a center for modern visitors to learn more about Native American life in the British colonial era.

And, of course, I learned about clothes. According to Felicity Wite, above left, a member of the Lakota Nation and an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, trading with first the Spanish and later the Dutch, French, and British brought the world's goods to the eastern woodlands. Native men traded furs and skins, fish, pottery goods, and wooden wares for European cloth, clothing, ribbons, handkerchiefs, and beads (a sample is shown right) that were fashioned into new styles to suit their own tastes and culture. Trade bells, thimbles, wire, buckles, and even exotic peacock feathers were put to new purposes as ornaments and embellishments.

For example, Felicity is wearing a woven check shirt that would have been intended for an Englishman, but among the Cherokees was equally popular with both women and men. Beneath it she is wearing a skirt made from English Stroud cloth, a woven woolen that was popular as a trade cloth. Silk ribbons are stitched onto the Stroud cloth to make a decorative stripe, with the ends notched and left hanging as a kind of decorative fringe. The skirt ties at the waist with a leather thong or belt. On her feet are moccasins made of smoked, brain-tanned deerskin with wool-lined cuffs, embroidered with white glass trade beads.

Another garment worn by both men and women (and soon adopted by Europeans on the frontier) was the match-coat. Originally made of fur or skin, the match-coat evolved into a large rectangle of traded Stroud cloth that could be wrapped and tucked around the body to suit the wearer's needs and tastes. Felicity showed me one match-coat, middle left, that was richly embellished with ribbons with gold thread and a pattern of white beads. Another, lower right, was not only trimmed with ribbons and woven tape, but also made use of the Stroud cloth's undyed selvage, or edge; while Europeans hid the selvages inside seams, the Cherokees incorporated the white border into their designs.

Felicity also explained that the women of each tribe had their own distinctive hairstyles. Hers was combed back into a sleek twisted club, lower left, and tied with a length of red cloth. Her "wheels" earring featured an ornament of interlocking circles, a popular motif, while in her other ear she wore a dangling triangle. Jewelry could have been made from silver, or from an old brass pot; it was the shine that mattered more than the intrinsic European value of the metal. Extra color came from the blue silk ribbon tied into the hoop.

Three blocks away from Felicity and the other women of the encampment was the mantua-maker's shop, filled with the stays (corsets), hoops, heeled shoes, caps, and sweeping petticoats worn everyday by European women (like this.) There couldn't be two more different ways of dressing, and yet both represent fashions for Virginia in 1775.

Many thanks to Felicity Wite for her help with this post.

All photographs ©2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Fashions for June 1855

June 1855 fashions

Loretta reports:

Last month we looked at some 1840s fashions.

This month we move into mid-19th century, where the skirts seem to be belling out more widely. Since Victorian fashion is foreign territory to me, I'm at a loss for intelligent observations, let alone clever ones about these steel engravings from Godey's' Lady's Book for 1855. I do love the flowers and lace framing the ladies' faces, under hat brims.

Given my ignorance, it  would be fun  to at least be able to do some compare and contrast with British fashion magazines from the era. Unfortunately, as is the case with the 1840s, it’s not easy to find fashion plates online, or when one does, they lack descriptions.*

Re today's descriptions: Guipure, for those of us who are ignorant of dressmaking terms, is a lace. Blonde, as my readers will be aware, is also a lace, the handmade version being quite expensive and thus an excellent way to display wealth.

1855 fashion description

*Warning: Rant follows in brackets

[While I’m grateful that somebody saved colored fashion plates, and they ended up in museums and libraries, it would have been much better had the entire magazine been preserved, to provide valuable insights into the time period. If saving the whole magazines was too much, people might at least have saved the descriptions, drat them!—end of rant]

Those of you interested in U.S. Victorian history and fashion may wish to subscribe to Accessible Archives, which has the complete Godey's collection online.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Breakfast Links: Week of May 30, 2016

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• Art under the microscope: a close-up look at the silver-wrapped threads of a tapestry.
• Not fiction: Elizabeth Bennett, blacksmith at Blenheim 'Castle'.
• The Emperor Nero and the history of sunglasses.
• Was this going to be Marie-Antoinette's home if she'd escaped? Versailles on the Susquehanna.
• Conserving an 18thc gentleman's coat of many colors.
• Image: Florence Nightingale's writing case.
• Brief video timeline of children's shoes from the collection of the Museum of London.
• "Limbs not yet rigid": a history of dissecting the living ::shudder::.
• The 18thc tax on gloves.
• Marital coercion and the wife who got away, 1844.
• Image: 19thc embroidered silk waistcoat with paddle steamers.
• Nineteenth century blogs for stamping embroidery patterns.
• Why the first cremation in America in 1876 was so controversial.
• World War Two through the lens of an African American soldier.
• A selection of early fashion and cloth trade-cards.
• Image: Well, this is awkward....
• Who was the King of the Beasts in New France?
• Sumptuous 16thc Florentine portfolio binding.
• Arson and rural poverty in 1830 - and the grim consequences.
• A fanciful (and terrifying - those insubstantial railings!) view of a future journey by airship from New York to Chicago in twelve hours, 1919.
• Truly retro recipe: ham banana rolls, 1947.
• Image: Good job by the Royal Mail, who managed to deliver this letter in 1898 despite its vague yet artistic address.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.

Friday Video: English Through History, or, Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Loretta reports:

In a college seminar on Chaucer, we were required to learn to read and speak Middle English. Until then, I hadn’t realized the sound of English is not only slightly different from one locality to another, but can sound like another language entirely, depending on what century you’re in.

I wish today’s video creators had stuck with English English speakers throughout, since the change of accents adds a layer of confusion, I think. We Yanks started out with a fairly modern English which we gradually transformed into our own variety. That could form a program in itself, as could the English of Australia and New Zealand and India and everywhere else the language invaded.

Some, too, would disagree about how recognizable Shakespeare’s English would be to modern ears, and not just in terms of our ability to recognize words. Still, the point is made about English’s evolution, and our nerdy history readers are welcome, as always, to comment.

Image: Chaucer as a pilgrim from Ellesmere Manuscript in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, via Wikipedia.

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.

Dressed for 1775: The Tailor's Intern, Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

Whenever I'm visiting Colonial Williamsburg in the summer months, I always try to share photographs of the summer interns from the Margaret Hunter shop. Not only does the summer internship program provide valuable hands-on experience for college students who are studying historic clothing, construction, and fashion, but it also fills the shop with younger workers - workers whose ages more closely coincide with their counterparts in the 18thc.

It's easy to forget how young the Georgian labor force could be. Extended schooling was a luxury for the upper classes, child labor laws did not exist, and the entire concept of the teenager is a twentieth century invention. Most young people worked, often at an age when we'd still consider them children. Chimney sweeps, cabin boys, scullery maids, and workers in the mines, mills, and factories toiled long hours in hazardous condition for little pay. By comparison, an apprenticeship with a mantua-maker (dressmaker) or tailor offered the opportunity to learn a skilled trade, and the possibility of relative security and success.

Ike Cech, above, is one of the tailor's 2016 summer interns (I'll share the mantua-maker's interns soon.) A student at the University of Wisconsin Madison, Ike is studying textile and fashion design with a focus on historic design. This is Ike's second summer at Colonial Williamsburg; last year he was part of the team sewing the reproduction of General Washington's marquee, or tent (see more about the tent here.)

It was hot and humid today in Williamsburg, and Ike shows how an 18thc Virginian would have dressed for the summer weather while keeping an eye on London fashion. He's wearing loose, lightweight striped trousers, a checked linen shirt, and a black silk neckerchief. His striped jacket is a light wool and worn open (see the same jacket here worn buttoned for a very different look.) The final jaunty touch: a white felted wool hat, the summer version of the ubiquitous black hat worn by most 18thc Englishmen.      

Photograph ©2016 by Susan Holloway Scott.