What to wear? - Picturing Early America

What to wear?
Samantha Deutsch
Picturing Early America
NEH Summer Institute 2010
Essential Question:
How does clothing reflect status and
situation for men, women and children
in early America?
Who are these people?
The Freake-Gibbs Painter, John
Freake, 1671 and 74, Worcester
Museum of Art
The Freake-Gibbs Painter,
Elizabeth Clarke Freake and baby
Mary, 1671 and 74, Worcester
Museum of Art
Clothes at every status must fit the social code:
As status increases, the clothes worn by early
Americans generally become more decorative, and
less adapted to work requirements.
Gentry
Servants,
Enslaved
persons
Tradesmen,
Artisans,
Farmers,
and their
families
Goals:
Do clothes make the man?
•  Students will recognize differences in costumes of
early Americans and how they relate to gender,
situation and status, as well as changing fashions.
•  Students will compare and contrast clothing
choices then and now.
•  Students will analyze the meaning of clothes and
apparel with relation to status, judgment of
character, and “individual expression,” both in the
past and today.
Unit Overview
•  This unit, designed for a fifth grade English as a Second
Language class, will form a large part of our study of
colonial and revolutionary America, overlapping with
exploration of important historical events and people.
•  All lessons must be differentiated for English language
learners of various levels, including new arrivals, who
may have low literacy skills. Many students have
advanced speaking and listening skills in English, but
still experience lags in reading and writing.
•  Concepts will be taught through the use of
visuals, vocabulary practice, and structured
writing assignments.
Standards
NEW YORK STATE SOCIAL STUDIES STANDARDS
STANDARD I – HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES AND
NEW YORK
Key Idea 1.1:
1. The study of New York State and United States history
requires an analysis of the development of American
culture, its diversity and multicultural context, and the
ways people are unified by many values, practices, and
traditions.
Student Performance Indicators:
1.1a: know the roots of American culture, its development
from many different traditions, and the ways many people
from a variety of groups and backgrounds played a role in
creating it
Sequence of Lessons
•  Pre-assessment—Match clothing names, pictures,
definitions
•  Portrait analysis—Smithsonian guide
•  “Dress the Part”—Interactive dress-up games
•  Costume Analysis and sentence writing
•  The life of an early American child:
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Make a pocket
Copy a facsimile children’s book
Read a manners book
Watch “A Day in the Life”—Colonial Williamsburg
•  Plan an improvised dress up day
•  Debate: division of labor and education, or Patriots
vs. Royalists
•  Role play: parent instructing a child
•  Assessment
Vocabulary
I have adapted glossaries of clothing terms from the
Colonial Williamsburg Web Site for men, women, and
children for use throughout the unit. A gallery of
African-American clothing highlights the specific
social codes involved in the dress of enslaved AfricanAmericans.
•  early american costume\African American
Clothing.docx
•  early american costume\glossary of children's
clothing.doc
•  early american costume\glossary of women's
clothing.docx
•  early american costume\glossary of men's
clothing.docx
Vocabulary Match-up
•  To launch the unit, students will participate in a match-up
activity.
•  Index cards will be distributed with vocabulary words,
definitions and pictures. Students will have to find the
classmates with the matching cards. Beginners will have
pictures or words.
A padded cap was tied on the head of
a child learning to walk. It protected
the child's brain when it fell and hit its
head. There was a belief that if the
head was hit it would be permanently
soft, and falling frequently could lead
to the brain turning mushy like
pudding. Toddlers were often and
lovingly referred to as "little pudding
heads."
Pudding cap
What’s that called?
Cap
Hat
Gown
Stockings
Mob cap
Petticoat
Shift
Shoes
Stays
Stomacher
Sleeve ruffles
Muffs
What’s that called?
Breeches
Coat
Cloak
Cravat
Great coat
Tricorn hat
Banyan
Hunting shirt
Monmouth cap
Shirt
Shoes
Stockings/Hose
Suit
Trousers
Waistcoat
Wig
Children’s Clothing
Gown
Skeleton suit
Breeches
Pudding cap
Swaddling band
Over cap
Stays
Shirt
Cap
Frock
Who are these
children?
•  The child on the left
was a boy!
•  Boys were dressed in
gowns or frocks until
they were “breeched,”
between the ages of 4
and 7.
•  The child on the
right was probably a
girl, but it’s hard to
tell for sure.
Portrait of Two Children, attributed to Joseph
Badger, mid-eighteenth century. Image taken
from What Clothes Reveal
Kleenex? No! Handkerchief!
Image taken
from What
Clothes Reveal
African Americans
•  By the beginning of the American Revolution, 20 percent of
the population in the thirteen colonies was of African descent.
The legalized practice of enslaving blacks occurred in all 13
colonies.
•  Slavery was legal in New York until 1827.
•  During the Revolutionary era, more than half of all African
Americans lived in Virginia and Maryland. The majority, but
not all, of these African Americans were slaves. In fact, the
first official United States Census taken in 1790 showed that
eight percent of the black populace was free.
•  Whether free or enslaved, blacks in America had familial
relationships, networks for disseminating information,
survival techniques, and various forms of resistance to their
condition.
•  Information adapted from Colonial Williamsburg Web Site.
What can you tell about these African Americans
based on their attire, or clothing?
A Runaway Slave:
What was he wearing? Why is that information
included in the advertisement?
Image from Queens Historical Society.
Where did it come from?
Most cloth used to make clothing in early America
was imported, even for servants and slaves. Compare:
The daughter of a Virginia
planter might wear:
•  A gown made of silk
from China;
•  Underclothing made of
linen from Holland;
•  Footwear made in
England.
A slave on the same plantation
might wear clothes made
specifically for his or her
duties:
•  A shirt of linen woven
in Northern Europe;
•  Woolen hose made in
Scotland;
•  A knitted cap made in
Monmouth, England.
Source: Baumgarten, L., Eighteenth Century Clothing at Williamsburg
Portraits
Charles Willson Peale,
Mrs. Robert Gilmour,
daughters Jane and
Elizabeth, c. 1788
•  Who is in this portrait?
•  Why was it painted?
•  What objects do you
see?
•  What do you think the
sitters would say?
•  What are they wearing?
What is a Portrait?
•  Introduce idea of portrait painting, the
artist, and the sitter.
•  Who had portraits painted?
•  What do you wear in a portrait?
•  What else is in a portrait?
•  What is the same/different about portraits
today?
Portrait Analysis
•  Smithsonian “Reading” Portraiture Guide
for Educators (adapted):
 “Learning to Look” Strategies
 Questions to ask
 “Reading” Portraiture at a Glance
•  Portrait activities:
 Puzzles
 Object lists
 Strike a pose
•  ..\Desktop\reading portraiture guide.pdf
Justus Engelhardt
Kuhn, Henry Darnall
III, circa 1710
•  Compare and contrast
the two boys.
•  Name and list the
objects you see.
•  What have they been
doing?
•  Where do they live?
•  What are they wearing?
•  What is different about
these boys, compared to
boys today?
•  What is the same?
Justus Engelhardt
Kuhn, Eleanor
Darnall, c. 1710
•  Who is this girl?
•  Name and list the
objects you see.
•  What is she doing?
•  Where does she live?
•  What is she wearing?
•  What is different about
this girl, compared to
girls today?
•  What is the same?
•  Play “What am I
thinking?”
•  What might she be
about to say?
Scipio Moorhead, Frontispiece for Poems on
Various Subjects, by Phillis Wheatley, 1773
Who are these people, and why are they
dressed this way?
CBJ Saint-Memin, Lewis, 1807,
New-York Historical Society
CBJ Saint-Memin, Osage
Warrior I, 1805-07,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Who is this?
Simon van de Passe, Pocahontas,
c. 1647.
Thomas Sully, Pocahontas, 1852,
Getty Images
Saggy pants! c. 2010
•  What do these clothes say about the person?
•  Should we judge a person by his clothes, or his
character?
“Dress the Part”
•  In the computer lab, try the following interactive
dress-up games:
•  Colonial Williamsburg—costume “anatomy,”
interactive dress-up, and paper doll game:
http://www.history.org/history/teaching/
dayinthelife/interact_dress.cfm
•  PBS Colonial House—interactive dress-up:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/history/
dress_up_flash.html.
•  Write sequence sentences telling how you get
dressed.
Getting Dressed
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2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
First, I put on my ____________________.
Next, I put on my ____________________.
Then, I put on my ____________________.
Next goes the ________________. (singular!)
Next go the __________________. (plural!)
Don’t forget the __________________.
Finally, I put on my __________________.
I’m all dressed and ready to start the day!
Discussion and Costume
Sorting
•  Now that you have seen clothes worn by different
people in early America, what else can you say
about the Darnall children portraits?
•  Let’s look at other costumes, or outfits, worn by
different people.
•  How can we sort these into groups? Who would
wear these different outfits?
Paper Doll Costumes
What differences do you notice between these two couples?
Man and woman from the
wealthy Dutch patroon
class, c. 1630.
•  Puritans, c. 1650.
•  Sumptuary laws require
dressing in plain style.
•  His hairstyle was called a
“roundhead,” so Puritans
were often called
“roundheads.”
•  Her hat is called a beaver,
and she wears it over her
cap.
English colonists, c. 1670.
•  The woman’s apron is
pinned in place, so it’s
called a pinafore.
•  What is the man going
to do?
•  Clothes worn after the
Revolution became more
colorful, reflecting happier
times.
•  The little boy has not yet
been “breeched.”
•  Man wearing a banyan
over a waistcoat and knee
breeches.
•  Banyans were popular
from the 1750s to the
1770s.
•  They were worn in public,
and for entertaining
friends.
•  His cap is called a tam-oshanter, and was worn
when he was not wearing
his wig. Can you guess
why?
•  The lady has a Chinese
fan, which shows that
she...
Sentence Writing
•  Write framed sentences, differentiated by
level.
•  Match sentences to color plates, paper
dolls, etc.
•  Combine pages to make a book.
•  Elicit hypotheses about the hierarchical
status of people in early America.
•  Pose question: Why did a person’s status
determine the way he or she dressed?
Costume Analysis
and Sentence Writing
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What do you see?
What is the person doing?
What objects give us clues about the life of the person?
Describe the person’s clothing. Make a list of the items
you can name.
How does his or her clothing reflect this person’s place
in society?
List adjectives that describe both the person and his or
her emotions.
What personal qualities can you attribute to the person
based on how she or he looks?
What can you say about life in America based on this
person’s costume?
Sentence Frames
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The man (woman) is a __________.
He (she) is _____________.
He has a ________________.
She is holding a _______________.
He is wearing __________________.
She is going to _________________.
He feels _____________________.
She will probably_______________.
•  Fashions and styles
changed in early
America, just like they
do now.
•  Look at these styles,
and notice how they
change over time.
•  These dresses are
from the early and
mid-18th Century.
•  Math Activity: Convert
Century to range of
years. Example: “Last
quarter of the 18th
Century= ?”
•  Answer: 1775-1799
Second half of 18th
Century
End of 18th and beginning of
19th Centuries
Middle of 19th
Century—Back to big
hoops!
How many people did a
lady in the gentry class
need to help her get
dressed?
•  Fashions changed
quickly throughout the
18th and early 19th
centuries.
•  The silhouette, or
shape, of the skirt of a
gown grew and shrank.
This meant that the
hoops underneath the
gown, which helped hold
the skirt out, had to
change size and shape.
•  What shape would
these hoops make?
•  How would wearing
hoop skirts affect the
movement of the wearer?
•  Compare these
two styles.
•  Which dress
would require
hoops?
•  This painting is called High Life Below Stairs. It was painted in 1763
by John Collet. It shows a scene in England, which was similar to
America.
•  Who is the girl in the middle?
•  What can you tell about the other people, based on their costumes?
•  We dress up for fun and other reasons. Did people in early
America do that, too?
•  What do these portraits of Rebecca Boylston tell you about
her?
Who else plays dress up?
Taken from What Clothes Reveal, this image shows people
participating in a colonial parade in 1921.
What kind of portrait is this?
Family Portraits
Say “Cheese!”
Family Portraits
Charles Willson Peale, The Peale Family, 1771-73
What do you see?
•  “I see a ______________. What do you see?”
•  “I see a ______________ and a ____________. What do you see?”
etc., etc.
•  Make a T-chart of the people and objects, adding one or two
describing words to each, or explaining the meaning.
People/Objects
•  Grandmamma
•  Paper
Describing
words/Purpose
•  Sad, left out
•  The dad is
drawing the
baby
Ralph Earl, Mrs. Noah Smith and her
children, 1798, Metropolitan Museum
•  What do you notice in this family group?
•  What are the sitters wearing? Why?
John Singleton Copley, Copley Family,
1776-77
What is different in this painting?
Compare these two
families.
Edward Savage, The Washington Family,
1789, National Gallery of Art
•  Who is in this portrait?
•  What do the objects in the painting tell you
about this family’s status and lifestyle?
Strike a Pose
•  Choose one of the family portraits.
•  You and a few classmates are going to pose like
the sitters in the portrait.
•  Have a classmate take a photograph of your
“family portrait.”
•  What do you think the artist might be saying to
the family members?
•  Imagine you are one of the sitters. Write a letter
to a friend describing the experience of having
a family portrait made. (Hint: are the clothes
you wore in the portrait the ones you wear
every day?)
Living the Life
What would life be like for a
child in early America?
How would a boy’s life be
different from a girl’s?
Make a Pocket
•  As you have seen on the interactive dress-up
games, women wore pockets tied around their
waists and under their skirts.
•  Women’s clothes did not have sewn-in pockets, like
they do today.
•  Follow the detailed instructions to make your own
drawstring pocket.
Pocket Instructions
just next to where it came out.
Materials:
fabric (approximately 8" x 10", or 1/4 of a "fat quarter" if
you're collecting fabric samples from quilters, for each
pocket) thread needles (You can use blunt embroidery needles if the
fabric is thin or loosely woven. They have the added
advantage of having larger eyes than regular needles.) The
safety pins straight pins (Or 3 safety pins per pocket) scissors (Sharp ones for the fabric, regular ones for the
thread) Tip: You could grab a couple of lacing cards from a
preschool to demonstrate the two types of stitch. Procedure:
Cut 2 pieces of fabric, each 1 inch wider and 1 inch longer
than your hand. Make the casing for the drawstrings. Fold over 1/2
inch of one short edge of each piece, towards the
"wrong" side of the fabric. (That's the uglier side, either
with lighter printing or the smooth side of corduroy or
velvet. Some fabric does not have an obvious wrong
side. If you can't see a difference, it's OK.) Fold it over
again. Pin it down. (You could use safety pins if you
think the kids will start using straight pins as
weapons.) Sew down the loose folded edge with a
running stitch. (Cut a piece of thread as long as one of
your arms, or about 18 inches long. Put it through the
eye of a needle. Tie a knot in one end of the thread.
Make a dashed line of stitches, putting the needle in
needle should go in on alternating sides of the piece.
Tie another knot when you get to the end of the
material and cut off most of the excess thread.) Now
sew a casing in the other piece of fabric. Sew the two pieces together with a whip stitch. Put the
two pieces on top of one another, with the wrong sides
together, lining up the edges. Pin them together along
the edges. Start sewing at the line you just sewed and
go around the long way until you get to the other end
of the line. (Cut another piece of thread and put it in
your needle. Tie a knot in one end of the thread. Make
diagonal lines of little stitches. The needle should go in
on the same side of the piece every time and the thread
should wrap around the raw edge of both pieces. This
will keep the material from unraveling when you reach
into the pocket. When you run out of thread, tie a
knot, remove the needle and start a new piece of
thread. Start sewing where you left off.) Turn the pocket right side out so the seams don't
show. Put in the drawstring(s). Cut one or two pieces of string
at least 3 times as long as the pocket is wide. (If you
want to tie it around your waist, cut two pieces of
string, each a bit more than the size of your waist.) Tie
the end of one piece to a safety pin or paper clip. Pull
the string through both casings by the pin or clip. Take
Read and Copy a Facsimile
Children’s Book
•  Deciphering the text—This is hard to
read!
•  What looks different? Example: the letter
s looks like an f in some places!
•  What is the same?
•  What is the purpose of the book?
•  What connections can you make—
–  Text-to-text
–  Text-to-self
–  Text-to-world?
•  Copy the words in your own
handwriting.
Read a Manners Book
•  George Washington wrote a book of manners for
children.
•  Etiquette, or manners, books were common in
early America.
•  What similarities do you notice between polite
behavior today and in the past?
•  What differences?
•  What would be strange, hard, or even seem unfair
to you?
Children’s Book Worksheet
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What is the title of this book?
Who is the author?
When was it written and published?
What is the intended audience? (Who is
supposed to read it?)
What is the book about?
What is the purpose of the book? Is it trying
to teach anything?
Compare and contrast this book with
children’s books today.
Would you enjoy this book? Why or why not?
Watch “A Day in the Life”
•  Watch “A Day in the Life: Prissy, Dennis and
Tom,” from Colonial Williamsburg series.
•  What connections can you make between what
we’ve learned so far and what you see in this
film?
•  Use the viewing guide pre- and post- viewing to
help you organize your response to the film.
•  You can also make a 3-column chart to take
notes about each character as you watch.
Viewing Guide
Name______________________________ Date_____________________________
Colonial Lifestyles: Dennis, Prissy, and Tom
Directions: Answer the following questions about the character you
chose in your Social Studies Notebook. Use complete sentences and
include information and details from your notes about the movie. (3
sentences, minimum, for each question)
What is your character learning during his or her day? (List at least
three different things, and describe what happens.)
Who is teaching your character? Describe how this person teaches your
character. Remember, the person doing the teaching might not be
called a teacher.
What jobs, chores or responsibilities does your character have?
Describe the tools, materials, or equipment your character uses to
do this work.
Plan an Improvised
“Dress-up Day”
•  Boys can wear long
socks over pant legs.
•  Girls can wear long
skirts, aprons, etc.
•  What ideas can you
come up with to create
an early American
costume?
•  Who will you dress up
as?
Debate
•  Gender Roles:
–  Division of Labor
–  Education
•  Patriots vs. Royalists
•  School Uniforms Today:
What do clothes say about you?
•  Who are these people?
•  What do you know
about them, based on
their costumes?
•  What are we
supposed to think
about them?
What do you
really think?
Role Play
•  A parent instructing a child
in proper behavior.
•  A few children discussing a
poorly behaved friend or
sibling.
What do your clothes say
about YOU?
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Status?
Character?
Job?
Future?
Personality?
Trips
•  Van Cortlandt Mansion—Daily life,
costumes and furnishings.
•  Dyckman House—Revolutionary War in
New York.
•  New-York Historical Society—Toys and
games, daily life in new Amsterdam,
learning history through painting, etc.
(Closed until 11/11/11, but they will come to us!)
•  Metropolitan Museum of Art—
Portraits, costumes, period rooms.
Assessments
•  Vocabulary quizzes
•  Performance in Debates and Role
Plays
•  Classwork:
•  Portrait Analysis
•  Costume Analysis
•  Children’s Book Project
•  Creative Writing
Reflections
•  What do clothes say about our status,
situation and gender today?
•  What is “personal expression”?
•  Does it matter what people think of
us, based on our clothes, appearance
or style?
•  Should it matter?
Works Cited/Resources
•  Baumgarten, Linda, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of
Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, The Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia and Yale
University Press, New Haven and London, 2002.
•  Baumgarten, L., Eighteenth Century Clothing at Williamsburg,
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg,
Virginia, 1986.
•  Bernstein, Aline, Masterpieces of Women’s Costume of the 18th
and 19th Centuries, Dover Publications, New York, 2001.
•  Colonial Williamsburg Web Site:
Colonial Williamsburg Official History Site
•  Copeland, Peter F., Everyday Dress of the American Colonial
Period: Coloring Book, Dover Coloring Book, New York, 1975.
•  PBS Colonial House Web Site:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/
Works Cited/Resources,
continued
•  “Reading” Portraiture Guide for Educators, Smithsonian,
Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture,
National Portrait Gallery.
•  Reinhardt, Leslie, “The Work of Fancy and Taste: Copley’s
Invented Dress and the Case of Rebecca Boylston,” Dress, The
Annual Journal of the Costume Society of America, Volume 29,
2002.
•  Tierney, Tom, Colonial Fashions Paper Dolls, Dover
Publications, New York, 1995.
•  Tierney, T., American Family of the Colonial Era, Dover
Publications, New York, 1983.
Image
from What
Clothes
Reveal
Acknowledgements
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The National Endowment for the Humanities
Patricia Johnston
Jessica Lanier
All the presenters
Steve Schmidt
Kayleigh Merrit and all the very
helpful staff
My fellow participants
Salem State College
Matthew, Annika and David Deutsch
The Freake-Gibbs painter, and all the artists!
Margaret Gibbs, 1670, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston