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Post by mary on Oct 30, 2002 22:23:32 GMT -5
Ms. Heather Palmer offers a discourse on ladies fashion in the "Romantic Era" 1825-1840 at www.victoriana.com/lady/palmer.htmlMs. Palmer takes a "piece by piece" approach to her subject, providing analysis and comment on each fashion piece.
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Post by mary on Oct 30, 2002 22:10:14 GMT -5
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Post by mary on Oct 30, 2002 17:11:35 GMT -5
For those of you interested in outfitting yourself in 1830's period attire, here is a website that you'll want to check out! Both the 'high gown' and the 'Lowell Mill' dress patterns will give you that authentic look. I believe that a pelerine pattern is also included in the pattern. www.pastpatterns.com/806.htmlAlso consider the corset pattern (listed here in the Jacksonian era). As much as I hate to admit it, it does make the dress look even better.
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Post by mary on Oct 30, 2002 13:08:44 GMT -5
An excellent article covering the evolution of women's fashion from the 1790s to the 1830s may be found on the Old Sturbridge Village website: www.osv.org/education/OSVisitor/FemaleFashion.htmlEnjoy... and do remember to give proper credit to Ms. LeCount and OSV in any quotes, etc. taken from this work. Mary.
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Post by mary on Jun 3, 2003 14:58:54 GMT -5
Mr. Harry Ellsworth Cole, in his Stagecoach and Tavern Tales of the Old Northwest recorded the use of a communal salt cellar at table in a Wisconsin "tavern." Also, he recorded the use of a communal sugar bowl at table in the taverns-- but no spoon. Mr. Cole wrote that guests were expected to use their own spoons!
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Post by mary on May 22, 2003 11:52:15 GMT -5
My husband is always cautioning me about assuming practices from earlier time periods (the colonial period, for example) automatically translates into 1820s-1830s America. Clothing styles certainly changed, however I am fascinated at some of the practices and customs that remained--even after more than 50 years!
One such example is the use of salt cellars at table-- small, open containers that held salt, often sprinkled on food via use of a small spoon. Salt cellars or "salts" were sometimes ornate and made of silver. Others were far more practical, being simply another cup or similar container.
In this thread, Susan's inventory of the late Mr. Jones included one such celler. Likewise, Mrs. Christiana Holmes Tillson mentioned the use of a humble salt cellar during her travels in Illinois:
The table was covered with a coarse cloth, five were plates set around, the sixth bearing the burden of Peggy's heavy buscuits; a teacup and iron spoon beside each plate, the sixth cup holding some salt, and the sixth saucer was for the butter...
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Post by mary on Dec 20, 2002 11:50:20 GMT -5
Many of us are familiar with sugar loaves, put up in large cone shapes and covered with deep blue paper. We frequently see these cones in Colonial settings. I have often wondered whether such cones were appropriate for the 1820s-1830s period.
According to dear Juliette Kinzie, we have one clue. She related the story of her return to Fort Winnebago on a Durham boat in think July, 1832. The boat struck a tree, which ripped open the boat and flooded the occupants and their baggage. The ladies and most of their goods were rescued, thank goodness!
Mrs. Kinzie later wrote:
Among the boxes brought to land, and "toted" up the steep bank, was one containing some loaves of sugar and packages of tea, which I had bought for our winter's supply from the sutler at the post. The young Indian who was the bearer of it set it upon the ground, and soon called my attention to a thick, white stream that was oozing from the corners. I made signs for him to taste it. He dipped his finger in it, and exclaimed with delight to his companions, when he perceived what it was then pointed to his hatchet, and motioned him to open the box. He did not require a second invitation — it was soon hacked to pieces.
Then, as I beckoned up all the rest of the youngsters who were looking on, full of wonder, such a scrambling and shouting with delight succeeded as put us all, particularly the boys, into fits of laughter. Bowls, dippers, hands everything that could contain even the smallest quantity, were put in requisition. The squaws were most active. Those who could do no better took the stoutest fragments of the blue paper in which the sugar had been enveloped , and in a trice nothing remained but the wet, yellow bundles of tea, and the fragments of the splintered box which had contained it.
I would think these were sugar loaves of rather large size, since it appears that the box contained only sugar and tea bundles... maybe the latter used as convenient packing material.
Source: Juliette A. Kinzie, Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest , pp. 341-2
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Post by mary on Nov 20, 2002 22:03:27 GMT -5
Thanks for this excellent source. It sounds like great fun, although I;m glad not to be the one harvesting 400 lbs of wheat. As Stephan Foster said in song the darkie (Mr Foster's words) preferred to harvest cotton and sugar cane rather than hay". Even though one harvests wheat once, I imagine a similar amount of work is required! I would like to review some of these articles at your convenience. After making the filled donuts at ARF, I am gaining a new appreciation for our ancestors way of 'modern cooking'! Mary
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Post by mary on Nov 20, 2002 10:29:47 GMT -5
As a comparison with the Elijah Isles account that opened this thread, I located another interesting account, told by John Tillson and recorded by his wife Christiana Holmes Tillson.
The time period was spring, 1821, and the cabin scene belongs to Squire David Kilpatrick, his wife and two daughters. Mrs. Tillson is a Massachusetts "Yankee," who takes up the delicate subject of describing a family of the "white folks"* set settled in Illinois:
I have thus been particular in my description that you may, in imagination, look at two handsome young gentlemen seated at table with 'Squire and lady, Peggy and Polly. Six was the number usually at log cabin tables, for the reason that six plates, one platter, six knives and forks, six tin cups--or, possibly among the more aristocratic, six cups and saucers-- constituted the table outfit. On a little bench in the corner of the cabin stood the water bucket, with a gourd, for drinking. It was the custom for each one, after being satisfied with the solids of the table, to walk to the bucket, and take their last course from the gourd. Then, while the younger scions were scrambling for what remained on the table, the older members of the family---both male and female-- would seat themselves comfortably around the fire with each a pipe, showing their own inventive genius. Several varieties might be seen on such occasions, but the most common was a piece of corn-cob dug out for the bowl of the pipe, with an alder quill inserted for the stem.
*By way of a definition of the phrase "white folks," Mrs. Tllson wrote:
Perhaps I should explain that "white folks" was a name given in derision to the first emigrants from the western and southern states. An old Tennessee woman who has a terrific opinion of the Yankees, said: "I am getting skeery about theme 'ere Yankees; there is such a power of them coming in that they and the Injuns will squatch out all the white folks." Nothing afterword would exasperate them more than to have a Yankee call the white folks.
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Post by mary on Nov 19, 2002 19:03:46 GMT -5
Marge- I would be interested in learning more of the kitchen utensils and furniture. The first person accounts I have read indicate a wide variety of materials...often far less than we tend to think are the bare essentials, given our modern perspective. Thanks! Mary
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Post by mary on Nov 18, 2002 11:19:09 GMT -5
Ms. Smith, I was so very pleased to read you mention of "kitchen furniture" in your note.
I I can be of modest assistance in identifying some of the items in your probate inventories, I would welcome the opportunity!
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Post by mary on Nov 15, 2002 11:34:38 GMT -5
As a return to our subject on foodways, I offer the following quote from Mr. Benjamin P. Thomas' Lincoln's New Salem
Cooking was done over the open fire, sometimes on a "flat oven," or in a "Dutch oven,"; and with the skillet, frying-pan, iron pot, and kettle. Stoves were unknown, and matches were just coming into use. The basis of the diet was corn meal, prepared in every way form mush to "corn dodgers," the latter often hard enough "to split a board or fell a steer at forty feet." This was supplemented by lye hominy, vegetables, milk, pork, fish, and fowl. Honey was generally used in place of sugar. In summer grapes, berries, and fruit were added to this fare. The women made preserves, but most families used them only on special occasions or when company came."
Mr. Thomas also stated: Each family produced most of what it used, although the presence of craftsmen in the village indicates some division of labor. But even craftsmen had gardens..."
It would be interesting to compare the foodways of New Salem to the situations found in the Mineral District!
mary.
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Post by mary on Nov 14, 2002 13:10:08 GMT -5
I located a slightly different perspective from an early Wisconsin Territorial pioneer.
Laura Chase Smith wrote in the June 7, 1884 edition of the Monroe Sun that: “It is interesting to compare the requirements of social life only 35 years ago [1849] with the demands now to be met by the most simple and unpretentious families in rural and urban ‘good society.’”
Reviewing the pages of a “day book” Mrs. Smith reported that “the actual cash expenditures for the average pioneer family did not exceed $25 per annum.”
"From this old book, it is found that butter sold for 12 1/2 cents per pound; coffee 12 cents; Young Hyson tea 75 cents; whisky at 10 cents a quart; tobacco at 25 cents a pound; meal at $1.75 per hundred; flour at 2 1/2 cents a pound."
She continued:
“Kerosene had not then been used in lamps, tallow candles were cheap and there was little use even for these after 8 o’clock in the evening…”
"Dried apples from 'York state' or Ohio were 'imported.' Salt pork and whitefish, both cheap, were once a week luxuries. The woods were full of game. The red deer roamed fearlessly through the woods, and were not driven out until many years later from the counties of Manitowoc, Calument, and Sheboygan, where James McM. Shafter, a mighty hunter, with his gun and dogs hunted them remorselessly.”
“To go to housekeeping in a clean new log cabin with a bright, young husband—healthy, cheerful, hopeful, with six plates, as many cups and saucers and spoons (not silver), a rocker, two chairs, a bedstead, a cooking stove, “with a bright hearth and a hearth swept clean” was by no means an unhappy lot… But, after all, it was a hard life, especially for the young wives and mothers. …Far from her early home, from mother father, sisters, friends, it needed a stout heart and a patient spirit to preserve her spirit from unlovely repining.”
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Post by mary on Feb 18, 2003 12:24:08 GMT -5
Chris, I find a portion of Ms. Riley's thesis, particularly
Yet, because women's lives focussed upon domestic production, childbirth and childcare, family relationships, and other 'female' tasks, the mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters of these men were touched only marginally by the resources of the area and by the resulting occupations of their menfolk.
very much outside our findings regarding the lead region.
When the prices were high, people couldn't help to be drawn to the resources of the region, in terms of digging lead ore, and its transportation and processing. When lead prices dropped---corresponding to the huge influx of emigrants to the region, including women-- people, particularly families, needed to combine their resources in order to survive. This, I think, is what you meant in terms of combining or intermixing responsibilities, to change the character and resource use of the Lead District.
The character of the region changed---undeniably changed-- whith the increase in the presence of women and children. Before 1827, the area was known for its rough, frontier, "bachelor hall" mode of living. With the arrival of women and children, the entire character of the region began to change-- and it's simply not because women were keeping hearth and "birthin' babies." It's because they were an integral part of the reshaping of the region-- both in terms of character and resource use.
Respectfully, Mary.
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Post by mary on Dec 27, 2002 12:13:17 GMT -5
I am curious as to how Ms. Riley's comments apply to the situation in the lead region.
We know from several sources that the ratio of women to men was very low. The majority of lead diggers being young men keeping "bachelors hall."
However, it would seem to me that the gradual appearance of women in the region slowly changed the character and the appearances of the region to outsiders. Rather than being detached with the duties of household and domestic concerns, women in the region became integral to the development of resources and the "resulting occupations" of their menfolk."
In 1832, who tended the hearth, the corn and potato fields, and the diggings while the menfolk were off in the militia? And wouldn't the maintenence of these "occupations" of their menfolk and the preservation of societal fabric during months of strife contribute as much to the region as to the "female frontier?"
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