Clothing for the Maritime Trades in New England, 1765-1770 Matthew Brenckle Jan
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Clothing for the Maritime Trades in New England, 1765-1770 Matthew Brenckle Jan. 2017 Introduction The following document is meant to help guide you as you put together your impression for the Boston Massacre reenactment. This is not meant to be prescriptive, but merely informative. There certainly is not room here to discuss all of the possible clothing choices appropriate for working-class Bostonians in 1770. Still, a careful review of available sources suggests certain trends or commonalities that will help us create a convincing and accurate portrayal of these people. When we say “maritime trades,” we are describing a diverse group of individuals whose skills and jobs encompassed a wide range of activities. These trades include the following occupations: 1. Civilian merchant sailors involved in deep-sea voyages to Europe and the Caribbean. 2. Sailors enlisted in the Royal Navy. 3. Men serving on small coasting vessels carrying bulk goods such as lumber or foodstuffs on short voyages, rarely out of sight of land. 4. Fishermen 5. Lightermen, who transferred cargoes from ship to ship, or ship to shore and back again. 6. Shore based laborers, of varying degrees of skill and experience such as stevedores, caulkers, ship painters, sailmakers, riggers, coopers, ship carpenters, spar and mast makers, etc. Despite their specific skill set or particular duties, most of these people dressed in clothing that both announced their occupation and aided their work. Some costume historians have noted the “utilitarian fallacy” of occupational dress, that is, the notion that the clothing of the working man looked the way it did because it had to be useful. By this logic, the sailor’s wide-legged trousers or short jackets created a minimal amount of impediment to his shipboard labor. In other words, form followed function. This assumption, however, ignores the important symbolic or cultural role many articles of working dress played in the everyday lives of these men. Clothing had meaning. It expressed class solidarity and helped situate the individual within the social structures of the era. In the case of seamen, special clothing created a bond between shipmates, and identified the wearer as one who had shared in the hardships of a seafaring life. John Adams’ “out landish Jack Tarrs” were deviant not only in language and behavior, but also in dress. As period deserter and runaway advertisements make clear, the general public recognized certain articles of dress by their cut or fashion as maritime in origin. We see frequent mention of clothing given a seafaring prefix: “a sailor’s jackets,” a seaman’s waistcoat”, “sailor’s short trowsers.” It can be difficult to untangle what exactly made a certain garment sailor-like, but by looking at contemporary artistic depictions of sailors, we can begin to elucidate certain trends in seafaring clothing. Many people assume that sailor clothing (and indeed, the clothing of the poor or laboring classes in general) changed very little between 1750 and 1800. This is, of course, pure fantasy, and a rather disingenuous way for some reenactors to justify wearing the same clothing to events varying widely in date. Since our goal is to reproduce an accurate visual representation of men and women who lived and worked in Boston in 1770, we must cast a critical eye on both the sources available to us, and our own wardrobes. Jackets or hats which might be appropriate for 1780, may not in fact work for 1770. A final note: One will always find a garment or fabric choice in contemporary sources that seem out of the ordinary, but we should ask ourselves how common such a garment might have been among the people we attempt to portray. Just because something existed does not necessarily mean it would have been worn in this place by these people at this time. Selected Images The following contemporary images show the progression of styles from the early 1760s through the early 1770s. Figure 1. The Stocking Seller, by Paul Sandby, about 1759. The sailor has apparently stolen stockings from the merchant in the background and is offering them for sale to passersby. He wears a small, equally cocked hat, perched at an angle on his head. His rather short single- breasted jacket features mariner’s cuffs with a proliferation of buttons. The jacket appears to have pleated skirts. He wears a striped or cross-barred neck handkerchief over a shirt (the artist made the shirt blue, but was perhaps trying to suggest a blue and white checked shirt. He wears short and wide petticoat breeches, that probably cover a pair of breeches. His lower legs are clad in dark grey or black stockings. His shoes close with large rectangular buckles. The overall style of his clothing looks back more to the 1750s or 1740s. The sailor’s common silhouette will change as the decade progresses. Figure 2. Actor David Garrick as a sailor, from Britannia: a Masque, by Mallet, which premiered 1759. The actor sailor here wears a long skirted single-breasted jacket with flap pockets and cuffs that open along the seam. Note the width of the sleeve. He doesn’t wear a waistcoat, but only a shirt and dark neck cloth. His hat is small brimmed and cocked up equally all around. He too wears long, loose over trousers, which close with a single button on the waistband. He carries a stick, the common accessory of the sailor on shore. Details of illustration from "A Favourite Song," in Clio and Euterpre, or, British Harmony, A Collection of Celebrated Songs and Cantatas, Volume Three, page 50, published by Henry Roberts, 1762 Thanks to Kyle Dalton for finding this. The two sailors in this work wear nearly identical garments. The man on the left is a boatswain or boatswain’s mate. He wears a silver heart-shaped breastplate, chain, and call (whistle) as a mark of office. Both men appear to have dispensed with waistcoats, and wear the now familiar triangular cocked hats (worn askew), long jackets, and full trousers. Note, also, the low slung quality of the trousers and the long waists on the jackets. Detail from A Book of Drafts and Remarks, by Archibald Hamilton, 1763, National Maritime Museum. The mate or master of a merchant ship takes a sight using an octant. He wears a bound or laced cocked hat, a skirted jacket with contrasting cuffs and cape, as well as striped trousers that appear to have buttoning pockets set into the side seams. Detail from “The Landing of Captain Rogers's Men at California,” artist unknown, 1765. Thanks to Kyle Dalton for finding this. Although this depicts an event that happened decades before, the artist has show these sailors dressed in clothing contemporary to 1765. They still wear long, wide trousers, but the jackets are now short, skirtless, and double-breasted (the engraver probably meant to depict a row of buttons and buttonholes on either side of the center fronts, not two rows of buttons). Even though the jackets are cut “round,” they still come down well over the hips. Details from “The Embarkation,” by John Collet, undated, but probably mid to late 1760s. This painting gives us a view of the working dress of merchant sailors and watermen. The sailor standing on the right, with his arms crossed, sports a short jacket with mariner’s cuffs, a short horizontally striped waistcoat and vertically striped fall-front trousers. The sailor bending down to the left wears a red short jacket and a jockey cap. The man behind him wears a blue double-breasted jacket and a peaked cap or knit cap. The men in the boat wear some rather disreputable looking clothing. The man standing to the left wears heavily patched canvas trousers, a striped shirt, and an open waistcoat. His cap is probably knit. The man to the right is similarly outfitted, with white shirt, unbuttoned red waistcoat and a small round hat. “A Sailor Giving a Patagonian Woman Some Biscuit for her Child,” Frontispiece, A Voyage Round the World in His Majesty's Ship The Dolphin, by John Byron, 1767. The sailor wears all the usual clothing: a skirted jacket, long, wide trousers, and in this instance, a skirted waistcoat. Note however, that his waistcoat is considerably shorter than many civilian waistcoats of this period. This is owing to the shortness of his jacket. The waistcoat skirts should not project from under the jacket’s hem. He wears a small rimmed round hat. Note also the size of the ship’s biscuit. “A view of the Endeavour's watering place in the Bay of Good Success,” by Alexander Buchan, 1769. Captain James Cook’s crew go about their duties wearing an assemblage of canvas or woolen jackets and long canvas trousers. In the mid 1760s the pattern of the Royal Navy’s slop jackets changed. No longer made single-breasted with long skirts, the jackets were now short and double breasted. By the late 1760s, this transition was complete. It is likely this style of jacket quickly found its way into the merchant navy as well. Details and Guidelines Jackets and Coats The jacket, along with his trousers, was the sailor’s most distinctive garment. Period commentators (always landsmen) often referred to the jacket’s peculiar cut. During the 1740s and 1750s, seamen’s slop jackets (both navy and civilian) tended to be rather long, single- breasted skirted garments (measuring 36 inches down the center back, according to Royal Navy slop lists). Some images depict a jacket constructed very much like a sleeved waistcoat, while others show jackets with proper lapped center back vents and pleated side vents.