For I’ll never be govern’d by tyranny’s laws.
Many people gave up tea for the duration of the war and offered various substitute beverages such as coffee and dried raspberry leaves, “a detestable drink” which the Americans “had the heroism to find good,” remarked a postwar visitor, Léon Chotteau.[[16]] Although the colonists had banished tea “with enthusiasm,” the tea habit was not forgotten. Chotteau further noted that “they all drink tea in America as they drink wine in the South of France.” Tea drinking continued to be an important social custom in the new nation well into the 19th century.
The tea ceremony, sometimes simple, sometimes elaborate, was the very core of family life. Moreau de St. Méry observed in 1795, during his residence in Philadelphia, that “the whole family is united at tea, to which friends, acquaintances and even strangers are invited.”[[17]] That teatime hospitality was offered to the newest of acquaintances or “even strangers” is verified by Claude Blanchard. He wrote of his visit to Newport, Rhode Island, on July 12, 1780, that “in the evening there was an illumination. I entered the house of an inhabitant, who received me very well; I took tea there, which was served by a young lady.” And while staying in Boston, Blanchard mentioned that a new acquaintance “invited us to come in the evening to take tea at his house. We went there; the tea was served by his daughter.”[[18]]
In the daily routine of activities when the hour for tea arrived, Moreau de St. Méry remarked that “the mistress of the house serves it and passes it around.”[[19]] In the words of another late-18th-century diarist, the Marquis de Barbé-Marbois, those present might “seat themselves at a spotless mahogany table, and the eldest daughter of the household or one of the youngest married women makes the tea and gives a cup to each person in the company.” Family Group ([fig. 1]) provides an illustration of this practice in the early part of the century. During the tea hour social and economic affairs were discussed, gossip exchanged, and, according to Barbé-Marbois, “when there is no news at all, they repeat old stories.”[[20]] Many entries in Nancy Shippen’s journal[[21]] between 1783 and 1786 indicate that this Philadelphian passed many such hours in a similar manner. On March 11, 1785, she wrote: “About 4 in the Afternoon Dr Cutting came in, & we spent the afternoon in the most agreable chit-chat manner, drank a very good dish of Tea together & then separated.” Part of an undated entry in December 1783 reads: “This Afternoon we were honor’d with the Company of Genl Washington to Tea, Mrs & Major Moore, Mrs Stewart Mr Powel Mr B Washington, & two or 3 more.” If acquaintances of Nancy’s own age were present or the company large, the tea hour often extended well into the evening with singing, conversing, dancing, and playing of whist, chess, or cards. Of one such occasion she wrote:[[21]]
Mrs Allen & the Miss Chews drank Tea with me & spent the even’g. There was half a dozen agreable & sensible men that was of the party. The conversation was carried on in the most sprightly, agreable manner, the Ladies bearing by far the greatest part—till nine when cards was proposed, & about ten, refreshments were introduced which concluded the Evening.
Obviously, young men and women enjoyed the sociability of teatime, for it provided an ideal occasion to get acquainted. When the Marquis de Chastellux was in Philadelphia during the 1780’s he went one afternoon to “take tea with Madam Shippen,” and found musical entertainment to meet with his approval and a relationship between the sexes which had parental sanction. One young miss played on the clavichord, and “Miss Shippen sang with timidity but a very pretty voice,” accompanied for a time by Monsieur Otto on the harp. Dancing followed, noted the Marquis, “while mothers and other grave personages conversed in another room.”[[22]] In New York as in Philadelphia teatime was an important part of the younger set’s social schedule. Eliza Bowne, writing to her sister in January 1810, reported that “as to news—New York is not so gay as last Winter, few balls but a great many tea-parties.”[[23]] The feminine interest and participation in such gatherings of personable young men and attractive young women was expressed by Nancy Shippen[[24]] when she wrote in her journal after such a party:
“Saturday night at 11 o’clock. I had a very large company at Tea this Evening. The company is but just broke up, I dont know when I spent a more merry Eveng. We had music, Cards, &c &c.”
A masculine view of American tea parties was openly voiced by one foreign visitor, Prince de Broglie, who, upon arrival in America in 1782, “only knew a few words of English, but knew better how to drink excellent tea with even better cream, how to tell a lady she was pretty, and a gentleman he was sensible, by reason whereof I possessed all the elements of social success.”[[25]] Similar feelings were expressed by the Comte de Ségur during his sojourn in America in the late 18th century when, in a letter to his wife in France, he wrote: “My health continues excellent, despite the quantity of tea one must drink with the ladies out of gallantry, and of madeira all day long with the men out of politeness.”[[26]]
Festive tea parties such as the ones described above are the subject of some of the group portraits or conversation pieces painted about 1730 by the English artist William Hogarth. The Assembly at Wanstead House, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, illustrates quite an elegant affair taking place in a large, richly decorated, English interior. The artist has filled the canvas with people standing and conversing while a seated group plays cards at a table in the center of the room. To one side near the fireplace a man and two women drinking tea are seated at an ornately carved, square tea table with a matching stand for the hot water kettle. On a dish or circular stand in the center of the table is a squat teapot with matching cups and saucers arranged in parallel rows on either side.
Tea-drinking guests seem to have been free to sit or stand according to their own pleasure or the number of chairs available, and Barbé-Marbois noted that at American tea parties “people change seats, some go, others come.” The written and visual materials offer little in the way of evidence to suggest that in general men stood and women sat during teatime. In fact, places at the tea table were taken by both sexes, even at formal tea parties such as the one depicted in The Assembly at Wanstead House.