Inspiration for this Summer: Civil War Bathing Dresses

Summer is coming, and if we have another hot July like the one we had last summer. Everyone might be wanting a classy bathing dress to get some temporary relief.

Bathing dresses in the mid-1800s were made of wool, and intended to cover the body in a way that would allow the wearer to move more freely than they were used to. Corsets were still worn with bathing dresses.

The description for the print above from Godey's Lady's Book:

"Figure 1:  Turkish pants of a gray and white striped material, fastened at the ankle with an elastic cord.  Paletôt dress of a dark blue and black flannel, made with a small cape, and trimmed with black mohair braid.  Oil silk hat, bound and trimmed with scarlet binding.

Figure 2:  Suit of pearl-colored flannel, trimmed with dark blue flannel, and braided in a plain Grecian pattern with narrow blue braid.  Cap of oil silk, trimmed with dark blue flannel.

Figure 3:  Suit of black cloth, bound with scarlet flannel.  The collar is of scarlet flannel, also the cap, which is trimmed with black braid and a long black tassel.

Figure 4:  Suit of scarlet flannel, trimmed with wide and narrow black braid.  The dress is decorated with applications of black cloth, cut in the shape of anchors.  The hat is of white straw, trimmed with scarlet braid."

Godey's Lady's Book was one of the most popular magazines of the time. It was said that Southern soldiers, fighting up North would send home copies to their girlfriends who were not getting them through the blockade. It was said that these rare copies were passed around from one girl to another that soon they consisted only of scraps as girls were so curious to see what the latest fashions were.

I find around this time of year, I get the biggest urge to sew and will collect a huge pile of things that I would love to wear. :) I know I have no use for and would not have the money to sew most of it but it is still fun to make a big collection of "things you wish you could wear." I particularly like Figure No. 2 in the above etching.

When I look at my big stack of clippings, I always feel like the girl in the cartoon below who is being "punished" for being a traitor. "Let her see but not touch the latest novelties in Hats, Dry-Goods, ect." One can only imagine what Southern women of the era, wished they could wear!

Is anyone else starting a new collection of (mostly fantasy) "to sew" items? :)

Meteor Showers of 2012

I normally do a post about the meteor showers of the year because it's lovely when reenacting events are schedule for the same weekend. It's purely magical to lay on your back in your work dress and watch the fire smoke swirl up to the sky and see the brilliant meteors shower down.
 








Reenactments are a great time to witness meteor showers because the are typically in big fields and sometimes are removed from cities and other bright lights. You can see more stars in general at events, but a meteor shower is just amazing. 

Meteors are frequently called "falling stars" but they really are just debris left behind by comets. The debris granules can be the size of a sand grain or as large as a boulder and are known as meteoroids until the reach the Earth's atmosphere and heat up. The trail that the meteorite follows through the atmosphere is a meteor and if a meteor doesn't burn up and hits the Earth, intact, it becomes a meteorite. 

Showers of 2012 

-Lyrids (April 21-22)

-Eta Aquarids (May 5-6)

-*Lyrids (June 14-16)

-*Delta Aquarids (July 28-29)

-Capricornids (July 29-30)

-**Perseids (August 12-13)

-Draconids (October 8-9)

-*Orionids (October 21-22)

-**Taurids (November 5-12) 

-**Leonids (November 16-18) This meteor shower is particularly brilliant every 33 years. In 1833 the shower was estimated to have over 100,000 meteors an hour. Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglass both witnessed this shower.

-**Geminids (December 12-14)

* Indicate a more brilliant shower.   I hope everyone is lucky enough to get to see a shower or two this year. One of the best ones is in December, unfortunately it isn't as pleasing to witness due to the cold. The summer showers are very relaxing and enjoyable to watch. It's not something people think about when planning an event. I never thought about it until I went to an event and saw one. Has anyone gotten to witness a shower at an event?

There is Nothing New Under the Sun: The Hunger Games

With the recent release of the film, The Hunger Games, questions about the similarities of the film and a Japanese movie, Battle Royale have been hotly debated. There are people that say The Hunger Games is a poor copy of the plot of Battle Royale. Others claim that while they are both about children killing each other, that the stories and themes are different.

I feel like we trudge through this kind of debate every time some book or movie becomes popular. How many times did people pick apart Harry Potter as though fiction should not have any influences? (Rowling was never found guilty of plagiarism.) 

 
What people don't want to hear is that there is nothing new under the sun. Historians are well acquainted with this. It is true, ideas are a dime a dozen. Humans have very similar life experiences and not surprisingly, humans  have similar ideas. But, it really isn't the idea that is important, it is the treatment of the idea that makes all of the difference.

I know some artists like to think that their work is unique with no influences and unlike anything ever done but this is foolish thinking. I, like many, have fallen prey to this in my early years of writing when I found someone wrote a similar story or a blog post on the same topic. :) If you've had an idea, chances are someone else has had it too. That is what makes art transcendent of time and place. Literature deals with universal themes, that is why we love it and love sharing it.

Anyone who feels that their enjoyment of The Hunger Games was affected by its blatant rip off of Battle Royal should read Lord of the Flies which was surprisingly, almost a fanfic of a book called "The Coral Island," or do some research on gladiator games. Lotteries and battles to the death are nothing new. These were not the focus in The Hunger Games, which emphasized inequality and the real reality of "reality TV."

Impoliteness: Reading a Book in the 1850s

Below is an excerpt from an 1857 issue of the Happy Home and Parlor Magazine, a Christian publication, which details some of the impolitenesses that younger people exhibited.

Numbers two and nine on this list demonstrate reading as a very social activity. Much like families and friends gather around the tv today, the radio in the 1940s, people in the age of inexpensive publication, would gather and listen to readings by their friends and families.









Sometimes reading with friends went beyond just reading and became a dramatic reading. Poems and short plays were published frequently in magazines of the 19th and 20th centuries for people to entertain each other with in the parlor.

Dramatic readings of literature were even public events. Remember in Anne of Green Gables when Anne gets to recite two poems at a concert? (I never miss a chance of inserting an Anne of Green Gables reference.)    

We still have this innate desire to share our reading adventures with others. We frequently discuss books we read with friends, some people belong to book clubs and there are numerous online book forums. Not to mention the recent popularity of book series' such as Harry Potter, Twilight (okay, using the word "book" loosely here,) and the Hunger Games.   

Some Civil War Era Reading Material for Your Pleasure:

This next one is a skit from Godey's Lady's Book from 1860 about an artist and his highly stereotyped house servant, Tillie.  It is an interesting read because you can see the use of derogatory terms and stereotypes as were used in a commonplace way during the period. You might have to right click on the images and open the them in a new window to zoom in.

Does anyone still read aloud with family and friends? Andy and I have been reading Sherlock Holmes together (among other things) over the last few years. Reading aloud is slow going but the dramatics and conversation are irreplaceable. It's much different than watching a movie together because you and your friends contribute to the story. Parts in the story become memorable because of the interactions that accompany the story.

"Polly Put the Kettle On":19th Century Kettle-Holders

When you are cooking over an open fire, kettle-holders are of the utmost importance. Unlike modern pots, the handles of cast iron get very hot, even if it doesn't look it.

Today, what we call pot holders were called kettle-holders. Pot holders then were metal stands designed to hold pots off of the ground.  

It was common for kettle-holders to be made of wool squares, bound together at the edges with binding. Knitted kettle-holders also existed but were knitted with thinner yarn than we are used to today and "thicker" stitches. Similarly to holders today, kettle-holders generally had a loop in one corner for hanging.

Kettle-holders were small and easy embroidery projects and many feature designs or sayings such as the common "Polly put the pot on," or the abolitionist, "Any holder but a slave holder."

For examples of embroidery for kettle holders there are many "pot holder" quilts made during the Civil War. These quilts were not made from pot holders but the same type of technique was used to make each square and the binding between squares gives the appearance of pot holders.

Some Civil War "pot holder" Quilts:

-1864 Civil War Quilt
- Pot Holder Quilts
-Major Thoughts: Potholder Quilts

A later design featuring "Polly."

Another Knitted Pattern

I've got to get working on some of these. We always just use rags as they are the closest thing around but it's time that we stop dirtying our rags just to move pots.