ON DRESSING THE PART
Developing a Contemporary
Character
Who Never Actually Existed and How
To Make Her Real
Let's create a plausible persona, one who never actually existed.
Again, as in the format for an actual person, it is important to decide on specifics of identity for our fictional character.
Name, age, status (marital and community), character traits, abilities, etc. These may then be enlarged upon by careful research. When you are doing your research, please be consistent. Diary sources, letters, newspapers, should all deal with one specific location. It would be most unconvincing to have your Boston-born and bred character living a daily schedule appropriate to the wife of a southern planter. Common sense, of course.
It would be appropriate to combine historical material about two, three or four different women if their backgrounds were similar. Try not to be too complex at first, let your character grow slowly and convincingly. Your clothing and your activities should always be appropriate to your station.
It was pointed out that one of the biggest problems with first person interpretation is that if you do not do your homework, you may fall into the trap of hiding behind your character. The easy way out! For this reason, some individuals prefer to dress and act the part, but speak in third person. They feel that this approach enables them to best interpret the differences between then and now.
First person or third -- it's up to you.
X
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WOMAN: Part One
It was an extraordinary time of enlightenment, imagination and taste. It was also a time of varied cultures and cast systems, of very human beings. Today I will tell the stories of a few women.
"She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands She layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." These familiar lines from the book of Proverbs describing the virtuous woman, describe also the New England woman of the 18th century.
In the Colonies:
Prudence
Women like Prudence Wright of Peperell. Of medium size with snapping black eyes, she was a fine limner. This is her story. Spring came early in 1775 - the frost was out of the ground by the first of April and plowing underway by the middle of the month. Still some snow banks on the north side of walls and dingy patches of ice in the swamps. But the roads were rapidly becoming firm. There were streaks and patches of green on warm land, and cowslips were already served on table - the first 'green things of spring'. The children were finding flowers, gathering chick plums and making willow whistles. Fruit trees were in full flower. Linen was on the grass in every foreminded woman's dooryard, for the best time to bleach the linen is when the fruit trees are in blow.
The men were mending fences, burning brush, readying for planting. A sense of freedom coming in the spring after a long New England winter, sunrise saw the household at work - evening dark put an end to the long days toil.
When word came of the redcoats coming, towns nearer to Boston were arming to meet them, Col. Prescott mounted and left orders for the Pepperell and Hollis men to meet him in Groton. The men said goodbye and were gone. A report came later of fighting at Concord. - spies were reported as passing between the British in Canada and those in Boston - on the road that passed through Pepperell.
The women assembled, - determined no foe should get by them. Prudence Wright was elected their Captain. She in turn chose Sarah Shattuck of Groton as her lieutenant. Prudence Wright's guard, some thirty women strong assembled at dark by Jewett's Bridge over the Nashua River. They dressed in their husbands hats and cloaks and carried muskets left by the men, pitchforks and anything else that could be made to do service. Two horsemen approached - one, Capt. Leonard Whiting, being a military man, was not much impressed by the voices of women and rode into the midst of the Guard before he realized the nature of the force he had to face. The women surrounded him, seized his horse, and compelled him to dismount and submit to search. In his boots were found treasonable papers. They took the prisoner to Solomon Rogers' tavern for the night and his papers were sent to the Committee of Safety in Charlestown.
Priscilla
Priscilla Abbot had a shop on Main Street in Salem. She imported and sold a general assortment of European and India Goods. In rural areas, laces & bindings were more often woven on a tape loom or lap loom, but bindings & laces were purchased or bartered in the shops. Cotton prints were also available from India.
Kitty
Fabrics and fashions were only eight weeks away across the ocean, and although ladies of quality in the cities were more fashion minded, their rural sisters were not far behind. The very lovely and fashionable young wife of General Nathaniel Greene, was called Kitty. She described General Washington and the social scene thusly - "As you well know, his excellency has an obsession for dance, and at Middlebrooke, beyond all question he did excell himself, asking one dance after another and we dansed upwards of three hours without once sitting down. Nathaniel did term it indeed a pretty little frisk!
On another occasion we dined with the Olneys and the Biddles (among others). Upon the ladies retiring from table to the drawing room we were followed by Mr. Olney. A clamor was raised against the dear man as a deserter and a party sent to demand him, if we would not give him up he would be taken by force. General Washington did honor the joke and with great formality led a party to our door. Since we refused to surrender the dear man, an attempt was made at capture and of course we rose to his defense. There was an absolute mellee, in the course of which his excellency seems to have had a passage at arms with Mrs. Olney. The ladies were victorious - as they always ought to be.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Nickerson, wife of Archelaus Smith of Chatham on Cape Cod, showed courage and capability. Mr. Smith had sent for her to come to Barrington in Nova Scotia with the children. Hearing reports of civil unrest among the Indians he sent a message to delay their voyage and left by way of West Passage. As he departed Elizabeth and her four children were coming in East passage in Capt. Eldad Nickerson's vessel. Fishermen at the Head helped put to order a cabin and left her what provisions they could. Husband Archelaus, storm-stayed was unable to get back that winter with food and his house frame. The Indians helped her at times - and she noted that she was able to fight off the bears with firebrands.
Mercy
In the colonies were literate and clever women such as Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren. When twenty-six years old, Mercy became the wife of James Warren, at that time a Plymouth merchant. A skillful needlewoman and an inveterate writer, she produced poetry, drama, satire and a voluminous correspondence with members of her own family and with some of the most prominent minds of the day - Samuel and John Adams, Jefferson, Dickinson, Gerry, Knox and others.
The following extract from a letter to John Adams is interesting as Mercy describes some of the officers with whom she has become acquainted: "The Generals Washington, Lee and Gates, with several other distinguished officers from headquarters dined with us (at Water-town) three days since. Washington - one of the most amiable and accomplished gentlemen, both in person, mind, and manners, that I have met with. Lee - I never saw before, I think plain in his person to a degree of ugliness, care- less even to unpoliteness - his garb ordinary, his voice rough, his manners rather morose; yet sensible, learned, judicious, and penetrating: a considerable traveller, agreeable in his narrations. Gates - is a brave soldier, a high republican, a sensible companion, an honest man, of unaffected manners and easy deportment."
Janet
Janet Schaw was born in an Edinburgh suburb - her journal of her travels in the West Indies & South Carolina in 1774 and 1775 is a delight. She was well born and in tastes and preferences an aristocrat, typical of the educated class in Scotland at that period. She had a wonderful sense of humor and comments on a ball in Wilmington -" let it suffice to say that at the ball where there were dresses, dancing and ceremonies laughable enough, there was no object on which my own ridicule fixed equal to myself and the figure I made, dressed out in all my British airs with a high head and a hoop and trudging thru the unpaved streets in embroidered shoes by the light of a lanthorn carried by a black wench half naked - good leather shoes need none. The ridicule was the silk shoes in such a place. I have however gained some most amiable and agreeable acquaintances amongst the ladies, many of whom would make a figure in any part of the world, and I will not fail to cultivate their esteem, as they appear worth of mine.
She speaks also of dressing to cope with the severe heat - Fanny has got a neat or rather elegant dressing room, the settees of which are canopied with green gauze, and on these we lie panting for breath and air, dressed in a single muslin petticoat and short gown. Here I know your delicacy will be shocked and I hear you ask if our young man bear us company in this sequestrate apartment. Oh, yes, my friend, he does, but he is too much oppressed himself to observe us.
News had come on a ship from Boston that was not agreeable. This concerned a battle on a place called Bunkershill, where some of the lines had been forced by the English. "I shall not be easy until I go into town to inquire the particulars. The town is now deserted of Tories, gone out of the way till this hurry of passion be a little settled. I have seen a newspaper where the whole story of the battle is denied tho it said many of our officers were killed, among them Major Pitcairn. I hope it is not the Pitcairn that married a Miss Dalrymple, as I know many of her relations. Tho tis false altogether, I hope the publisher will be hanged, for they have vexed me though I do not believe them".
"And another ball invitation - which we hardly knew how to accept, as we are perfect Goths in the article of dress, so much has fashion altered since we left Britain. Our friends Mrs. Paisley and her sister Charlotte Pringle however exerted themselves so successfully, that we really made a decent figure, to me it appeared a most surprising one, as a French frizler and a Portugueze comber exalted my head to a height I did not believe it capable of attaining, and between flowers, feathers and lace, I was perfectly metamorphosed. It did not cost much to make Miss Rutherford fit to appear. At her age everything does well; then either the magnificence or simplicity of dress is equally admired. Mrs. Paisley was always remarkable for the last, and tho dresses up to the fashion, still contrives to have it in that style suitable to her character, which tho polite to the height of good breeding, is yet admired for the most gentle and native simplicity that can adorn the sex in any age or in any station".
In England:
Kate
Though not carrying a musket, many women have followed the gun ---- a soldier recounts that his friend was married to a pretty little Scotswoman who lived in camp with him, and kept a suttling tent for the officers, to earn a good income. The man was killed. In such a situation the woman must not remain a widow, and with such qualifications she was a prize. He took a few hours to consider and solicited the hand of Kate Keith, though others had sought her she accompanied him to the chaplain of the regiment the second day after her husband had fallen... In due time she presented him with a son. He was saluted by cannon on his entrance into the world, and the ball of one was near to taking his head off. The day after he was born they were ordered to march. Wrapping wife and child in his cloak he placed them on a baggage wagon, and the only favor he could obtain was that of marching by the side of the wagon instead of in the ranks.
Barbara
Home was England, and we were subjects of his majesty King George III. There was continuous contact and use of English goods. Barbara Johnson, the daughter of a vicar in Buckinghamshire compiled an album of samples of material from her dresses, and small fashion plates from the pocket books of the time, from 1751 when she was 13 years old, until 1800.
Phoebe
The story of Deborah Sampson - who enlisted 20 May 1782 in the continental army is a familiar one to us all, less known, in St Nicolas Churchyard in Brighton England is a stone - In memory of Phoebe Hessel, who was born in 1713 at Stepney. She served for many years as a private soldier in the 5th Rgt of Foot in different parts of Europe, and in the year 1745 fought under the command of the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Fontenoy where she received a bayonet wound in her arm. Her long life commenced in the time of Queen Anne and extended to the reign of George IV by whose munificence she received comfort and support in her latter years. She died at Brighton December 12 1821, aged 108 years.
Bas Bleu
Their counterparts in London were a group of learned ladies known as the Blue Stockings. The so-called queen of the bluestockings, Elizabeth Montague, had a constant stream of conversation. She was a very extraordinary woman who was said to have displayed such powers of ratiocination, such radiations of intelectual eminence, as are amazing. Mrs. Vesey, the sylph, had a gay and volatile nature, and abhorring formal arrangement was wont to push all the small sofas, as well as the chairs, pell mell about the apartments, and even placed the seats back to back, so that individuals could (or could not) converse as they pleased. All of the Bas Bleu ladies were ardent Richardsonians, but Mrs. Chapone's link with this great novelist was extremely close. Some of his most attractive female characters were based, it is said, upon her.
In France:
Claire
Not exactly an intellectual although undoubtedly a communicator, in France, Mlle Clairon born Claire Joseph Lerys, was thoroughly disreputable and made a career of it, even after she had become a great actress. Sometimes called Fretillon (the wriggler) she was a sexy and amusing lady - she liked to make love - and she liked to talk. Her ardors were famous. A police report dated 18 Sept 1748 * "This woman is well known to have a strong and passionate temperament. She shouts so loudly when she makes love that the neighbors have to close their windows." "One is alarmed at first, a police agent wrote during one of the theatrical troupes engagements in Lille, "when one sees the rival warriors disputing this woman's heart; but never fear, all will be resolved. The Clairon knows how to arrange these matters and is quite clever enough to manage half a dozen men. And so everything happens in an orderly way to everyone's great pleasure.
N.B.
After many centuries of darkness, women came into the light in the 18th century. They molded public opinion, governed countries, set literary and artistic standards, made fashion a universal necessity, and ruled society. Still they never thought they were the same as men: they required and expected to be treated with the deference, the admiration that was obviously their due.