Dress.
As the colonies grew and wealth increased, display in dress grew and continued up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was a constant succession of rich and gay fashions patterned after those of Europe. This was not only true of women's clothing but of men's as well. There were importations from Europe, among which were gauzes, silks, laces, velvets, and fine cloths of bright colors. Too, when trade widened, goods were brought from China and the East Indies. Although the colonists might wear rich clothing they were not wasteful, for the gowns and ribbons were turned and dyed and well cared for, and much of the clothing was passed on to other generations. This passion for dress was not even stopped by the Revolutionary War as is shown from a letter by a Hessian officer of that time:
"They are great admirers of cleanliness and keep themselves well shod. They friz their hair every day and gather it up on the back of the head into a chignon at the same time puffing it up in front. They generally walk about with their heads uncovered and sometimes but not often wear some light fabric on their hair. Now and then some country nymph has her hair flowing down behind her, braiding it with a piece of ribbon. Should they go out even though they be living in a hut, they throw a silk wrap about themselves, and put on gloves. They also put on some well made and stylish little sunbonnet, from beneath which their roguish eyes have a most fascinating way of meeting yours. In the English colonies the beauties have fallen in love with red silk or woolen wraps. The wives and daughters spend more than their incomes allow. The man must fish up the last penny he has in his pocket. The funniest part of it is the women do not seem to steal it from them, neither do they obtain it by cajoling, fighting, or falling in a faint. How they obtain it is a mystery, but that the men are heavily taxed for their extravagance is certain. The daughters keep up their stylish dressing because their mothers desire it. Nearly all articles necessary for the adornment of the female sex are very scarce and dear. For this reason they are wearing their Sunday finery. Should this begin to show signs of wear I am afraid that the husbands and fathers will be compelled to make peace with the Crown if they would keep their women folk supplied with gewgaws."[254]
This growth in the richness of apparel did not escape the eyes of the lawmakers, for sumptuary laws were passed in order to restrain and even prohibit luxury and extravagance in dress, but needless to say all such laws failed in the end. In 1634 the General Court of Massachusetts gave out the order:
"That no person either man or woman shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen or silk or linen with any lace on it, silver, gold, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also that no person either man or woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back; also all cut-works, embroideries, or needlework cap, bands, and rails are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid penalty; also all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaverhats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter."[255]
"In 1639 'immoderate great breeches, knots of ryban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and capes' were added to the list of tabooed garments."[256] In 1651 came the utterance of the Court as given before.
Nor were these idle laws, for many people were tried and punished. In Northampton in 1676 there were thirty-eight women brought up at one time before the court for their "wicked apparell." Not only did the courts and lawmakers try to stop the increase for showy clothing but also the ministers took up the refrain and preached against the display of finery.
"After a while the whole church interfered. In 1679 the church at Andover put it to vote whether 'the parish Disapprove of the female sex sitting with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent.' In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was voted that it was 'an indecent way that the female sex do sit with their hats and bonnets on to worship God.' Still another town voted it was the 'Town's Mind' that the women should take their bonnets off in meeting and hang them 'on the peggs.' We do not know positively, but I suspect that the bonnets continued to grace the heads instead of the pegs in Andover, Abington, and other towns."[257]
In the early times in New England the men wore breeches of leather or of heavy woolens lined with leather with waistcoats, jackets, and doublets of leather, being plain and durable. But even at that early time there were scarlet caps and scarlet coats. In the country the clothing of the men was usually plain and made by the people themselves, the cloth being spun, dyed, and woven at home. Sometimes trousers were worn instead of the conventional short-clothes and shoes and hose dispensed with, the men going barefooted. Among the frontiersmen there were suits of deer-skin and coats made of bear-skin and raccoon-skin.
"The frontiersmen and hunters did not quite escape the prevailing fondness for the decorative and fanciful in dress. That some of them clubbed and some of them queued their hair, I have already remarked. Their 'hunting-shirt,' which served for vest and coat also, was of linsey-wolsey or buckskin in winter and of tow-linen in the summer. It had many fringes and a broad belt about the middle. The hunter wore either breeches of buckskin or thin trousers; over these he fastened coarse woolen leggins tied with garters or laced well up the thigh, as a defense against mud, serpents, insects, and thorns. He wore moccasins, and covered his head with a flapped hat of a reddish hue, or a cap. The sharp tomahawk stuck in his belt served for a weapon, for hatchet, for hammer, and for a whole kit of tools besides. The shot-bag and powder-horn completed his outfit; the powder-horn was his darling, and upon it he lavished all the resources of his ingenuity, carving it with whimsical devices of many sorts. And there was probably less that was in false taste in the woodman's outfit than in any costume of the period."[258]
Whatever way the New England Puritan may have dressed himself in the early colonial times, he did not hesitate to bedeck himself in the later times. "Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared one noon-day in 1782:
"'He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers.'
"What gay peacock was this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston Streets!—was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what 'fop-tackle' did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial hands thrust in a great fur muff.
"Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress—a true New England jessamy.
"'He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot from instep to toe. His small-clothes were tied at the knees with riband of the same color in double bows, the ends reaching down to the ancles. His hair in front was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled or creped, and powdered; the ear locks had undergone the same process. Behind his natural hair was augmented by the addition of a large queue, called vulgarly the false tail, which, enrolled in some yards of black riband, hung halfway down his back.'"[259]
The dress of the women among the colonists is shown in such lists as in the will of Jane Humphrey, who died in Dorchester, Mass., in 1668:
"Ye Jump. Best Red Kersey Petticoate, Sad Grey Kersey Wascote. My blemmish Searge Petticoate & my best hatt. My white Fustian Wascote. A black Silk neck cloath. A handkerchiefe. A blew Apron. A plain black Quoife without any lace. A white Holland Appron with a small lace at the bottom. Red Searge petticoat and a blackish Searge petticoat. Greene Searge Wascote & my hood & muffe. My Green Linsey Woolsey petticoate. My Whittle that is fringed & my Jump & my blew Short Coate. A handkerchief. A blew Apron. My best Quife with a Lace. A black Stuffe Neck Cloath. A White Holland apron with two breadths in it. Six yards of Redd Cloth. A greene Vnder Coate. Staning Kersey Coate. My murry Wascote. My Cloake & my blew Wascote. My best White Apron, my best Shifts. One of my best Neck Cloaths, & one of my plain Quieus. One Calico Vnder Neck Cloath. My fine thine Neck Cloath. My next best Neck Cloath. A square Cloath with a little lace on it. My greene Apron."[260]
"Vrouentje Ides Stoffelsen, the wife of a respectable and well-to-do Dutch settler in New Netherlands, left behind her in 1641 a gold hoop ring, a silver medal and chain and a silver under-girdle to hang keys on; a damask furred jacket, two black camlet jackets, two doublets—one iron gray, the other black; a blue, a steel-gray lined petticoat, and a black coarse camlet-lined petticoat; two black skirts, a new bodice, two white waistcoats, one of Harlem stuff; a little black vest with two sleeves, a pair of damask sleeves, a reddish morning gown, not lined; four pairs pattens, one of Spanish leather; a purple apron and four blue aprons; nineteen cambric caps and four linen ones; a fur cap trimmed with beaver; nine linen handkerchiefs trimmed with lace, two pair of old stockings, and three shifts."[261]
The list of the wardrobe of the widow of Dr. Jacob De Lange, of New York, in 1682, showed the following:
"One under petticoat with a body of red bay; one under petticoat, scarlet; one petticoat, red cloth with black lace; one striped stuff petticoat with black lace; two colored drugget petticoats with gray linings; two colored drugget petticoats with white linings; one colored drugget petticoat with pointed lace; one black silk petticoat with ash gray silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta lining; one silk potoso-à-samare with lace; one tartanel samare with tucker; one black silk crape samare with tucker; three flowered calico samares; three calico nightgowns, one flowered, two red; one silk waistcoat, one calico waistcoat; one pair of bodice; five pair white cotton stockings; three black love-hoods; one white love-hood; two pair sleeves with great lace; four cornet caps with lace; one black silk rain cloth cap; one black plush mask; four yellow lace drowlas; one embroidered purse with silver bugle and chain to the girdle and silver hook and eye; one pair black pendants, gold nocks; one gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds & one white coral chain; one pair gold stucks or pendants each with ten diamonds; two diamond rings; one gold ring with clasp back; one gold ring or hoop bound round with diamonds."[262]
There was no ready-made clothing in the colonies till late, for men appearing about the middle of the eighteenth century and for women not till near the close of the same century. The women's clothing was made by themselves or by dressmakers, who had establishments in the town and went from home to home in the country. Sometimes the women would send to the home country for garments, which would be passed about among themselves as models. A rather striking way of introducing the new styles was by importing dolls fully and carefully dressed in Europe in the newest fashions. The notice of the arrival of such a doll is found in an advertisement in the New England Weekly Journal of July 2, 1733.
"To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts Mantua Maker at the Head of Summer Street Boston a Baby drest after the Newest Fashion of Mantues and Night Gowns & everything belonging to a dress. Latilly arrived on Capt. White from London, any Ladies that desire to see it may either come or send, she will be ready to wait on 'em, if they come to the House it is Five Shilling & if she waits on 'em it is Seven Shilling."[263]
They did not have a great deal of jewelry. Bracelets and lockets were worn by a few of the women and some of the men had gold and silver sleeve-buttons, and also men sometimes wore thumb-rings, which seems in keeping with their using muffs. Rings were common, which were for the most part mourning-rings, as these were given to all the chief mourners at funerals. Silver buckles for the knees and ankles were quite common among the men. Paste brilliants were very much in use, being worn on shoe buckles by the men, and women wore paste combs and paste pins. Watches appeared in England about the middle of the seventeenth century, but it was quite a little later before they were found among the colonists, and even then they were used only by the wealthy. Umbrellas, made of oiled linen, came into use late in the colonial period, but before that the ladies had learned to protect their faces from the sun by sun-fans of green paper, and green masks were worn while riding. In New England black velvet masks were used as a shield from the cold, being held in place by means of a silver mouthpiece. Hoopskirts came into fashion and they became quite big affairs about the middle of the eighteenth century. To set off the coats and breeches of gaudy colors the men wore shirts with highly ruffled bosoms. The stylish shoes of the women were frail affairs, being of very thin material and with paper soles which were protected by overshoes known as goloe-shoes, clogs, pattens, etc.
In the colonies the customs in reference to the wearing of the hair prevailed as in use in the old country, the Puritans in New England keeping their hair short, as did their brethren in England, and so nicknamed Roundheads, while in Virginia the hair was worn long, as was the custom with the Cavaliers of England. As hard as the New Englanders fought against long hair, going as far as to offer men under sentence release from punishment if they would cut off their long hair, the Virginians went further and made short hair disgraceful by making it a brand and a mark of identification for indentured servants when caught and returned to their masters after running away before their time of service had expired.
But Puritan and Cavalier and Quaker all succumbed to the wig. The rage for wearing wigs by the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed to have possessed the colonists, as wigs were worn by men of all ranks and conditions, by children, servants, prisoners, and even sailors and soldiers. The styles varied greatly, sometimes they swelled out at the side, sometimes they hung in braids or in curls or in pig-tails, and again they were in great puffs or were turned under in heavy rolls. They were made of human hair, horsehair, goat's-hair, calves' and cows' tails, thread, silk, and mohair. Some of them were quite costly, even as much as the equal of a hundred dollars today. There were a great variety of styles of wigs, known as the tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the major, the albemarle, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, the giddy feather-top, the campaign, the neck-lock, the bob, the lavant, the vallaney, the drop-wig, the buckle-wig, the bag-wig, the Grecian fly, the peruke, the beau-peruke, the long-tail, the bob-tail, the fox-tail, the cut-wig, the tuck-wig, the twist-wig, the scratch.[264]
"Soon after 1750, perhaps, the decline of the wig set in; but the exuberant fancy of the age still made the heads of gentlemen to blossom. The wig-maker's tortures fell upon the natural hair: it was curled, frizzled, and powdered; it was queued or clubbed. The man of dignity, even the fashionable clergyman, sat long beneath the hands of the barber every day of his life. Side-locks and dainty little toupees were cultivated. The 'maccaroni'—type and pink of the most debauched English dandyism—made his appearance in 1774 in the fashionable assemblies of Charleston, and even in Charleston there were two varieties of these creatures: the one wore the hair clubbed, the other preferred the dangling queue. The rage for growing the longest possible switch of hair infected the lower classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eel-skin their cherished locks, and the back-countryman in some places was accustomed to preserve his from injury by enveloping it in a piece of bear's-gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag."[265]
The women of the colonies, like the men, tried to keep up with the fashions of Europe. The manner in which they wore their hair brought upon them the wrath of the parsons, one of whom, Increase Mather, even included a notice of such in his great sermon upon the comet in 1683: "Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell? Will they lay out their hair, and wear false locks, their borders, and towers like comets about their heads?"[266] These towers grew out of style, but they came back again near a century later, in Revolutionary times. At this later time the front hair was drawn up over a roll or cushion and stiffened with powder and grease and then the back hair was drawn up in a similar way. The pile was then built up with ribbons, pompons, aigrettes, jewels, gauze, flowers, and feathers till it arose near a half yard in height. This process took a long time, as is told in 1771 by a bright little Boston school girl, eleven years of age, who saw a hairdresser at his work. "How long she was at his opperation, I know not. I saw him twist & tug & pick & cut off whole locks of grey hair at a slice (the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress next time) for the space of a hour & a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be near done."[267] "One may judge of the vital necessity there was for all this art from the fact that a certain lady in Annapolis about the close of the colonial period was accustomed to pay six hundred dollars a year for the dressing of her hair. On great occasions the hairdresser's time was so fully occupied that some ladies were obliged to have their mountainous coiffures built up two days beforehand, and to sleep sitting in their chairs, or, according to a Philadelphia tradition, with their heads inclosed in a box."[268]
The contents of such a tower is shown in a description of an accident to a young woman in the streets of Boston, as found in the Boston Gazette of 1771. "In an infaust moment she was thrown down by a runaway, and her tower received serious damage. It burst its thin outer wall of natural hair, and disgorged cotton and wool and tow stuffing, false hair, loops of ribbon and gauze. Ill-bred boys kicked off portions of the various excresences, and the tower-wearer was jeered at until she was glad to escape with her own few natural locks."[269]
These dressings of the hair called for material to use and they had powdering puffs and powdering bags and powdering machines and several varieties of powder to use in them, such as brown, maréchal, scented, plain, and blue. Pomatums came into use, one of which in a book dated 1706 is shown to be made thus: "The Dutch way to make Orange-butter. Take new cream two gallons, beat it up to a thicknesse, then add half a pint of orange-flower-water, and as much red wine, and so being become the thicknesse of butter it has both the colour and smell of an orange."[270] There were hair-restorers and hair-dyes, all promising much to those using them correctly and carefully, one such formula coming down to us from 1685: "A Metson to make a mans heare groe when he is bald. Take sume fier flies & sum Redd wormes & black snayls and sum hume bees and dri them and pound them & mixt them in milk or water."[271]
In early colonial times not much attention was given to the teeth. The following is in line with their knowledge and care of the teeth. "If you will keep your teeth from rot, plug, or aking, wash the mouth continually with Juyce of Lemons, and afterwards rub your teeth with a Sage Leaf and Wash your teeth after meat with faire water. To cure Tooth Ach. 1. Take Mastick and chew it in your mouth until it is as soft as wax, then stop your teeth with it, if hollow, there remaining till it's consumed, and it will certainly cure you. 2. The tooth of a dead man carried about a man presently suppresses the pains of the Teeth."[272] The tooth powders were such as to be quite injurious to the teeth. One such had in its combination cuttle-bone, brick-dust, and pumice-stone. Another was to contain coral reduced to a powder, and if no coral was to be had, then coarse earthenware might be broken up and powdered for use. Their instruments for pulling teeth were crude and caused the greatest of pain, often breaking the jaw. The artificial teeth of that time may have helped the looks, but they were of very little value in eating, if any at all. There was used an ingrafting process wherein sound teeth were extracted from one person and inserted in another person's mouth. "I cannot find any notice of the sale of 'teeth brushes' till nearly Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England, little brushes made of 'dentissick root' or mallow, chewed into a fibrous swab."[273]
After the first years of hardships, and wealth began to come to the colonists, there not only arose among the women the desire for fine dress, but also a love of cosmetics. As early as 1686 it was said of a woman of Boston, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting dares hardly laugh." One of the ministers of New England about that same time stated to his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their arms." In the newspapers are advertisements of washes for the skin, face powders, face paints, compositions to take off "Superficious Hair," face patches, and the like. One of the leading cosmetics was the wash-ball, a substitute for soap. They loved perfumes and not only used them about their persons, but also to scent their linen chests, closets, and rooms.
"With regard to the bathing habits of our ancestors but little can be said, and but little had best be said. Charles Francis Adams writes, with witty plainness, 'If among personal virtues cleanliness be indeed that which ranks next to godliness, then judged by the nineteenth century standards, it is well if those who lived in the eighteenth century had a sufficiency of the latter quality to make good what they lacked of the former.' He says there was not a bathroom in the town of Quincy prior to the year 1820. And of what use would pitchers or tubs of water have been in bedrooms in the winter time, when, if exposed over night, solid ice would be found therein in the morning? The washing of linen in New England homes was done monthly; it is to be hoped the personal baths were more frequent, even under the apparent difficulties of accomplishment. I must state, in truth, though with deep mortification, that I cannot find in inventories even of Revolutionary times the slightest sign of the presence of balneary appurtenances in bedrooms; not even of ewers, lavers, and basins, nor of pails and tubs. As petty pieces of furniture, such as stools, besoms, framed pictures, and looking-glasses are enumerated, this conspicuous absence of what we deem an absolute necessity for decency speaks with a persistent and exceedingly disagreeable voice of the unwashed condition of our ancestors, a condition all the more mortifying when we consider their exceeding external elegance in dress. This total absence of toilet appliances does not, of course, render impossible a special lavatory or bathroom in the house, or the daily importation to the bedrooms of hot-water cans, twiggen bottles, bathtubs, and basins from other portions of the house; but even that equipment would show a lack of adequate bathing facilities. Nor do the tiny toilet jugs and basins of Staffordshire ware that date from the first part of this century point to any very elaborate ablutions."[274]