WORK BAGS AND THEIR USES©

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knitting bag, sewing bag, workbag

Gentle readers, today’s post departs from gardening and cooking as sometimes happens.  I hope that some of you find it useful.

To research an 18th or 19th century lady’s collection of sewing implements it helps to know what the collection was called during that time. While one can research individual tools, the container that held them, always ready for easy availability, was most often called a work bag. References are found from articles and books published as early as the 1700’s.

It was important that every woman knew how to sew and embroidery. More well-to-do women and girls might have worked on more delicate garments and smaller fancy items such as handkerchiefs, doll clothes, or delicate underpinnings, but they were still expected to perfect their sewing skills. Most girls learned embroidery stitches by making samplers.

Work-bags ranged from strictly utilitarian to being knitted or made of satin and decorated with tassels, embroidery, and other embellishments and were often made to give as gifts to a friend or loved one. They were often made to sell at church bazaars.

Women commonly carried work-bags with them as they visited friends, sometimes working on their needlework as they carried on their conversations. Young girls often had their own workbags.

“. . . and brought, for each of the little girls, a present of a sattin [sic] work-bag ornamented with gold. There was in each bag a needle-book, and a piece of muslin, on which was drawn a pretty design”.

In addition to sewing tools a work bag was also used to carry everyday items as one might use a tote bag today. It might have contained items such as keys, a piece of jewelry, letters or notes, money, toothpick cases, books, sewing, knitting, or embroidery projects, gloves, handkerchief, etc. or it may, on occasion, have been used to gather nuts or flowers. A housewife (a sewn sewing kit of sorts used for holding pins, needles, buttons, etc.) was often part of the contents of a workbag. In 1841 an article was published about the early use of potatoes in which a woman of 45 years said the first potato they ever saw was kept in her mother’s work-bag to await the season for planting.

Reading material and calling cards were often kept in work-bags. “I did intend reading something to the children,” said their mother, as she drew a paper from her work-bag”. The work bags also held scissors, a bodkin, and needles.

Sewing is done by choice today but in times past clothes were made and mended and the tools to do the job were in constant use. A woman valued them because replacing them was a hardship. A poem [published 1831] entitled “Careless Matilda” addresses a young lady who haphazardly leaves her sewing tools scattered about, never knowing where anything is.

“Again, Matilda, is your work astray,
Your thimble gone! Your scissors, where are they?
Your needles, pins, your thread, and tapes all lost—
Your Housewife here, and there your work bag tost [tossed]”.

The following quote demonstrates the importance of carefully storing away a work-bag for the next time it was needed. “. . . then Lucy’s mother kissed her, and said to her, put your work into your work-bag, and put your work-bag into its place, and then come back to me.”

My workbag is made of toile after a pattern published in Godey’s Lady’s Book. It is a good size with pockets sewn around for keeping various items together. It has a drawstring closure. It has held everything documented above at one time or another. Researching workbags reminded me how much I need to reorganize mine and be as faithful about keeping my sewing implements together in it as my predecessors were. At my age one would hope to be better organized than I generally am.

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Spooners and Spoon Holders: Gone the way of the Dodo Bird.©

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Spoon holders, spooners

This might be considered a companion piece to yesterday’s post on Celery Vases in that with one significant difference it might be hard for today’s collector to tell the difference between a spoon holder and a celery vase.  In short, celery vases are tall enough to easily hold celery stalks while spooners, sometimes called spoon holders, were much shorter so that the handles of the spoons stood above the rim of the holder.

Spooners sometimes looked like handled sugar bowls, however, the absence of a ring in which a lid would have seated will confirm the piece is a spooner rather than a sugar bowl.

Knives and forks were usually kept in drawers while spoons were kept in spooners on the table.  Spooners were made of cut glass, silver, white metal, Brittania ware, etc.  The glass ones were clear, colored, or clear with colored accents.  Spooners were squat or sometimes on bases increasing the height of the overall piece without making the container too tall to hold the spoons.  Silver bases with glass inserts and round, silver combination sugar bowl and spoon holders also decorated many a Victorian table.  A spooner might have one handle or two.

Spooners were often offered as prizes at agricultural fairs, given as prizes for subscriptions to magazines,  or given as wedding or anniversary gifts.  Miss Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, daughter of William Astor and great grand-daughter of John Jacob Astor, received a silver spoon holder and “several sets” of silver spoons when she married Marshall Orme Wilson in 1884.

Silver spooners were one of the souvenirs of the 1903 World’s Fair and I found them listed in household inventories and appraisals into the 1920’s, but while those who had them sometimes continued to use them after they were no longer advertised for sale, by the 1930’s spooners were rarely seen except in museums or antiques shops.  And now, gentle reader, I bid you adieu and Blissful Meals.©

    

   

CELERY: More than Mirapoix©

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celery dish, celery glass, celery vase

Not all modern gardeners have grown celery so one might doubt its popularity in times past, but I have yet to see a gardening treatise or catalog that doesn’t discuss growing celery.  Cookery books encouraged the liberal use of it as a seasoning and as a salad which might have been as simple as crisp celery in a celery vase.

The Victorian celery vase or glass was an essential part of a well-dressed table from the 1820’s into the 1910’s although some journals advised readers the celery vase was being phased out in favor of a boat-like dish in the 1890’s.  The vases grew in popularity until mass-production flooded the market.

“Celery is sometimes chopped small and mixed with a dressing made as directed for lettuce; but the usual way of preparing them is to scrape and wash them clean, and let them lie in cold water till just before they are to be sent to the table; then wipe them dry, split the ends of the stalks, leaving on a few of the green leaves, and send them to table in celery glasses.  Celery should be kept in a cellar, and the roots covered with tan to keep them from wilting.”  – The Kentucky Housewife.  1839.

When celery was served at table, those who desired to do so, helped themselves to a stalk, dipped it in a little salt on one’s plate and ate it.  The celery was expected to be tender and crisp when served alone.  “To Crisp Celery.  Let it lie in ice water two hours before serving.  To fringe the stalk, stick several coarse needles into a cork and draw the stalk half way from the top several times, and lay in the refrigerator to curl and crisp”.  – Vaughn’s Seed Store.  1898.

        

 

 

 

 

   

Celery was no exception to the “waste not,  want not” approach to food.  “There need never be any part of a bunch of celery wasted.  Serve the small, white stalks whole with salt, or cut fine and dressed as a salad.  Cut the larger stalks into short pieces, cook in boiling salted water and cover with cream sauce.  The very coarsest pieces may be boiled and strained for soup.  Nearly all soups may be improved by the addition of celery.  Dry the leaves in the oven, then chop or rub fine and they are nice for seasoning soups”.  1904.

Now, gentle reader, let us look at recipes for various prepared dishes of celery which might dress our table for that next special occasion meal.

Celery Salt.  1904.  This is very nice to season oysters, gravies, soups, etc.  Dry and grate the roots of celery and mix with one-third the quantity of salt.  Put into bottles and keep tightly corked.

Celery Fried.  1786.  When boiled, dip it in batter, fry it of a light brown, and dry; pour over melted butter.

Celery to fry.  1818.  Cut off the heads, and green tops of six or eight heads of celery; take off the outside stalks, pare the roots clean have ready half a pint of white wine, the yolks of three eggs beaten fine, salt and nutmeg; mix all together with flour into a batter, into which dip every head, and fry them in butter; when done, lay them in your dish, and pour melted butter over them.

Celery Sauce.  1818.  Boil celery heads three inches long, in a little stock, till nearly done and the liquor almost wasted away, then add some béchamel. . .

Celery Fritters.  1909.  Make a batter of two eggs, one cupful of milk, a tablespoonful of melted butter, one cupful of flour, and a pinch of salt.  Boil until tender in salted water stalks of celery cut into four inch lengths, drain, cool, and dry.  Dip in batter, fry in deep fat, drain, and serve with Hollandaise Sauce.

Creamed Celery.  1909.  Clean, trim, and cut the celery into short pieces.  Boil until tender in salted water, drain, and reheat in a Cream Sauce.  Sprinkle with grated nutmeg if desired.  Diced cooked carrots may be added to Creamed Celery.

Cabbage and Celery Cooked.  1909.  Cut cabbage fine, and soak in salt water, drain and add equal amount of chopped celery, cook until tender, drain and sift a little dry flour over the hot cabbage and celery, cook the flour, add milk, when done add one beaten egg; serve at once.

Escalloped Celery.  1909.  Chop celery very fine or cut in half-inch lengths and cook until tender in boiling salted water to cover.  Drain and reheat in a cream or White Sauce.  Put into a buttered baking-dish in layers, sprinkling each layer with grated cheese or crumbs or both crumbs and grated cheese.  Have crumbs and cheese on top, dot with butter, and brown in the oven.  Oysters also may be put between the layers.

Celery-Potato Croquettes.  To a pint of mashed potatoes add half a teacup of cooked celery, season with a tablespoon of butter, half a teaspoon of salt, a dash of white pepper; add the yolk of one egg.  Roll in shape of a small cylinder three inches long and one and a fourth inches thick.  Dip them in the beaten white of egg, roll in cracker or bread crumbs and fry.

Cream of Celery Soup.  1909.  One-third cup of celery cut in pieces, two cups of boiling water, one sliced onion, two teaspoons of butter, three tablespoons of flour, three cups of milk, salt and pepper to taste.  Cook celery till soft, rub through sieve, scald milk with onion in it, add to celery, bind and season.

Stuffed Celery.  1913.  Mix cream cheese with enough cream to moisten it; season with salt and cayenne; chop 8 olives and ½ lb. English walnuts and mix with cheese.  Select short wide pieces of celery, trim off most of the leaves and fill with cheese mixture.

Kitchen Style That Reaches Out to Me

This post isn’t going to be long on text and is offered today just because I took a sentimental journey and decided to share images of kitchen styles that make me happy.  I’ve had the pleasure of cooking in some interesting settings and making food my ancestors would have been comfortable with, but at 60, I’m not sure if I’d want to take up cooking for 25 or more people as I once did in primitive settings.  Putting a joint on the spit and making some historical dish for the Mister and myself, however, will bring me immense pleasure when we get around to tweaking our keeping room.  We have pieces a plenty to outfit it once we are ready to transform the interior into the setting we want.  It doesn’t have to be nearly as elaborate as these to please me as I gravitate more toward cottage than castle, but the reader will enjoy this nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Blissful Meals now and perhaps you’ll find a few details in these images that speak to you as they have me.  I’ve tried to avoid copyrighted images, however, it was sometimes hard to follow the chain of postings to know who the original poster was and whether there were any restrictions on using the photo.

A Quick Look at Pie Birds

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pie bird, pie funnel, pie vent

It’s not uncommon to go into a flea market and see a vintage kitchenware dealer offering pie birds for sale. They’re usually modern-made and pretty inexpensive. Those found in antiques stores are usually a little more expensive and not quite as common in design. Pie birds conjure up pleasant memories of grandmother’s kitchen and to be honest, they’re just plain adorable, but the pie bird (also known as a pie vent, pie whistle, or pie funnel) was initially a plain round funnel-shaped ceramic or stoneware utilitarian piece. They do not whistle regardless of what you choose to call them.

From the last years of the Victorian era, English cooks often used devices to vent steam from a bubbling pie in order to keep the contents from oozing out onto the hot surface of the oven leaving a mess that was anything but pleasant to clean up. The decorative bird shapes came later.

Grace Seccombe, born in Staffordshire, England in 1880, designed various pottery pieces including a pie bird design registered in 1933. Because Grace was living in Australia when her designs were recorded, the distinction of creating the first English pie bird usually goes to Clarice Cliff, born Jan. 20, 1899 also in Staffordshire. Clarice’s design was registered by A. J. Wilkinson Ltd. on Jan. 18, 1936. The registration number, 809138, can be found on the base of the pieces. She is thought to have designed only the one pie bird.

Interestingly, Clarice later married the director of the A. J. Wilkinson Co., Colley Shorter.

Another British maker is somewhat of a mystery. The Thomas M. Nutbrown Co., manufacturers of various kitchen wares, opened in 1927 on Walker St., Blackpool. The company was registered in 1932. It was later parented by the Stephenson Mills Co., a subsidiary of the Eddy Match Co. Several patents were recorded for pie funnels of various designs, but this writer could make no definite connection between the Thomas Nutbrown Co. and any individual of the same name. At any rate, pieces made by the company survive with the “Nutbrown” stamp either on their base or inside the base.

Pie funnels were routinely used through the early 1940’s after which they were often relegated to the back of a drawer and left to be rediscovered by collectors decades later. Perhaps the post-war economic boom made it easy to purchase newfangled gadgets and the humble pie bird paled in comparison. Pie vents can be found in the shape of owls, elephants, quail, ducks, cows, chickens, people, etc. Some are quite decorative and colorful and because they are so small can be exhibited in a very small space unlike many other kitchen collectibles.

Before paying big bucks for pie birds do your homework because there are sellers who have made careers out of making new pieces look like well-used vintage pieces in order to sell them for amounts far greater than their actual value. There is a web site and numerous books on pie birds, or pie funnels if you prefer, with photos of makers’ marks and advice for determining if the piece is actually a pie bird and not a lone salt or pepper shaker. The time to do homework is before spending several hundred dollars for a pie bird that proves to be worth twenty bucks or less.

Wardian Cases

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terrarium, Wardian case

Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, 1866

Readers may not know what a Wardian case is, but if I asked what a terrarium is everyone would know that it is a glass case into which are placed a bit of soil, a few adornments and plants, and sealed airtight to mimic the condensation and rain found in nature, making the case self-sufficient. The name refers to the creator, Mr. Nathan B. Ward, (1791-1868), who experimented with growing plants in such an environment beginning in 1829 in Wellclose Square London.

Legend has it that Dr. Ward, a physician and amateur botanist, noted seeds had sprouted inside a closed container in which he kept caterpillars. He left them undisturbed and noticed that the plants did quite well in their artificial environment.

During the age of discovery when plants were being collected and transported from one part of the world to another for scientific study, Mr. Ward’s case was said to keep the plants alive and viable during transport, thus before they adorned Victorian parlors, they served a much more practical purpose. Seedlings and plants which often died before reaching European botanists stood a much better chance of arriving healthy and viable in the cases.

Upon successfully transporting Australian ferns back to London, Dr. Ward published his findings in a pamphlet entitled, “The Growth of Plants Without Open Exposure to the Air” (1835). In 1842, he published “On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases”. His cases were so well received in English homes, that in 1854 he addressed the Royal Society at the Chelses Physic Garden, and was acknowledged for having improved commerce world-wide.

Plant explorer, Joseph Hooker, was among the first to use Ward’s cases returning with species collected during a four year voyage (1839 to 1843) with Capt. James Clark Ross.

Robert Fortune transported 20,000 tea plants from Shanghai to India where much of the world’s tea is still produced.

In poorly insulated and heated homes of the past two centuries, the cases graced homes with the beauty of live plants when a potted plant in a window sill would be killed by cold air coming in around the window. Children could learn how plants grew while parents could appreciate the variety in color and texture of a collection of ferns and mosses. Growing orchids in such a case fueled the Victorian fervor of growing the beautiful flowers.

The aviaries and conservatories of the 19th century may be viewed as Wardian cases on a colossal scale in that the glass allowed sunlight to reach the plants while limiting the drying effects of wind and the detrimental effects of salt spray or putrid air such as made it difficult for Dr. Ward to grow ferns during London’s industrial age.

Tea Towel History – The Radical Tea Towel Company

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Radical Tea Towel Company

Good morning all! I haven’t posted anything in a little while, but will catch up soon. I’ve been a little under the weather for a while but have been doing some interesting things in the kitchen between bouts of bronchitis.

I received a very nice note and thanks from the co-owner of the Radical Tea Towel Company for my mentioning them in my previous post about tea towels. He asked if I would share more information including a link to their site so I hope you enjoy this. To get to his site go to theradicalteatowel.com and for this and more information from their website, go to the history page.

History of the tea towel
Since we humans first emerged from the primeval swamps we’ve needed to keep our cooking utensils dry. No wonder we’ve developed such a fascination with that most fundamental of accessories, the tea towel – or dish towel as it is sometimes called in the US.

Fast forward to the 18th century. The tea towel has reached the pinnacle of its perfection (never again to be matched until the arrival on the scene of the Radical Tea Towel Company in the 21st century).

Tea towels are now gracing the highest tables of the land and are made of linen, a delicate fibre derived from the flax of linseed plants. The soft texture of the fabric makes them ideal for drying expensive bone china, and tea towels are flourished with pride by the grand ladies of the time who are more than happy to do the drying up, not trusting their prized plates to their clumsy servants.

When not drying their crockery, these ladies would embroider the towels, creating beautiful heirlooms to be passed down through the generations. In today’s more democratic times, the Radical Tea Towel Company is pleased to be able to bring fine tea towels to the masses.

Made of linen, tea towels in those days were fragile – they needed to be washed very carefully and dried away from the glare of the sun. Fortunately for today’s crockery dryers, the Radical Tea Towel Company’s products are made of far tougher and durable high-grade cotton.

True to its name, the tea towel was in its element as an ingredient in the great British tea ceremony. There it rubbed shoulders with the finest crystal and chinaware and was designed to match the rest of the table linen. Often it was wrapped around the tea pot to insulate it, used to prevent drips or gracefully draped over bread and cakes to keep them fresh.

It was not until the Industrial Revolution that the tea towel became a mass-produced consumer item and manufacturers turned to fibres such as cotton.

In the early 20th century, American housewives – in good democratic tradition – would often reuse rough cotton animal feed sacks by cutting them up into dish towels. Not content with their unfinished appearance, however, they embroidered them with intricate patterns, despite the difficulty of working with the coarse weave of the sacks.

In modern times, tea towels can be made of cotton, linen union (a mixture of linen and cotton) or terrycloth, a thick cotton pile.

Still an object of fascination in the 21st century, the tea towel has become the canvas on which we paint our life and our obsessions. At the Radical Tea Towel Company we use the finest materials and printing techniques and combine them with bold messages. The results are unique tea towels and aprons that you will want to keep or give as presents to rally family, friends and relatives to the cause!

© 2013 The Radical Tea Towel Company

The Early Pennsylvania German Home

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Pennsylvania Dutch heritage

Welcome, Gentle Reader, today I’m sharing another look at the lives of the early Pennsylvania Dutch as part of my immersion into the lives and culture of Martin’s ancestors. I am enjoying learning about them and Martin says they’re my family too because I found them. That generosity is one of the reasons I love him.

Rev. F. J. F. Schantz, DD of Myerstown, PA wrote a book titled as above, published in 1900, in which he outlined the wants and needs of Pennsylvania’s earliest Germanic settlers. Naturally their first concern was shelter and those shelters were commonly made of logs with the cracks filled with a mixture of clay and grass or of stone. “Windows were of small dimensions. Doors were often of two parts, an upper and a lower, hung or fastened separately. The interior was frequently only one room, with hearth and chimney, with the floor of stone or hardened clay”. Stairs or a ladder led to the attic for sleeping quarters and storage.

“The pioneer’s house was not complete without the large fireplace, often in the center of the building and very often on one of the sides of the house, with hearth and chimney erected outside of the building, yet joining the same…

It was not difficult to make an inventory of the contents of the dwelling-house. The large hall had but little furniture besides a long, wooden chest, and a few benches or chairs. The best room of the house on one side of the hall contained a table, benches, and later chairs, a desk with drawers, and the utensils used on the special hearth in heating the room. In the rear of the best room was the kammer (bed-room) with its bed of plain make, also the trundle-bed for younger children and the cradle for the youngest, a bench or a few chairs and the chest of drawers. The room on the other side of the hall was often not divided, but when divided the front room was called the living-room (die Wohnstube), with table and benches or plain chairs, with closet for queensware and the storage of promiscuous parcels, with the spinning-wheel, with a clock as soon as the family could afford one, and with shelving for the books brought from the fatherland or secured in this country.

The kitchen contained the large hearth, often very large, with rods fastened to a beam [lug pole] and later an iron bar, from which hung chains to hold large kettles and pots used in the preparation of food; the tripod also on the hearth, to hold kettles and pans used daily by the faithful housewife; the large dining-table, with benches on two long sides and short benches or chairs at each end; another large table for the use of those who prepared meals for the family; extensive shelving for holding tin and other ware; benches for water-buckets and other vessels and the long and deep mantel-shelf above the hearth, on which many articles were placed. The second story of the house contained the bedrooms and often a storage-room. The bedrooms were furnished with beds, tables, large chests, and wooden pegs on the partitions. The attic was of great service for the storage of articles of the mechanism of man and the preservation of fruits of the field, the garden, the orchard and the forest.”

Once the home was finished, the family concentrated on building a barn, spring-house, wood-house and the large bake-oven and smoke-house. The latter two were often under the same roof.

“The early settler knew nothing of coal, coal-oil and burning gas. He had no matches, but used flint, steel and punk instead, or the sunglass on days when the sun shone brightly…” The fire produced light as well as heat, and at night was carefully covered over with ashes or a cover so that in the morning there would be enough coals to produce fire without resorting to such methods.

“Tablecloths were not always used. The first dishes were pewter and later of domestic earthen ware and pottery. Platters, plates, bowls and other vessels held the prepared food. Individual plates, cups and saucers, knives and forks were not wanting…”.

Unless they’ve visited an 18th century living history village, most Americans cannot envision a home like the one described in this post, but there may just come a time when we have to return to those ways. How will you fare if your electric appliances don’t work, store-shelves are bare, and fast food is but a distant memory?

Early Kitchen Towels

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early kitchen towels, tea towels

Let me preface this post by saying, this piece is not meant to be a full treatise on early kitchen towels, but merely a brief overview of what was found in early kitchens. Anyone who has useful information to add to it is certainly welcome to comment.

Hemp cloth dates from antiquity, and it was used so extensively in utilitarian items that Colonial Americans were mandated to grow it for use in making sails, rope, canvas, etc. It was durable and rot resistant and it was not a far stretch for someone to use it for absorbent cloths or towels.

By the 18th century kitchen towels were becoming a feature on better tables, replacing the rags of previous centuries. They were made of linen, cotton, and hemp and were soft and absorbent, no ma’am, no terry cloth numbers in those kitchens. The Radical Tea Towel Company’s website says fine ladies were more likely to use their towels to dry china than trust the delicate pieces to the hands of a servant. I can neither confirm nor deny the statement.

Early towels were sometimes embroidered creating nuances of color and domesticity to enliven the otherwise rather dull kitchens. Such embellished towels were not necessarily meant for heavy use or to clean up dirty messes. They were more likely used to cover food, or wrapped around a teapot to retain the heat. The better towels were regularly carefully washed, hung to dry and kept out of the sunlight to prevent the colors in the embroidery from fading.

During the 18th century there were hand towels for drying the hands and face as well as tea towels. I even found an early 19th century account of a girl using a larger towel to wrap fish in to carry them from the dock to the kitchen.

In 1836, a traveler described, “a sort of family towel”, which implies several people repeatedly used the same towel to wash face and hands, but continued his discourse with a rather pleasant description. “When clean, that is to say, when new, some of these towels are really pretty; they are sometimes showily ornamented with fringes of open lace-work, coarsely executed, but nevertheless, not inelegant in its design.”

Huckaback towels were advertised from the beginning of the 19th century into the early decades of the 20th and are still available for purchase. Huckaback was absorbent cotton or linen fabric, or a blend of cotton and linen, that was used especially for toweling. The word dates from 1690. Ladies were known to adorn the huckaback towels with initials and simple designs although some were described as a “very coarse, common towel”.

The average American woman did not have mass-produced towels or terry cloth towels before the industrial age. Even then many women recycled feed sacks or flour sacks for toweling, especially during the depression. My grandmother even had flour-sack sheets, one of which I still have. Some women chose to embroider simple designs or initials on that coarse fabric but they were probably more often just utilitarian squares or rectangles.

By 1900, ads were appearing for kitchen toweling and “kitchen crash”, “Toweling—bleached kitchen crash; a heavy red bordered, absorbent quality; sold in lengths as they come, from 2 ½ to 10 yards.” An ad in 1905 for Bleached Crash Toweling, “of linen-mixed yarn, unusually absorbent”, noted that, “many women plan upon making at least a dozen towels at home each season”, and another recommended Turkish kitchen towels for Christmas gifts. How many young ladies today would be happy to receive kitchen towels for a special occasion gift?

What did those nice linen towels look like? Some had blue, pink, or red borders, others were blue striped or pink checked. There were brown crash towels, and some in white with fancy weaves, etc. In short, they varied in color and design.

My aunt Dora had the cleanest, snow-white kitchen towels I’ve ever seen. Even when well worn they were spotless. I, on the other hand, had kids who had no qualms about taking a dish towel out to wash the car or clean mud off the four-wheeler and my drawer was usually full of clean but stained towels. Now that the kids are long gone and Martin knows how to use a rag for wiping a dip-stick, I like the idea of nice embroidered linen kitchen towels. Blissful Meals, yall, may your kitchen be filled with nice linens and your stew pot always full. ©

“The New Annual Register”, 1783.
The Radical Tea Towel Company catalog
“The Newgate Calendar”, 1825.
Smith, Robert. “The Friend”. Vol. 9. July 13, 1836.
Blackmore, M. O. “Merchants Manual of Advertising”. 1905.
Brightwell, Cecelia. “Georgie’s Present”. 1872
Merriam Webster Dictionary.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. “Ishmael”. 1884.

18th Century Clothing

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18th century attire, apron, bedgown

The following are a brief sampling of period paintings showing common everyday attire for women after which one might model a living history wardrobe. This might be considered a companion piece to this morning’s post on period aprons.

Run-away ads are an excellent source of what people were wearing during the 18th century and now that many of them have been compiled into book form it is easier than ever to use them to produce an accurate wardrobe.

A white run-away servant in Virginia was described in 1752 as, “wearing fine pink-colored worsted stockings and leather shoes, an old dark brown quilted petticoat, a check’d apron a strip’d Manchester Cotton bed gown, and a black beaver hat”.

In 1760 and 1769, run-away convicts in Maryland were said to be wearing gowns of chintz and striped linen respectively.

From the General Advertiser, July 30, 1772, we read of a woman who went away in a black petticoat and flowered linen bed gown and her companion who was wearing a broad blue and white striped petticoat and a bed gown of red ground with a diamond figure.

Let’s look at a few other quotes from the mid-1700’s. “Close by him sat his lady, combing her hoary locks before the same looking glass, and dressed in a short bed-gown…she was without stays, without a hoop, without ruffles, and without any linen about her neck…”. – Coventry, Francis. The History of Pompey. London. 1761.

A similar account of an 18th century woman’s attire described the woman as, “without stays, in a raggedy greasy bed-gown tied loosely over a raggedy greasy short, red, petticoat which gave me an opportunity of seeing the finest legs and feet I ever beheld”. – Long, Edward. The Prater. London. 1757.

The description of attire being greasy is not appealing by today’s standards, but lest we think the bed gown was the attire of only the coarsest of working women, let’s compare it to a completely opposite description.

“As soon as he was gone, she new-dressed herself in a most ravishing undress, putting on an agreeable cap tied with a rose-coloured ribband, a bed-gown of rose-coloured taffety, ornamented with white lace, and a petticoat of the same; in short, her whole dress was calculated to set her forth to the best advantage…Never did I see anything so pretty.” – de Beaumont, Elie. The history of the Marquis de Roselle, in a series of letters, Volume 1. London. 1766.

With regard to the following paintings from the era:
1. The adults wear petticoats, bedgowns, aprons, caps, and kerchiefs.
2. Petticoat, shift, neckerchief, stays or jumps that lace up the front, and a white cap with pink ribbon.
3. The Fishwife, bedgown, petticoat, shift, stays, colored apron.
4. Saying Grace – the mother wears a shift, petticoat, bedgown, cap, neckerchief, and apron.
5. The Scullery Maid, Chardin, another image of typical working attire.