Girls' and Women's Work.
"Wanted at a Seat about half a day's journey from Philadelphia, on which are good improvements and domestics, A single Woman of unsullied Reputation, an affable, cheerful, active and amiable Disposition; cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct and manage the female Concerns of country business, as raising small stock, dairying, marketing, combing, carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, pickling, preserving, etc., and occasionally to instruct two young Ladies in those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with their father, compose the Family. Such a person will be treated with respect and esteem, and meet with every encouragement due to such a character."[366]
"There is, in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, a diary written by a young girl of Colchester, Connecticut, in the year 1775. Her name was Abigail Foote. She set down her daily work, and the entries run like this:
'Fix'd gown for Prude,—Mend Mother's Riding-hood,—Spun short thread,—Fix'd two gowns for Welsh's girls,—Carded tow,—Spun linen,—Worked on Cheese-basket,—Hatchel'd flax with Hannah, we did 51 lbs. apiece,—Pleated and ironed,—Read a Sermon of Doddridge's,—Spooled a piece,—Milked the cows,—Spun linen, did 50 knots,—Made a Broom of Guinea wheat straw,—Spun thread to whiten,—Set a Red dye,—Had two Scholars from Mrs. Taylor's,—I carded two pounds of whole wool and felt Nationly,—Spun harness twine,—Scoured the pewter.'
"She tells also of washing, cooking, knitting, weeding the garden, picking geese, etc., and many visits to her friends. She dipped candles in the spring, and made soap in the autumn."[367]
Knitting was an accomplishment of every girl in New England and among the Dutch in New York and probably with every other girl in all the colonies. Little girls were taught to knit as soon as they could hold the needles, and at four years of age they could knit stockings and mittens. They knit in wool and silk, doing fine knitting with many intricate and elaborate stitches. "A beautiful pair of long silk stockings of open-work design has initials knit on the instep, which were the wedding hose of a bride of the year 1760; and the silk for them was raised, wound, and spun by the bride's sister, a girl of fourteen, who also did the exquisite knitting."[368]
These colonial women were thrifty and saving, being well prepared to care for the garments needing repair, as is shown from an advertisement in the New York Gazette of April 1, 1751:
"Elizabeth Boyd gives notice that she will as usual graft Pieces in knit Jackets and Breeches not to be discern'd, also to graft and foot Stockings, and Gentlemen's Gloves, mittens or Muffatees made out of old Stockings, or runs them in the Heels. She likewise makes Children's Stockings out of Old Ones."[369]
The one kind of work that all the colonial women reveled in and which allowed them to display their love of color, their skill in needle-craft, and their thrift in using up odds and ends, was that of quilt-making. In the early days cotton goods were scarce and so the quilts were made from woolen garments and pieces, and all kinds of garments and remnants were used, as, the old discarded militia uniforms, worn-out flannel sheets, old petticoats, coat and cloak linings, and any other things that could not be further worn. These were thoroughly washed and where needed dyed with home-dyes and then pressed out and cut into quilting pieces. Later, cottons and linens were more readily procured and often the very best stuffs were used, for they prided themselves on the beauty of the pieces and their arrangement and the careful stitching. Not only did the making of quilts afford a chance to use up the material that could not be used otherwise and thus make coverings of value and warmth, it also gave to the women the opportunity for coming together and enjoying themselves, and so quilting-bees became one of the most social and enjoyable occasions.
One of the great industries of the women was that of soap-making. The refuse grease from cooking, butcherings, and the like, was stored up through the winter as was also the wood-ashes from the fire-place for the spring soap-making. From the ashes they obtained lye by pouring water over the ashes in barrels set on boards with grooves in them and letting it filter out at the bottom to be caught in vessels set under the ends of the boards. The lye thus obtained was poured over the grease in a great pot and boiled over a fire out of doors. The soft soap thus made was used for household purposes, especially in the washing of clothing, which was done usually once a month and in some households once in three months, the soiled clothing having been allowed to accumulate and be stored away to be washed together on one great wash-day. Another kind of labor in which the women engaged was the picking of the domestic geese, which were raised for the feathers rather than for food. The feathers were greatly desired for pillows and beds and the quills for pens.
Among the industries in which women engaged were those of flax-culture and spinning, wool-culture and spinning, and hand-weaving. The women and children aided in the culture of the flax and did quite a good deal of the work in its preparation and almost all the spinning. Women and children, too, did a great deal in helping in the wool-culture and spinning and weaving. In those early days all in the family could help and a family at work is well portrayed in the following.
"The wool industry easily furnished home occupation to an entire family. Often by the bright fire-light in the early evening every member of the household might be seen at work on the various stages of wool manufacture or some of its necessary adjuncts, and varied and cheerful industrial sounds fill the room. The old grandmother, at light and easy work, is carding the wool into fleecy rolls, seated next the fire; for, as the ballad says 'she was old and saw right dimly.' The mother, stepping as lightly as one of her girls, spins the rolls into woolen yarn on the great wheel. The oldest daughter sits at the clock-reel, whose continuous buzz and occasional click mingles with the humming rise and fall of the wool-wheel, and the irritating scratch, scratch, of the cards. A little girl at a small wheel is filling quills with woolen yarn for the loom, not a skilled work; the irregular sound shows her intermittent industry. The father is setting fresh teeth in a wool-card, while the boys are whittling hand-reels and loom-spools."[370]
After the first years in the new country, when all time and labor would be consumed in carrying on the plain necessaries of life, women began to enter more into fancy lines of work, and during later colonial times the women and girls did quite a lot of fine work in sewing, knitting, embroidering, and other kinds of decorative work. There arose schools for teaching girls and young women feather-work, fancy knitting, painting on glass, embroidery, netting, fine sewing, wax-work, the making of artificial fruits and flowers, paper-cutting, and many other things.
They made most beautiful embroidery. Articles of clothing had vines, trees, fruits, flowers, and other designs worked on them and also words and mottoes and texts from the Bible. Some of the christening caps and robes of the babies had beautiful embroidered work on them. Among the embroidered goods of those days were the mourning pieces. They had worked on them weeping willows and urns, tombs and mourning figures, epitaphs, and names of deceased members of the family or friends with dates of their deaths.
One piece of embroidering which was done by every little girl in families of standing was the making of a sampler, which consisted of a long and narrow, or nearly square, piece of linen canvas with designs worked in colored silks and wools. These were among the works of children in early colonial times, as there is one still preserved made by a daughter of a Pilgrim Father and another bearing on it the date of 1654. In the older samplers there was little bother with realism in using the colors as a green horse might be alongside a blue tree and the green horse might have his legs worked in red. On them were worked crude or strangely represented trees and fruits and flowers and animals. There were verses embroidered and portions of hymns and sometimes pictures portraying family or public events. Some were quite pretentious, one such sampler shows the Old South Church with a coach passing by it and ladies and gentlemen on horses and afoot in the costumes of the time, and even a negro lad holding a horse, and birds flying in the air above them.
Laces were made for using on pillows and made on net for veils and collars and caps. "Girls spent years working on a single collar or tucker. Sometimes medallions of this net lace were embroidered down upon fine linen lawn. I have infants' caps of this beautiful work, finer than any needlework of to-day."[371]
Netting was another of their arts, the net being used on coverlets and curtains and valances, this kind being made of cotton thread or twine, while a finer kind was made of silk or fine cotton for trimming sacks and petticoats; also netted purses and work-bags as well as knitted ones were made. On small looms they made tapes and braids and ribbons for use as glove-ties, shoe-strings, hair-laces, stay-laces, garters, hatbands, belts, etc.
They did painting on glass, representing fruits and flowers, and an especial subject was coats of arms. They made feather-work, which consisted in pasting small feathers or portions of feathers together to form flowers for use on head-dresses and bonnets. Another form of decorative work indulged in by colonial women was the cutting of designs out of stiff paper with scissors. They cut out coats of arms, valentines, wreaths of flowers, marine views, religious symbols, animals, landscapes, and other designs. They were sometimes mounted on black paper, framed and glazed, and given as presents to friends.