Hunting Shirts and Silk Stockings: Clothing Early Cincinnati
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Fall 1987 Clothing Early Cincinnati Hunting Shirts and Silk Stockings: Clothing Early Cincinnati Carolyn R. Shine play function is the more important of the two. Shakespeare, that fount of familiar quotations and universal truths, gave Polonius these words of advice for Laertes: Among the prime movers that have shaped Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed infancy; history, clothing should be counted as one of the most potent, rich not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.1 although its significance to the endless ebb and flow of armed conflict tends to be obscured by the frivolities of Laertes was about to depart for the French fashion. The wool trade, for example, had roughly the same capital where, then as now, clothing was a conspicuous economic and political significance for the Late Middle indicator of social standing. It was also of enormous econo- Ages that the oil trade has today; and, closer to home, it was mic significance, giving employment to farmers, shepherds, the fur trade that opened up North America and helped weavers, spinsters, embroiderers, lace makers, tailors, button crack China's centuries long isolation. And think of the Silk makers, hosiers, hatters, merchants, sailors, and a host of others. Road. Across the Atlantic and nearly two hundred If, in general, not quite so valuable per pound years later, apparel still proclaimed the man. Although post- as gold, clothing like gold serves as a billboard on which to Revolution America was nominally a classless society, the display the image of self the individual wants to present to social identifier principle still manifested itself in the quality the world. In addition, it has an important utility function: it and type of clothing worn. The cut of skirt, coat, breeches, protects the human body, particularly in cold climates and in etc. might conform to patterns common to Western Europe armed combat. In many social contexts, however, the dis- and the European population of America, but the boss wore Sol in A:,- •' • TO. • 7 N ' • ,' - Carolyn R. Shine, retired Major Heart's drawing of Fort Curator of Costume and Tex- Washington, done in 1791, a tiles, Cincinnati Art Museum, few months before he was is a member of The Cincinnati killed, is a reminder of the stark Historical Society and a native conditions prevailing in early Cincinnatian. Cincinnati. Queen City Heritage superfine cloth (top quality English woolen broadcloth) style, as are Mr. and Mrs. William Woods painted by Charles while his employees might be able to afford only linsey Peale Polk in 1793. woolsey (wool weft on the linen warp and home spun at Mr. Bailey, a printer and publisher, wears a that). One might assume, however, that familiar patterns of close-fitting coat with a high folding collar (earlier, the coat dress were forcibly altered at the frontier where pioneers would have had no collar), high-buttoned waistcoat, and came to grips with the problems of surviving in the wilderness. probably matching knee breeches, of sober gray, very likely Before the Revolution, population pressures of imported English wool broadcloth. The lawn or mull of had pushed the frontier as far west as the trans-Appalachian his neckcloth was also likely to have been imported: the counties of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. In 1787 finest linen cambric and lawn came from the Netherlands Congress opened to settlement the Territory of the United and the finest cotton muslin or mull (or mul mul) from States Northwest of the River Ohio, and in 1788 pioneers India. Mrs. Bailey wears a close-fitting bodice with tight from around Boston founded Marietta, Ohio while a second three-quarter sleeves and low neckline. Her skirt would have group, mostly from New Jersey, settled in the Miami Pur- been a long, full bell-shape. The material was very likely chase, some three hundred miles downstream between the imported silk, mixed siik and wooi, or giazed wooi. Her Great and Little Miami rivers. For the pioneers from New hair is dressed close to her head and covered with a cap, Jersey the fashion center was, of course, Philadelphia, and which, like the kerchief that veils the low neckline, was what was being worn in Philadelphia can be seen in the presumably imported lawn or mull. Mr. and Mrs. Woods are portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Bailey by Charles Wilson dressed much the same with minor variations in detail, and it Peak. Mrs. Bailey, in fact, was one of the migrants to Cincin- can be seen that Mrs. Woods' dress is an open coat-dress over nati, though not until 1818 after Mr. Bailey's death.2 Peale an underskirt. The sobriety of the ladies' coiffures probably painted the Baileys around 1791, but they illustrate what reflects their social position as married ladies of the conser- was worn by the prosperous middle class for several years vative, industrious, fairly prosperous middle class. It was not each side of that date. A Mr. and Mrs. James Latimer of particularly a Quaker mode —the Baileys were Swedenborgians. Delaware, painted by Peale in 1788, are dressed in the same Nor was it purely local—the Woodses lived in Baltimore. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey of Phila- delphia wore a restrained ver- sion of fashionable dress that prevailed in the east when the first pioneers set out for the Miami Purchase. (Picture courtesy Cincinnati Art Museum) Clothing Early Cincinnati The appearance of this style of dress in numerous portraits of queue in back and powdered. A comment of Horace Walpole's the period indicates that it was a prevailing mode, but it was on the Misses Berry in 1788 would fit the Baileys and the not high fashion. High fashion called for a fichu puffed up to Woodses perfectly: "They dress within the bounds of fash- the chin.3 and for a piled-up coiffure like an ice cream soda in ion," "but without the excrescences and balconies with which the 1770's to 178o's and a frizzed-out cloud in the 178o's to modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons."6 1790's. The Reverend Manassah Cutler described Mrs. Hen- The clothes seen on the Baileys and Woodses, ry Knox in 17 8 7 as "very gross... her hair in front is craped at if not the highest fashion, were nonetheless best clothes, least a foot high much in the form of a churn bottom clothes in which to sit for one's portrait, and not very upward and topped off with a wire skeleton in the same form suitable for conquering the wilderness. For those who left covered with black gauze which hangs in streamers down civilized parts in 1788 to settle in the Miami Purchase, the her back. Her hair behind is in a large braid, turned up and protective function of clothing presumably assumed more confined with a monstrous large crooked comb."4 There are importance than the social identifier function because they many portraits of the time that show these extravagant faced a challenge involving hard manual labor, a climate coiffures. That there was this range of styles is confirmed by ranging from steaming hot to bitter cold, hostile Indians, John May of Boston, one of the Marietta pioneers, who, and inadequate shelter. They had to take everything they riding through Philadelphia in 1788, noted in his diary: needed with them because replacements or additions could "Some of the ladies appear sensible and dress neat, and some be obtained only very slowly and expensively from the east; appear by their garb to be fools. I have seen a headdress in and all of their necessities—clothes, axes, food, everything— this city at least three feet across."5 had to compete for the limited space in a wagon or in the Mr. Bailey and Mr. Woods wore their hair saddlebags of pack animals. There is evidence, however, that falling naturally to below the ears and unpowdered whereas even these arduous circumstances did not cause them to lose a portrait of Thomas Jefferson painted by Mather Brown sight of keeping up appearances. circa 1786 during his appointment in France shows the high As to what, specifically, the pioneers wore for fashion for men, with the hair rolled over the ears, tied in a their initial plunge into the wilderness, evidence for the Mr. and Mrs. Woods of Balti- more dressed like the Baileys of Philadelphia, and pioneers from New Jersey too would have dressed as much as possible like Philadelphia. (Picture courtesy Cincinnati Art Museum) 26 Queen City Heritage years 1788 to 1793 comes mainly from the reminiscences of duced and therefore inexpensive. If the women wove it pioneers—written down after the event. Although fashion themselves during the first year or so at the frontier, howev- plates were circulating out of Paris and London by the er, they must have brought the yarn with them; linen and 1780's,7 these certainly did not depict heavy-duty clothing, wool don't grow on trees. It took the pioneers nearly a year and very few examples of utilitarian clothing of that period to clear the trees sufficiently for pasture crops, their agricul- survive. That kind of clothing tended to be used up completely, tural activities being hampered by early frosts and by the descending through various stages of altering and patching hostility of the Indians which also restricted their hunting until it was finally trampled underfoot in a rag rug. for game. Even food was desperately short, they were One of the earliest of the Old Pioneer back- threatened with scurvy from over dependence on meat, and ward glances appeared in Cincinnati's first city Directory in when planting became possible they had to import seed 1819 in a prefatory summary of the town's history (said to be from Kentucky which was a few years ahead of them in based on information from participants in the events of the settlement.12 early years): "The men wore hunting shirts of linen and The most comprehensive and most pictur- linsey woolsey, and round these a belt in which were inserted esque description of the woodsman's dress came from the a scalping knife and tomahawk.