“I have labored very hard to keep up courage....": Logbook Entries From An Unidentified Female Hand

  

This summer, I have been researching account books, day books, ledgers and logbooks at the Phillips Library and found the following of interest. The first part of the log is from a logbook kept from Boston to Havana on the Bark Altorf with Captain Snelling, 1845-46.

 

Then, at the back of the logbook is an earlier journey from Boston to New Orleans on the Ship Victoria. This voyage begins in 1839 on Sunday 20 January and the log entries are written by an as yet unidentified female hand, possibly the ship captain's wife or the first mate's wife. [Ship Captain’s Wife’s Logbook/Journal 1839, Log 1145, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum] Typically throughout the day or watch, she records the weather, the wind, the sea swells and any unusual occurrences as one would find in comparable logs. There are many unanswered questions about the author of this portion of the logbook but what caught my interest was the uncommon role an unnamed female played in the trip. Three days into the voyage, on Wednesday 23 January, she expresses her fears as she confides:

 

“I have labored very hard to keep up courage so that I may not be laughed at. We have had very bad weather.[sic] Since I left my dear sweet home.” 

 

It has been fascinating to follow her through terrible seasickness [“I cared not if I lived or died”] to feeling hale and hearty [“everything tastes good even the salted beef” she reported on Sunday 10^th of February]. In addition to gaining her sea legs, she eventually feels comfortable above deck knitting, mending, drinking tea or reading her Bible.

 

I’m not sure what I will be doing with entries such as this, but it does help me with understanding a wider range of female authorship and voice, which is the current focus of my next two book projects, one set in the late 18^th century and the other, in the early 19^th.

"Wedded Bliss:" An 1801 Wedding in Salem, Massachusetts

Federal architecture and Neoclassical fashion - an ideal combination. Miss Sally Peirce (1780-1835) wore this Empire-style gown, of a fine cotton voile, apparently brought back from India by her fiancé, Mr. George Nichols (1778-1865). In 1801, she wed Mr. Nichols in the room in which the dress was displayed. The parlor of her childhood home, it was updated in the latest Adamesque style by Salem's Federal architect extraordinaire, Samuel McIntire, for the wedding ceremony. This vignette is from the 2008 exhibition "Wedded Bliss" at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. 


George wrote: "…the ceremony took place on the 22nd of November, 1801, on Sunday evening. We were married by Rev. Dr. Hopkins, in my Father Peirce's great eastern room, which was finished and furnished only a short time before." [1] 


Photography by Jim Steinhart, 2011

The Peirce-Nichols House is part of the Peabody Essex Museum's extensive holdings of noteworthy historic buildings. Most likely designed by Samuel McIntire (c. 1784), he updated the east parlor in the Adam style by 1801.

 [1] See "The Peirce-Nichols House" Historic House Booklet Number Four, by Gerald W.R. Ward, Essex Institute Publications, 1976.

For more on the architecture at the Peabody Essex Museum, see www.pem.org

For more on Samuel McIntire, see Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style, Dean Lahikainen, Peabody Essex Museum, 2007

For more on Sally Peirce & related textiles, see Painted With Thread: The Art of American Embroidery, Paula Bradstreet Richter, Peabody Essex Museum, 2000

Perspective: The Public Face of Future Beauty, Peabody Essex Museum

Junya Watanabe for Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons, Autumn/Winter 2000-01.

Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute.

Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama.

On view at www.pem.org

I recently had the opportunity for a special tour of "Future Beauty" with Director of Merchandising at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Lynne Francis-Lunn.  Chances are you have read the laudatory reviews and in-depth analysis of the exhibition in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Boston Globe. Organized by the Kyoto Costume Institute and the Barbican Art Gallery, the PEM is the only North American venue for this evocative and inspirational show. If you can plan a visit to New England and PEM before the exhibit closes on 26 January 2014, your efforts will be well-rewarded.

"The fashion designers featured in this exhibition are remarkable for their daring visions, bold wit and incisive creativity," said Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, PEM's James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Chief Curator and the exhibition's coordinating curator. "Through their designs we are exposed to alternate  definitions of beauty, new ways of considering the human form and insight into some of the most provocative artistic minds working today."

As a museum professional and fashion historian, I found many subtle additions by the PEM curatorial and  education staff to be especially beneficial to those who might otherwise have felt some level of intimidation through the unfamiliarity of the fashion concepts in display. Indeed, these additions help underscore Hartigan's comment "…...new ways of considering the human form and insight into some of the most provocative artistic minds working today.

A rack of clothes by several of the designers featured in the exhibition is located in the gallery, so visitors can try on garments and get of feel for textures and fabrics, and take note of the construction and other details. I was particularly interested in a jacket that is "reversible" but not from inside out, but rather from top to bottom. Worn one way, the black jacket has a diminutive "peplum" while worn the other way, it is neatly cropped at the waist. A simple but brilliant experience. Adjacent to the clothing is a mannequin with a bright red Issey Miyake "Pleats Please" infinity scarf. Viewers are invited to try on this dynamic silky accessory, providing an entirely different tactile experience than simply viewing it at distance.

Image (above): Lynne deftly demonstrated techniques for donning one of Issey Miyake's "Pleats Please" infinity scarves. (Limited quantities available at  the PEM shop;www.pemshop.com for further information.) 

The large format videos of runway shows are absolutely mesmerizing, and familiar to both the fashion savvy as well as a general audience. As visitors make their way through the ample and well lit gallery, each garment takes on its own sculptural personality. And yet, despite the innovative materials and garment construction, one will recognize bustles, evening wear, cloaks and other historically familiar elements. It is a highly accessible exhibit and installation. I am returning this week.

"Not what has been seen before - not what has been repeated, instead new discoveries that look to the future" -- Rei Kawakubo

http://www.pem.org/press/press_release/253-future_beauty_avant-garde_japanese_fashion

Kimberly Alexander, Ph.D.
Adjunct Faculty
History Department
University of New Hampshire

A Quaker in China & Her 1845 Bonnet: "I long to show thee my very pretty bonnet"

Silk moire bonnet, c. 1840
Courtesy, FIDM

It was July 5th, 1843 and Rebecca Chase Kinsman (1810-1882) departed her home port of Salem, Massachusetts for Macao and Canton, China. Joining her on the ship Probus (with Captain John Sumner at the helm), was her husband, Nathaniel Kinsman (1798–1847), and two of their three children, Nattie and Ecca.  Nathaniel was taking up a position in Canton with the trading house of Wetmore and Company, and the couple had made the atypical decision in antebellum America to travel together to what was then an exotic and strange world.  Indeed, the diaries and letters shared between the couple offer a rare glimpse into an early American household that challenges conventional interpretations. The written record for the Kinsman family is particularly strong.  Not only have a decade of letters between husband and wife and their respective families survived, but also household receipts, diaries, and Nathaniel’s ship logs are among the rich collection housed at the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Schlesinger Library, the Smith College Library and private hands. 

Rebecca frequently provided detailed descriptions of her travels throughout Macao, who she met, where she walked, how she organized her new domestic responsibilities. Seen through her Western lens, she was clearly cognizant that her time in China marked an important episode in her life.  Her letters and journal entries are significant in that we have few accounts by women travelers and expatriates to Macao during the 19th century (or any time for that matter).  

Rebecca Chase Kinsman by
Charle Osgood, c. 1842
Courtesy Peabody Esses Museum

Rebecca is a devout Quaker. However, her family back home in Salem frequently register concern over the “luxuries” she is surrounded by in Macao as compared to her modest Salem home and her dearly loved Pine Street Meeting House. That Rebecca, her niece Mary Anne and young daughter, Ecca, have access to the latest in fashion, even in China, is quite clear. For example, one of Rebecca’s letters reveal that 16 year old Mary Anne receives Heath's Book of Beauty for 1845 as a gift from William Moore. [3d mo. 20th 1845, in “The Daily Life of Mrs. Nathaniel Kinsman in Macao, China,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, LXXXVI (1950), 120.]

1840s Quaker bonnet
Courtesy, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rebecca writes to her sister regarding the “arrival of three beautiful bonnets from Philadelphia…mine trimmed with a white riband, as neat and pretty as possible -- Some shoes for all three of us, which fit perfectly and are very nice.”

It is interesting to note that in her letters to her family, she is fairly straightforward and without flourish. However, when Rebecca writes about her new bonnet a short time later, this time to her much beloved Nathaniel, we catch a rare glimpse of her. It is almost as though she was a giddy schoolgirl, with a crush, when she says to her husband of ten years: "I long to show thee my very pretty bonnet. I am sure thee will like it -- tho' it has more trimming on it than I usually wear." [Mid-June (?) 1845, EIHC, 137]

So the question that comes to mind, given that Rebecca notes her new bonnet "has more trimming on it than I usually wear" is did her bonnet look more like the one pictured from the FIDM Museum Library or the more traditional Quaker bonnet shape from the Metropolitan Museum?

For further information on Rebecca Chase Kinsman in China, see author’s previous work:

Kimberly Alexander, “‘Demure Quakeress’: Rebecca Kinsman in China, 1843–1847.”  Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual Proceedings, 2006/2007.  (Boston: Boston University, 2009): 102-113.

For information on Quaker bonnets and clothing, see:
http://www.quakerjane.com

New York Milliner Robert Dudley & the Merrimac Hat Company

Milliner Robert Dudley (1911-1992), for Merrimac Hat Co., c. 1940-45
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fashion post started out as an intense, passing interest and has morphed into something much more - a research journey with no end in sight. (Aren't all research projects that way if you really assess them?) Inspired by the current exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Stephen Jones Hats: An Anthology (brilliantly and playfully organized by the V & A, the exhibit next traveled to Bard and is now at PEM until February 13, 2013). Colleagues at PEM have kept me apprised of the layers of the exhibition and its rich public outreach: collaborations with Massachusetts-based milliners, a New Hampshire-based hatbox fabricator, the fabulous examples of historic head adornments which were taken from PEM storage and juxtaposed with objects in the permanent galleries, lecture series, gallery talks, how-tos, trunk and fashion shows. You may not think you are a "hat person" but this endeavor will have you looking at "toppers" from a new perspective.

Imagine the delight, then, a few weeks after attending opening events lead by Stephen Jones, co-author, Oriole Cullen and Lynda Hartigan, Chief Curator of PEM, when I stumbled across three modest, but delightful hats from the Merrimac Hat Company (later Corporation) of Amesbury Massachusetts.

Vintage hats from The Collector's Eye,
Stratham, New Hampshire

Amesbury is perhaps best remembered historically for the high-end carriages produced there and exciting transformation are currently underway to celebrate that important manufacturing center. Hat production is less known and yet the Merrimac Hat Company was for some time one of the largest (possibly the largest) hat factories in the United States. In business for a century, it was reported by D. Hamilton Hurd in his 1888 tome The History of Essex Country, that at that time, the factory employed 169 hands, of which 118 were men and 51 were women. The business sold product valued at $283,000 in the mid 1880s.

After taking home the hats, inspection revealed two of the three were labeled from Merrimac. The 100% wool, saffron colored "play topper" is appealing and timeless. 

The most extravagant statement of this small cache, is a bold, unlabeled reprisal of the masculine top hat, here it is softened. Constructed of black velvet, with thick, layered tangerine silk ribbons forming the design, the hat guides the eye upward. As may be see in the 1940s image from the Metropolitan Museum (top), Dudley mastered the challenge of presenting a hat which worked within a masculine archetype but with a feminine twist and appropriate scale. Although the hat pictured below may not be a Robert Dudley confection, it is certainly a hat which would be worn by one with confidence and a bit of panache, and immediately signaled a high-end, trend setting designer. 

The New York-based Dudley designed for Merrimac in the 1940s and 1950s. With several seminal hats in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum and archives, including sketches, at the Fashion Institute of Technology, he was and is, an intriguing figure.

Private Collection, blue velvet hat, c. 1950s

1960s conical "turban." Note use of "vestigial" net
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to his New York Times obituary: 

Dudley studied at the Eastman School of Music and had come to New York City intent on a career in the theater. He decided instead on a career in millinery after he used an old felt hat to create a new one for a friend. His large clientele included many theater and society figures and he designed hats for several films, including "Rebecca."During the 1940's and 1950's he operated the Chez Robert salon at Saks Fifth Avenue and his own shop, Robert Dudley Originals, on the East Side of Manhattan. Mr. Dudley then became an interior designer and was active in the field until his death.

He died in Manhattan on September 24th, 1992 at age 87. His obituary was published nearly two decades ago on November 4th.

Related on-line articles:

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/fashion/articles/2005/10/13/hats_off_to_a_bygone_era/?page=full


http://www.amesburycity.com/forgotten1.htm

Merrimac Hat Factory, Amesbury, Massachusetts

Full text of Robert Dudley's obituary
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/04/obituaries/robert-dudley-milliner-87.htmlRobert Dudley; Milliner, 87