"Such sleeves I never beheld -- complete frights!" Harriett Low and Fashion, 1830s China

Harriett Low, 1833
by George Chinnery
Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum
www.PEM.org

“Such sleeves I never beheld – complete frights” opined the youthfully outspoken 20-year old Harriett Low (1809-1877). It was not a particularly unique statement from a young woman who was a keen observer of the fashions from antebellum America. What makes Low’s discomfort particularly interesting was the context in which she evaluated the costuming she confronted.  Raised in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1830 she was a resident of Macao, China, and her words remarking upon "the latest Calcutta fashions” recently brought to her in Macao, China were carried in a letter, written 18 August 1830 to her sister, back home in Salem.

A self-proclaimed “travelling spinster,” the unwed twenty-one year Harriett Low had traveled to China to serve as a companion to her frail aunt Abigail and her merchant uncle William Henry Low.¹ Prior to her departure, Harriet Low’s life centered on her large family, her Unitarian Church and her schoolgirl friends.  Staunch New England Unitarians, the family’s emphasis on reading, particularly religious tracts, harkened back to Puritan ancestors who made communal literacy and personal engagement with the Word centerpieces of their simple practices.  Although engaged Protestants and global travelers, their gaze remained rather parochial and intolerant of they foreign influences about them. These New England expatriates bridled at everything, from the boisterous cacophonies of Chinese holidays to the intemperance of European fashion to their perception of the superstitious and ignorant qualities of the Roman Catholic rites they found in the Portuguese outposts, such as Macao, which they considered their temporary home.  ²

While men focused on cultivating strong business associations through honest business transactions, genteel and polite public interaction and hard work aboard ship and in the Canton factories, the very social environment of Macao, inhabited primarily by women and families, was quite different.  Daily visits, dinners, teas, balls, concerts and operas entertained the residents of Macao. So too did the routine of walks and riding characterize their days.

Clothing was an important connection to her American home and Harriett repeatedly notes her active dressmaking and millinery projects while in China, with more than an occasional nod to Yankee thrift. On Monday 28 March 1831 (210), she notes:

"Pulled out old dresses to day and find the great sleeves worn last summer will have to be cut out. Oh dear what a job. What slaves to fashion women are."

This white cotton American dress (1830-35) with white cotton lace trim & exaggerated (gigot) sleeves is similar to those she describes for the heat of China. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Acc. #2006.29.2

Her primary responsibility for her large family back in Salem was as seamstress; she continues to connect with her family during her time in China via her hand work: “Evening mended silk stockings, delightful employment” [Saturday 5 December 1829]; “At home cutting a white dress, so you see we have employment all the time” [Thursday December 10, 1829]; “Commenced making a bonnet [Weds. 16 December 1829]. She also notes remaking gloves and having to rip out the stitches, updating bonnets and making clothing for others. These entries ensured that her family knew she was engaged in worthwhile, productive activities, although, in fact, as the reader will discover, she was enjoying a much busier social life then she had known previously at home in Salem.

Full underdress from the 1830s with its "pouffe" sleeves.  www.pemberley.com

She takes pride in the straightforward and “neat” dressing of the American women when she confides:

"Wore a white muslin trimmed with yellow satin over white satin. Though the plainest dress in the room, it was as handsome as I wished.  [Monday 9 November 1829]

 

George Chinnery, 1840, self portrait
Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery

However, when Harriett sits for English painter George Chinnery (1774-1852), in 1833, her New England simplicity exits stage right! Harriett’s personality is captured in this Grand Manner-style portrait, which depicts her in an elegant and lavishly textured, high style 1830s gown and accessories. Her billowing sleeves (no doubt similar to the ones brought from Calcutta) almost overshadow her hands and the precious book they hold. Harriett comments that “when he placed the book in my hand,” her portrait, and by extension, her image of self, was complete, referring to the virtue of literacy and learning in the young republic.

Sleeve detail, Harriett Low, 1833
by George Chinnery
Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum

An interesting and complex character, much has been, and will continue to be, written on Harriett Low.

1830s dress
Victoria and Albert Museum
Textiles and Costumes

This excerpt is from a paper presented by the author at the American Historical Association annual conference held in Boston, January, 2011.

1. For Harriett’s Letters, see Lights and Shadows of a Macao Life. The Journal of Harriett Low, Travelling Spinster. Eds., Nan P. Hodges & Arthur Hummell.

2. See forthcoming True Yankees: Americans, the South Seas, and the Discovery of National Identity, Dane Morrison (John Hopkins University Press, 2014).

Further reading:

^ Teaching the Old China Trade: A “Glocal” Approach in Early American Travelogues”

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/10.2/forum_morrison.html

^ http://macauantigo.wordpress.com/page/182/

"Welcome, little stranger..though the port is block't up 1774" - Mary Rand's Pincushion

It was Thursday, June 3rd, 1773, when Mary Simpkins married Robert Rand in Boston. Mary’s father, William (1704-1780), was a well-known jeweler and silversmith. Rand was a Boston merchant, from an established family. Despite the fact that the Boston Tea Party was a mere six months away and her husband took part in militia activity in Bedford, Mary (b. 1754 ?) wore wedding shoes from London. She was most likely quite pleased with her stylish cream-colored silk shoes, brocaded with pink and green flowers. The label reveals that they were made by the cordwainers “Jno. Hose & Son. At the Rose in Cheapside near Milk Street. London.”  Clearly a treasured family heirloom, they were passed down to her daughter and eventually, found their way to the collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. 

John Hose, c. 1773

Connecticut Historical Society, Object Number: 1953.16.0a,b

Mary Simpkins Rand Wedding Shoes

http://emuseum.chs.org:8080/emuseum/

About a year after their marriage, Mary and Robert welcomed their first born--a daughter. The child did not survive and was buried at the Granary Burying Ground, according to family sources. 

http://www.ma-roots.org/books/hearth/chapter23.html
Rand Family Collections

A poignant memento survives from this troubled period in Mary's life. The soon-to-be or new mother made a pincushion for her firstborn; it bore the inscription: "Welcome, little stranger, to Boston, though the port is block't up 1774." It was a token to her new role as mother, but also to the tumult of revolutionary politics.  Enraged over the Boston Tea Party, Parliament had passed the Boston Port Act in March, and the Royal Navy had formed a blockade around the port of Boston.  Patriot families fled the city, as Boston’s population fell from some 15,000 to fewer than 3,000.  Mary was one of those who fled the besieged city. While Robert fought against the British, serving as sergeant of the Bedford minutemen at Concord in April 1775, Mary went to Chelmsford, Massachusetts. She did not return to Boston until sometime in 1777, after Washington’s artillery forced the British forces to move on to New York.

In her flight to Chelmsford, Mary had to cross British checkpoints, where suspicious British soldiers examined the few personal items that frightened Bostonians could pack.  For the grieving mother, few items were more precious than the modest keepsake that held the memory of her lost child. The image posted here is from family collections.

(http://www.ma-roots.org/books/hearth/chapter23.html)

Today, even after a period of over two centuries, we can relate to Mary’s feelings of both joy and sadness, represented by these treasured family artifacts.

An "Honest" Garment: What Became of the Shepherds Maud or Plaid ?

James Hogg by Sir John Watson Gordon, 1830
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/simple-search/G/3444/artist_name/Sir%20John%20Watson%20Gordon/record_id/2792

Jeffrey Hopper
Author, editor & men's wear blogger

Words are as odd as garments, just when you think you now them they throw you a curve.  I came across the word maud the other day and thought I knew its derivation, wrong.  A maud is a shepherd’s plaid, which is Gaelic for blanket. I’ld never seen the word before last week. It is Scots and derives from the word maldy, which is a coarsely woven grey colored cloth, common to the region in the pre-industrial world. When I first saw the word, I thought it must have some link to maudlin, but that word is linked to 16^th and 17^th century paintings of Mary Magdeline with her overwrought emotions. Still it is odd that the two words are so close with their overlapping connections, common people, native emotions, and shepherds; yet seemingly they are not related.  Oh well, a maud is a shepherd’s garment that was worn throughout the lowlands of Scotland and neighboring Northumberland in England. The pattern most associated with the maud, is the shepherd’s check, also known as the Border tartan, the Falkirk tartan, and/or the Northumberland tartan.  So many names for a simple check, but as far as I am concerned a pattern this good, and it is, deserves as many claimants as it can handle.  For such a small pattern, no pun intended, its claim to originality is ancient, pieces of this pattern were found with coins dated 260 CE in a jar in the Falkirk area of the Antonine Wall in Scotland.  The cloth now resides in the National Museum of Scotland, in case anyone wants to visit it.  

Thorsberger prachtmantel (splendid cloak) 

(The work is in German, but the images are informative,

 as is the text for that matter, viel Glück!)

http://www.grubenhaus.com/Anleitungen/Projekt%20Prachtmantel.pdf

Certainly pattern weaving of this type is not unique, the Thorsberg cape fragments, circa the 5^th century CE are another example of a checked pattern.

Now, to throw one more word into this mix, the pattern was also used, circa 260, CE to create  a scutulata, or a checkered garment.  I’ll come back to this word later.

The shepherd’s check is primarily woven in black and white.  The conventional wisdom on this color choice is the ease of collecting wool from white sheep and black sheep without further color enhancement. Of course black and white are relative color terms in this case, due to the organic nature of the material, but the outcome is a cloth that is readily recognizable.  

Weaving Pattern for shepherd’s check

http://www.fabricsunravelled.co.za/Pages/shepherdcheck.aspx

The shepherd’s check was woven into a long plaid or blanket.  These could be as large as 58 inches by twenty feet and provided the shepherd with protection from the elements and a means of transporting lost lambs back to the fold.  A pocket of fabric created a place to hold the lamb against the body.  At the bottom of this post is a list of links that far better explain than I do how this works.  Used for hundreds of years this traditional garment faded from use by the 1960s.

So why is it modern if it’s gone?  Look at James Hogg’s portrait at the head of this blog with a shepherd’s plaid wrapped around him.  Hogg (1770-1835) an author best remembered for “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,” worked as a shepherd in his youth. For his portrait, Hogg is wrapped in the “honest” daily apparel of the shepherd, not the worsted wool of the established merchant or the silk of the urban sophisticate. By the end of the 18^th century, the English style in men’s clothing was established, but it was the use of traditional fabrics, wool twills or tweed in stripes, plaids or checks that solidified this position.  By establishing the use of utilitarian or “honest” materials for men’s clothing the market eventually accepted khaki and denim.  

200 year old shepherd’s plaid from the Heriot-Watt University Textile Collection

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heriot-Watt-University-Textile-Collection/221156908005684

The odd thing for menswear is that while the cloth is accepted for use the garment is not.  Shepherd’s check and its variation houndstooth is used for garments from chef’s trousers to traditional suiting, but the shepherd’s plaid like all men’s shawls in the western world is gone.  It’s understandable given the nature of the modern world that mauds or plaids are gone, but it is sad to see a garment that protected shepherds and their lambs for hundreds of years become redundant and fade from memory.  Urban fashion designers where are you?

Oh, about scutulata, it’s Latin and means checkered garment.  The use of checkered garments predominated in the northern regions of the roman world (remember Thorsberg).  It’s purely conjecture, but Scoti the Latin name for the northern tribes (first the Irish, then the Scots) is an odd word in the Latin with no apparent root, could it be a corruption of the name for the checkered cloth.  I’m sure it’s a silly thought with no merit, but I for one wouldn’t mind that a people were remembered for their woven designs, not the land they inhabited.

Rather than decant their work please visit the following blogs and sites to learn more about the shepherd’s plaid.

Bloggers:

http://katedaviesdesigns.com/tag/shepherds-plaid/

http://www.fabricsunravelled.co.za/Pages/shepherdcheck.aspx

http://theclothshed.blogspot.com/2012/04/shepherds-plaid.html

Merchants:

http://newhousehighland.com/plaid1.php

http://www.northumberlandtartan.co.uk/

Left Naked and Barefoot: A Case of Violent Theft & Highway Robbery, 1684

Old Bailey Session, 10 October 1684

Traveling along St. John’s Street to his Islington home, Mr. Richard Pearson became the unfortunate victim of a highway robbery and what was known in early modern England as a “violent theft." Pearson was assaulted by two soldiers, James Leonard (with an alias of “London”) and James Elliot, and their confederate Elizabeth Bullen (alias “Middleton”), who “presented Pistols, gag’d him, and then, stript him naked.” He was relieved of his personal property, including “his hat (value: 12s), wastecoat [sic] (value: 8s), a pair of Breeches (10s), shirts, and cravet.” Naturally, the ruffians even took his shoes! Imagine being in such a state, naked and barefoot, late in the dark evening – between 10:00 and 11:00pm.
Not only had he been lightened of purse, he would also face the humiliation of seeking refuge and assistance from a neighbor or passerby. In an example of truly “dumb” luck, the next morning, he met one of the two thieves actually wearing his shoes. Mr. Pearson seized James Elliot as he walked along Holbourn near Rose-Alley with his ill-gotten property. Shortly thereafter, he “took” the other two at the Sign of the Leper in Picadilly. Ultimately, he recovered most of his stolen goods.

Cases such as this one were frequently heard before the bench of London’s Old Bailey (www.OldBaileyOnline.org). During the 17^th and 18^th century the image of the “highway robber” brandishing pistols and usually masked or disguised, found much support among the populous. With high unemployment and the ever present chasm between the nobility and the lower born, many of these thieves were glorified. Their exploits were recorded and reported and repeated with jubilation, awe and titillating details. When they were eventually caught and brought to justice, hundreds and even thousands would come to watch the hangings at Tyburn tree. The sentence of death also extended to horse stealing, and many a highwayman was executed for the crime.

A verdict of guilty was pronounced on these particular rogues and, for the two soldiers, ended in their hanging at Tyburn. Their female accomplice was acquitted of the crime. As was frequently the case, the woman of the team served as the “fence” for the stolen goods that routinely ended up at Rag Fair or in back room dealings with characters of questionable reputation.

Author's note: 

Although we do not know what Mr. Pearson's clothing looked like, given the values of his garments, one suspects they were of a reasonable fashion and had some distinction. Two pairs of shoes from the Victoria and Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk), late 17th and very early 18th century, can stand in as prospective candidates: one of leather and one of leather & textile. Although they are women's shoes (top one of pigskin) men's and women's footwear in the late 17th century had much the same profile and frequently, similar detail and ornament.

Another possibility would be these low-heeled leather shoes (Italian?) made c. 1650-1700 from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Kimberly Alexander, Ph.D.
History Department
University of New Hampshire
Durham, USA

Celebrate With The Sewing Tree - September is National Sewing Month!

Join us as we celebrate our 10^th anniversary of community sewing!

The Sewing Tree has been teaching sewing to children, teens and adults in a fun, encouraging and informal atmosphere for a decade and we couldn’t be more excited to welcome you to our open house. Free and open to the public, there will be activities for all ages and interests.

There will be demonstrations, a fashion 'sew' show, vendors to visit and new friends to meet. 

Have fun and eat cake!

Astrida Schaeffer of schaefferarts.com will be signing and offering for sale her new book Embellishments: Constructing Victorian Detail. She will offer a demonstration and talk about her work with historic fashions and textiles.

All are invited to join the fun and learn more about the lifelong art of sewing.

 COME SEW WITH US!

Saturday 14^th September, 2013, 10:00-4:00

The Sewing Tree, 66 Third Street, Studio 201

Dover, NH 03825

603.664.6944/ www.thesewingtree.com