Are you 'progressive'? Should it matter? Yes...and no....

When I began on this mission to obtain a PhD, I wanted to seriously question my own stance on the progressive movement in living history. For the record, my own definition of 'progressive' means something along the lines of progressing your interpretation toward a high degree of accuracy through constant research. Sometimes, for me, that research includes making or doing a thing.

This past year, my project has been to completely overhaul the kit and clothing for both Pierre and myself. Yes, I completely remade our wardrobes. The pieces I was happy with from before, even got altered to better fit within my parameters of accuracy. Breeches had the legs and inseams re-done for better fit, new gowns were made, accessories made and acquired. When I presented all of this for my studio exam in late April, I impressed myself with what I had accomplished. In yes, a year.

This year, I will finish up a few things left on my to-do list, but I am back to constructing clothing for other people again. I am also teaching others how to construct their own clothes. The project last year helped me to better understand my own practice, what my stitching looked like, and how long it took me to create garments. I wrote everything down, and made notes here and on Facebook about my process.

And here's what I have learned...

You can still be progressive, and own partially machine made garments. Yes, you can. It's not always the machine that causes you to be less progressive, but the construction methods you use. Huh??? Aren't they the same thing? Nope! Case in point...

This is Pierre's new shirt, entirely hand stitched. You can clearly see my stitching line on that seam. It looks like a machine made it, but no, I did, with my hand and a very fine needle.  You can't tell the difference, unless I am working at making my hand stitches look like hand stitches. This shirt took fourteen days to sew, working most of the day, m-f. Nobody can afford that kind of time, I know I can't...especially when sewing for other people.

It's not whether I use machine or by hand, but 'HOW' the garment is put together. You see, there are certain methods you use when machine making a garment that were developed to make the construction process faster, when the sempster as working in a factory. There are methods used in historical garment making that you just cannot accomplish with a machine; that lovely laying stitch that produces the top stitch on the garment edge when you lay the lining in a garment; anything regarding the front fall of a pair of breeches.

These things matter, those old construction methods. If you hand stitch everything, but use modern methods of garment construction, to my eye, it looks no different than if you had made the garment by machine.

Sorry folks.

Top stitching is a modern invention, so is bagging out a garment. Learn the older methods of garment construction. And please, don't look down on that trusty machine It can save you boatloads of time, and will fool even my old eyes...if you use it correctly, and in a historical construction method. You will need to still hand stitch some seams!

And how about we lay off the side-eyes...nobody has the time to entirely hand make their wardrobes like I have this past year...not if they want to be dressed and ready for an event before the end of the decade. Let's work towards helping each other out to look more progressive. That starts with teaching each other construction techniques that would have been used...

but that's for another post.

The Construction of Stays for the Common Woman

Stays are one of those necessary evils of living history for women. We all have a love hate relationship with them because while we love the look, getting new ones is a painful process...more-so than bra shopping. For many people, buying custom made ones is simply out of the snack bracket, and shopping at our friendly Walmart of living history supplies leaves us with stays that do not live up to any ideals we may hold.

So what is a woman to do?

Well, we end up making our own. We go to workshops, we buy patterns, we suffer through the process. And often times, we are not at all happy with the result.

I've been a teacher of said workshops, and trust me, it's as frustrating for me, as it is for you. I would love to sit and make stays for everyone, but I need to eat and pay rent, and they are a giant time suck, so I can't offer to do it for free. What I can do though, is blog about my own process of making stays, this time, trying out a Butterick pattern. A pattern so common that anyone can just nip off to their local fabric store and buy a copy.

This one...

I started this project by tracing off all the pattern pieces, removing the seam allowances as I did. I also marked all pertinent sewing points, like the waistline balance points, the little squares, grainlines, everything.

I didn't worry about the shoulder strap at the moment, because I knew I'd need to make my own based on how the stays sit on my fit model, the lovely Alison Bowie.

For this project, I was going to be doing things on the cheap. We need to get her dressed for an event in September, and we are both students. Neither of us can afford to be out buying supplies. The fashion layer was scraps of red/white linen, the body of the stays would be two layers of unwashed factory cotton. I planned to use my trusty go-to for boning, nylon zip-ties from Lee Valley. I'd figure out binding later, but probably also something from the stash. There would be no coutil, no linen canvas, no worsted wool loveliness, no buff deerskin binding...did I mention this needed to be done on the cheap? Anyway, who else is going to see them once she is dressed and at the event?

Now, I'm a huge fan of sampling, and getting things done in an efficient manner for folks. I've had quite a few years working in museums with no budgets. I needed to know if my machine could produce a look close enough to hand stitching those bone channels in...and it could.

I went with #19 stitch on my machine. I did a hand stitched back stitch with some buttonhole twist next to it, after I snapped this photo, and I was happy with the results. Honestly, my hand stitching is so damned even, that unless you are looking too damned close, you can't tell the difference. And, we needed to get this done! Save the hand stitching for where it really counts.

First things first, tracing the pattern pieces on to the cotton, and then basting all the layers together so they don't move around.

I use a diagonal baste, and baste by hand...yes, do this step too, trust me, it will make your life a whole lot easier. Also, those grainlines aren't there to make the pattern drafter look good, they are their for a purpose. Respect them! The front and back edges NEED to be on the straight, the side panel NEEDS to be cut on the bias to fit around your body. You are not a flat sheet of plywood, you have curves.

I marked a rough guide for sewing my boning channels in and stitched with the cotton side up. I started by sewing the front edge channels, then worked my way down from the top edge. I used the half width of my presser foot as a guide for how wide to make my channels, not the lines drawn. Those were just a rough guide. I know that the half width of my presser foot gives a nice, tight boning channel.

At this point, I realized I would need to stitch in the boning as I went, and so switched to my zipper foot, slowed the machine speed down to turtle, and put my safety glasses on. *if you stitch through a bone at any point, stop. Change the needle, and slow the hell down. The needle is likely bent now, which is why you need to change it...even if it doesn't look like it. A bent needle will mess up your machine, just don't. Needles are cheap.

Once all the bone channels were stitched in, and the boning inserted into the channels, I was good to start sewing the pieces together. I knew at this point that switching to hand sewing was my best option for total control. The bulk of the work was done now though, and I saved a couple weeks work of stitching time. Sewing the boning channels by machine took me a day, sewing my last set of stays by hand took well over a month of daily, hard-core stitching.

So stitching the pieces together, it is really important to match up your waistline points perfectly! otherwise you will get a crooked corset, which happened to me in school, and it will just not work on the body. I think that might be the most important point to match up anywhere on a set of stays.

To stitch, I used heavy duty buttonhole twist weight thread, and stab stitched the seam in a running stitch, I then went back down the same seam, stabbing through the same holes as the first running stitch to lock those stitches together. The final result should look like a machine made stitch line of solid stitching...or as close as you can.

I pressed all my seam allowances open, and left it on the ironing board to contemplate it's 'stay'ness for a day or so as I waited for a fitting.

The morning of the fitting, I looked at the stays and thought, "Kelly, you didn't measure those pieces very well...that looks like too sharp an angle for Alison's body."

See, the thing is, modern bodies are not fit mannikins, certainly not the fit mannikins used in the pattern making industry. And honestly, this pattern appears to be taken straight out of Diderot's encyclopaedia. It WILL NOT FIT the modern body. That's ok though, we know how to alter to make fit. I was also concerned at this point, how high the back was sitting, based on the waistline balance marks.

See what is going on with the armscye? It's sitting too low.

And here is where I slashed the side back seam to add a piece of factory cotton to help measure the spread I would need at Alison's waist. You can also see my quick and dirty fitting style. Not all fittings happen the way you see them on 'Say Yes to the Dress'. Cutters get shit done, I knew what I needed to do before the fitting, and used what I needed to get the job done. The piece of cotton is on the straight, so that it will not stretch, but gives me enough time to get the says off Alison again, and measure the distance of the spread.

Then I moved back to paper. I took the original pattern piece, the top photo, and cut from the bottom, just to the top edge point, along that straight line. Leaving the tiniest bit left connected to act as a fulcrum. The bottom photo shows me spreading the bottom of the piece apart, that distance I measured from the fitting. The ruler shows the grainline that I chose, based off the original grainline from the pattern. The other half of the grainline might have been too much on the cross grain to provide enough stretch to ease around the body. I then traced off a new pattern piece in paper.

*I always cut from paper patterns, even when I drape something. If you solely rely on the fabric, that fabric may have stretched out over time, being stashed away in a box, pushed around and such. As soon as I am done a draping, I make a hard paper copy, with all the markings. I also do this after fittings. I then label the pattern piece with the person's name, and the date of the fitting. Life alters the body, and so having a date on the pattern tells me how out of touch with the current body I'm trying to fit might be.

At this point, I recut two new side pieces, from the 'just enough' scrap I had left of the fashion fabric. I then stitched new boning channels, and stitched the pieces in place...this time though, changing how I would stitch the back panel on.

The back panel, as the Butterick cutter wanted me to stitch it on.

The new, better position.

See how the back panel was adjusted. The back really was too high, if I matched the waistline points the way the cutter wanted me to sew the pieces together. This would have resulted in a shifted or crooked corset. The armscye would have been too low in the back, the back neckline too high, and the compression wrong at the back waist. I literally repositioned the piece lower so that the waistline curved better and the bottom of the stays were in a nice curve from the hipline curve. I marked my new balance points, and crossed out the old ones. This is where I stab stitched the pieces together.

A much better shape for Alison's athletic body. She is a swimmer, weight trains, and was a former highland dancer. Her body is a bit rectangular. Most of us are a bit rectangular. We will NOT fit this pattern as cut, because we have not been waist training since two years of age. We have expanded ribcages, and thicker waistlines than an eighteenth-century woman. ALL commercial patterns need to be adjusted to fit the body we are working with.

So finishing...

I had some mint green tailors tape that one of my friends threw in a dye pot for me once. Tailors tape is straight woven, not twill woven. The cotton tape is also quite thin. I used this to cover my seams. I also added a further 'seamline' with tape going in a similar layout to the side front seam tape, about half way between the two tape lines to give the appearance of another seam. This extra line will fool the eye into thinking it can see more shaping happening.

I then bound the stays in another scrap of linen, also green, that had already been made up into bias tape.

In period, they would not have wasted cloth by making into bias tape, but would have cut straight grain strips, or even used deer-hide to bind the stays. I know how to make bias tape without wasting fabric, and like to bind seam allowances and such, using the Hong Kong method of seam finishing, so I often have scraps of it that I make up from leftover scrap fabric. So yes, this was kicking around the stash from another project.

When binding, I take the time to press my seam allowances under a quarter inch on both edges. Pressing first means that you can then stitch the finished edge to the garment with slip stitches, giving you a really nice finish. I bind stays by hand, because I encase the ends of the boning in the binding, giving me a nice firm edge to the top and bottom of the stays. I start on the fashion side of the stays, then pull the binding to the inside of the garment, ensuring I have a nice, even edge on the front. Who cares what the insides look like! I also stitch from right, towards the left, just like the needle, as I am right handed. My needle is tiny, only about an inch long, the thread is waxed silk, but you can use any kind of fine thread for this. Waxing helps to prevent it from snarling. And I use a thimble...

These will be left unlined, as many were in the period. With just whip stitching over the cut edges of the seams allowances. Linings would have been placed in after binding anyway, so they could be easily replaced as they wore out. So, if Alison wants, we can line these later...right now, we need to get her gown started.

These stays took me 36 hours of sewing time. As such, by machine, I would have to charge a client 720$ plus materials. I know enough about cutting that I will use this pattern again, since, for most people, it's a good jumping off point. It will need to be altered to fit each, individual body. But will save a crap tonne of time drafting from scratch. I think most home sewers could tackle this project on their own though, with a little help from friends. I will likely teach from this pattern in the future.

These stays are not historically accurate, but plausible. I used all natural fabrics so that her body can breath. The colour choices may not be entirely accurate, but again, cheap, from stash, actually the scrap box. I want to get Alison kitted out so we can have fun together. And like I often say,

If you are looking that closely at her underwear, you'd best be buying her dinner first!

Genetically Mohawk, Culturally French: the Case For and Against an Indigenous Living History Persona

When doing living history, one walks a fine line when creating a new persona for interpretive programing. Many hours of research go into creating a character, sometimes based on one famous person from history, many times they are a composite of characters made up of the lives of lesser known individuals that together offer enough information from the period in order to understand how a person may have lived. You constantly question your and possibly the institution’s motives for offering the interpretation program, hoping that you don’t cross the line into uncomfortable territory, for either you as the animator, or the public.

Such is the case when creating indigenous characters for interpretive programming. Much the same way ‘black face’ is found offensive, and rightfully so, ‘red face’ is equally offensive. The problem lies not in making up ones face to be a race they are not, but in the lives lived by the animators. Everyone within the field would love to see a more multicultural aspect to the programming we offer.  Indigenous peoples played a large role in certain aspects of the American Revolution, certainly in what is now New York State. Not many Indigenous people are called to the field of living history though, due to the simple fact that for them, their struggles are not ‘history’, rather they are still very much current affairs. And so the problem lies more in the offensive offerings of ‘middle aged white-dudes’ playing at ‘Indian’.

In the spring of 2016, my husband and I attended a conference on the Revolution in the Mohawk Valley in New York State. It was an excellent opportunity for my husband to connect with his family’s history, as much of Bourgogne’s campaign crossed lands that were inhabited by his ancestors, from Forts Chambly and Saint John, and down the Champlain valley. During the conference, a fellow living historian took the stage in full eighteenth-century Haudenosaunee attire. Darren Bonaparte’s lecture was his living history program. Drawn from stories of his ‘grandfathers’, he spoke about the many wampum belts that were exchanged during the revolutionary period. He showed the audience several reproductions of these belts, and explained the meaning behind the symbolism contained in the imagery. He also spoke about how they were created originally, as well as his own reproductions. He also spoke about the clothing he was wearing, how the European elements were added to his traditional clothing items and why. My husband was gobsmacked, he was so impressed. We learned this man was an iron worker from Ahkwesasne.

My husband’s family is from Kahnawa:ke, but he grew up in LaSalle on the island of Montreal. His grandfather removed the family from the reservation before Pierre’s dad was born. That aspect of his history was never spoken about, in fact, it was not until his father’s death that I learned that Pierre was ‘that close’ to indigenous heritage. Not that it would have made any difference in how I feel about him, it was more of an interesting ‘shock’ when his cousins came into the church wearing the cultural markers of modern indigenous women. It made sense to me how both Pierre and his dad could become so brown from the sun in the summer, they are brown men. His aunts, being much older than his dad, were already adults when the family moved off-reserve, and so made their own decisions about where they would live.  His dad’s family is not exactly close, and so this was my first meeting of his dad’s older sisters and cousins. They remained culturally Mohawk, Pierre’s dad, and in turn, Pierre and his siblings were raised to be culturally French.

On the way home from that Spring conference, we discussed the man from Ahkwesasne and his living history program. While it would be lovely to see more indigenous peoples in living history programs, it is not something that Pierre would feel comfortable doing. Not exactly a ‘middle aged white-dude’, culturally he is one.  He has not lived the life of an indigenous man, he does not intimately understand the struggles that continue to face Indigenous people. That part of his history has been lost. He is culturally French. Pierre may never feel comfortable enough to portray a fully indigenous man, but now, his interpretive character includes that cross-over in his heritage, and at Fort Ticonderoga in the summer of 2016, he was able to offer a crossover perspective to the interpretive program.

History is a difficult subject at times. Cultural trauma is a subject that must be addressed carefully. In many instances, it has shaped who we are as modern people. In the instance of indigenous heritage, colonialism is very much a current issue. As long as people are forced to live on reservations, often in sub-standard living conditions, not able to privately own their own homes, or control things that the rest of us take for granted, like clean drinking water, Canadians are engaged in a colonial project. As historians, we walk a very fine line between anthropologist and colonizer. I believe we should spend a bit more time listening to what those indigenous voices are saying to us before we try to make our own voices heard in the effort to ‘save’ the culture. Who are we saving it from? Who are we saving it for?

This may be an interesting read for anyone interested in de-colonization issues surrounding Canadian Indigenous people,
Michael Asch. (2014). On Being Here to Stay: Treaty and Aboriginal Rights in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 217pp.

Striving for Accuracy: Attempting to do Living History While Surrounded by Pirates, Belly Dancers and Bill Lynch shows

The state of living history in Nova Scotia is dismal. While there are a few people and historic sites that are trying to do quality, accurate interpretation, sadly, they are few and far between. The problem stretches back as far as Brian Mulroney, when he decimated Parks Canada, and laid off all the historians. It may reach further back than that. And it's not just a Parks issue.

In this past year, I have seen museum sites wanting to hire curators, but are only willing to pay them 10$/hour, and give them 20 hours/week...looking for PhD candidates. I have noticed an influx of Jack Sparrow characters showing up where living history events used to happen. And yet other sites lay off, or outright fire anyone who might have a clue how to do actual historical research, in favour of the people in accounting who know how to crunch numbers and make more money for the directors.

It's depressing.

We have the history. We have the natural beauty of our environment. We still have the tourism numbers...but those won't last if we don't stand up for what makes Nova Scotia beautiful. If everywhere you look, tourists are faced with yet another McDonald's, another holiday fairground, another strip mall of the same stores they find at home, those tourists will simply stay home.

And yes, sometimes, it means spending a bit of money to earn money.

I just finished my third comprehensive exam, save for some minor editing, which I will likely have finished Monday. Then I can send it off. It's an interpretation plan for a small museum in nova Scotia, a house museum. Very cool living history could happen there, if the directors and full time staff can open up to the ideas in my paper. It may also make it relevant to the community at large, bringing in folks who usually walk right on by on their way to the closest Tim's.
On a recent visit, close to their opening day, we walked in to find staff dressed in 'historical costume' to give us a tour. Unfortunately, they weren't really in historical costume, rather, they were dressed in pieces of historic garments, over their modern clothes. There were modern coffee cups, and water bottles left out on the table in the historical room. One of them was on her cell phone, and simply left it sitting on the table when they offered to give us a tour.

My first thought was, 'why don't they just wear golf shirts?' The half hearted attempt just showed me that there was a lack of knowledge, and a lack of care.

This spring, I have been fortunate enough to attend some outstanding living history events in the US. OUTSTANDING! Almost all run by young professionals and volunteers. Every minute detail is carefully considered in their clothing and accoutrements. Participants are vetted to ensure a quality product will be provided to the public. And the Public! The sheer numbers of people turning out to watch these events is outstanding as well. At Lexington Mass, there were several thousand spectators lining the Battle road to watch a half hour/45 minutes of interpretation. I was gobsmacked.

Then I asked, why can't we do that in Nova Scotia? We have the history. We just have to care.

We have to care that our historical wardrobes are correct for the period we are interpreting. We have to care that we are wearing all the appropriate pieces for that wardrobe, that they are finished properly, and fit. No safety pins please!
And we have to care a bit more about the venues that we participate in. It's all great fun when the Bill Lynch comes to town, but we don't have to be the side show to the side show. We can find other, more historic venues to pitch our camps in. We can make an offer to the small, struggling house museum to teach their staff what they should be wearing, and how to wear it...hell, some of us can even teach them how to make their own clothes...and maybe grow our numbers in the process.

Minute Man started off as a small event. Carefully vetting participants to ensure quality programming. Fellow living historians offered to run workshops in the winter months to help others up their living history game. This year, the living history people also numbered in the hundreds. Small hundreds, but hundreds nevertheless.

If we don't change our mindset towards living history soon, we will be left behind. We need to dig out those 'best practices' standards for our group, the umbrella organization, and maybe the sites we want to attend, and really look long and hard at our kit. The progressive people are leaving us behind...just like those 1976ers, smoking cigarettes and looking to drink beer and go 'pew, pew' with their buddies for the weekend...you know, those guys you just don't want to invite around anymore. Like your embarrassing, drunk uncle.

Food of our grandparents

Grandma's Butter Cake

I've been thinking about food lately. No, stop. I think about food ALL THE DAMNED TIME! You see it's a security thing for me, as I am sure it is a security thing for many of you. We buy groceries first, before anything else, before bills are paid. Food!

I'm a bit anal about the quality of my food too. If I am going to the effort to eat something, to carry around those calories, it'd best be the best quality food I can buy. We don't eat packaged. That means that I spend a lot of my time cooking. It's a trade off. I cook so that I don't have to eat from a box. I also eat seasonally. I put up preserves when fresh is in season and cheap so that I can eat that good food year round. It was the way we were brought up. And you know what? Eating this way is usually far cheaper.
Now, I realize there are 'food deserts' in the world, there are a lot of them in North America, the land of the free and wealthy...even in Nova Scotia. That's a whole different blog post though, and what I really want to talk about here is grandma's food, how she taught us to cook, and how that is lost to many now.

I just finished making a batch of citrus chutney from the end of season oranges. Normally, at this time of year I make marmalade, but this year I wanted to switch it up a bit. I needed a change. Pierre had been taking oranges in his lunch for the week, and I had been thinking of getting him to save the peels for me, but it turned out I didn't really need them...at any point in history though, they would have been saved and preserved.
The last time I made marmalade, there was too much pith in the mix, that white bit of the orange peel, and it turned out bitter and would not set up! This time around, I was much more careful to peel the rind from the pith and chop that rind finely. To that I added the pulp of the citrus, and then a good large wack of sugar, some cider vinegar, raisins, and a small bit of Pierre's pepper blend. I boiled it up and got it into jars late last week. Then we packed the car and went to Ticonderoga. The jars sat on the counter.

At Ticonderoga, Gibb Zea was doing an experiment with salting pork. He got the salting down pat! In the staff kitchen, in a large glass barrel were the pork bits in the brine and salt. It looked good. He told me that it was an experiment, that he had been reading about salting meat in the period. On the Saturday, he made a stew with the salt pork, to compare with the fresh pork I was braising for the officers. Gibb did freshen the pork, but we all found the stew to be still too salty. I found out later, that while he had changed out the water several times, he had left the freshening part too late and didn't allow enough time.
Remember, he was going from written documents. Written in a time when some things were simply common knowledge. Nobody needs to eat salt meat any more. That knowledge is lost...

Or is it?

In the Maritimes, we eat salt fish to this day! It's one of those comfort foods that we eat when we are home, like grabbing a donair, or fried pepperoni. Fish cakes and eggs, with baked beans and green tomato chow for breakfast is still one of those things many of us crave. Many of us grab breakfast at the Ardmore Diner, but some of us still know how to do this from scratch.
In the Maritimes, there are often fish trucks parked in local parking lots, selling the catch of the day. We buy direct from the fishermen, and we buy what was caught...there's no ordering special, it's what the guy has. One day, on my way home from school, there was a truck parked at the foot of our street, at the old gas station lot. Grandpa had sent me down for some salt cod for Sunday dinner. I came home with a giant fillet of cod. Cod are huge, and the fisherman who caught this one, split it open, cleaned it, salted it, and sent it to Nova Scotia. So I'm walking up the street with a giant, rock hard fish, still with it's skin. Grandpa had expected I would come home with a bag of cod bits, not a whole fish.
Oh, well. The money was spent. Time to deal with the fish. Down in the laundry tub, next to the washing machine went the fish. He filled the tub with cold water. It was Wednesday. Every day the water was changed out for new cold water until the fish was pliable enough to deal with. It was at this point that I understood why the farmers out west used the salt cod we sent them during the depression to shingle their roofs. No, it didn't work out well, but if you've never seen a salted cod before, how would you know how to deal with it?
So when the cod was fresh enough, probably on Friday evening, Grandpa took it back up to the kitchen and skinned the fish, putting the edible bits into a large pot of more cold, fresh water. By Sunday it was fresh enough to cook (boiled in more fresh water until hot and cooked through). We ate it with boiled mashed potatoes and lots of butter. It was still salty.
I thought of this experience when I was talking to Gibb about his salt pork project, and how I could explain that more time was needed, that salt meat takes days to freshen, with the water being changed out daily, or even more often? Then I thought of how a soldier would be able to freshen pork while on the march. He wouldn't be able to do it properly, for sure. I suspect a lot of time they were eating really salty stew, much like we did on Saturday. Boiled potatoes, cooked in the stew would pull out some of the salt, but still.

There are things that we do today, that will be lost knowledge to our grandchildren. I think about those things a lot. Like how to roast a chicken, which chickens are the best to cook. What eggs look like when they are fresh from the chicken. How dirty eggs from the chicken's back end can stay on the counter, but once you wash them, they need to go in the fridge. And how all of that is different from buying food in the store, all sanitized and packaged. What exactly is a chicken nugget? You don't really want to know...

I got home from Ticonderoga and noticed that my chutney hadn't set up, again...No Biggie, back into the saucepan it went, with more sugar, lots more sugar, and more boiling. I don't really have a recipe, I just know that with acidic foods, more sugar is needed to get them to set up. Liquidy fruit is similar in that it also needs more sugar. I finally got the chutney to a good sticky consistency, and reprocessed my jars, new snap lids (the first ones went in the trash, as they'd already been used and the seal won't be good enough a second go around...even for fruit). I got my chutney in the jars again, and processed again. And this time, it worked. I have good, jam-like consistency. I am happy.

When I get back home to Nova Scotia, I will need to start teaching my grandkids how to cook. They will be a good age to start learning. I don't want to leave them all my grandmother's and grandfather's recipes, with no idea how to use them. The 'builder's mug' measurement only works if you know what a builder's mug is.

Spring: It's summer living history season

Sorry about the hiatus, I've been reading a great deal, preparing for, and writing my comprehensive exams. I have one left, due the end of June, so will probably be flying low around here for a bit yet. I wanted to give you a bit of an update on events that I participated in over the last few weeks.

Battle Road: Lexington and Concord Mass

We signed up for this event and was very please with the process and feedback I received from the organizers. This event is vetted, meaning that you have to send in images of your kit and clothing for approval by the board. There are fairly rigorous standards to follow, but I see these as more helpful than a hindrance. The guidelines give you an image of what to work towards, so you don't end up with substandard clothing and accoutrements. The feedback I received on our submission not only helped me for the event, but also helped me to improve some items for my second exam, my studio practice.

The event was centred around the evacuation of Lexington leading up to the first battle of the American Revolution. We would portray middle class people pushed out of their homes, the first refugees of the war, if you will. Many of these folks would not have chosen which side they were loyal to just yet, they would have been displaced in the early morning, not knowing which of their neighbours to trust, or even if they would have a home to return to, or when. Questions surrounding what you would hastily pack and bring with you in case of an emergency have been at the forefront of my mind since beginning this degree. Here was a chance to put those questions into motion.
We arrived for the event wearing our best dress, Pierre in a black wool ditto suit, me in my grey striped linen gown, as if preparing for a normal, middle class day. We carried a snap sack full of silver and pewter, cutlery, candlesticks, that sort of stuff...easy to turn into money stuff. I also carried my china tea set, the most expensive thing I would have owned in the period, having been imported from the orient.

There were comments made toward us about those terrible British soldiers. Our fellow living historians did not know either of us, or our background. We were simply people on the road, displaced like they were. We kept quiet about our Loyalist leanings while those 'patriot' folks were around. For us, this was great fun, being able to re-enact the history of the place, the beginning of the war, but underneath it all, I could feel the tension, and had a better understanding of how it must have felt for those people so long ago. The very real threat of not having a home, and being afraid of your neighbours. I know that what we are taught in history class is different than what is taught in the American classroom. To Americans, Loyalists are the losers of the war, the enemy even. To us, in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, those same Loyalists are our grandparents. As the day progressed, I would have a greater sense of that disconnect, as one of our travelling companions portrayed a British soldier, and despite also being an American, was treated differently because of that red coat. It was an interesting experience.

The day itself helped me to put into perspective what I have been reading on Interpretation methodology. I saw the event a bit differently than I would have a few years ago. The events of the Lexington weekend were impressive in their quality. I understood the need for tight guidelines and vetting of the living history people. The events had tight foci, and we needed to appropriately fit within those contexts. Every event I attend and participate in now will lead to a better understanding of how I will need to develop my dissertation. It was good practice.

No Quarter: Fort Ticonderoga

The second event of this spring happened just this past weekend, and I am still trying to process it. So, please bear with me.

In history, just over two weeks after the battles at Lexington and Concord, the New Hampshire Green Mountain Boys would take over a garrison of unsuspecting British soldiers on the edge of the colonial frontier, Fort Ticonderoga in New York, on the edge of Lake Champlain. The garrison there would not have known yet, what had happened in Concord and Lexington just a few weeks earlier. They were living their quiet, daily lives. It was a relatively small garrison of just 39 men, with their wives and children, living apartment style within a crumbling fort.

On the Saturday, Pierre and I would spend the day cooking for the officers. We were able to discuss the differences between the quality of food stuffs between the officers and enlisted men. The staff had prepared a stew of salt pork, cabbage, and root vegetables for the soldiers that day, and were serving it out of big kettles from the other side of the room. Pierre and I were braising a fresh pork roast, to be served with apple sauce, leeks and bacon, and a spring green salad. Still, all foods that I would have been able to obtain this early in the season, but prepared in an entirely different manner.

We were also in garrison, and so able to have and use more of the material culture we have been collecting as part of our interpretation over the past few years. It was nice to have my things at hand, and to be able to use them, much like a family in garrison in the period would have had. I was able to discuss the similarities and differences between what it would have been like to be a military family in the period, vs. what it is like to be one today. The progress we have made, and how recent much of that progress has been. Bits of knowledge that I have held onto since my days at the Halifax Citadel came in handy as I interpreted a soldiers wife living in barracks.

The taking of the Fort programming occurred as a special program on Saturday evening. We were divided up amongst the barrack buildings and at dusk, the interpreters portraying the Green Mountain Boys burst through the gates and rounded us all up. These interpreters had spent the last 24 hours on a route march from Vermont to the Fort in New York, crossing lake Champlain by boat on Saturday. I had no idea what to expect apart from what would happen theoretically from the script. It helped set the scene a bit further having spent the whole of Saturday in a quiet Garrison of British soldiers, doing day to day tasks.

When we were forced out of our barracks and rounded up in middle of the parade square, I honestly felt a bit of fear. We had just spent the last hour in the darkened barracks waiting while the public was escorted into the fort and given a brief preamble to what they would be seeing. Many of us napped during this hour, it had been a busy day of interpretation for most, and not a great night's sleep the Friday evening before. We were literally woken up, pushed out of the barracks and rounded up in the middle of the parade square by about 40 men with muskets. It really was a bit overwhelming, even though we all knew the script. I thought about what it must feel like to wake up in the middle of the night from a smoke detector, only to realize your house is actually on fire and you can't save anything. I was on an adrenaline rush. It was an amazing experience.

Once the evening program was finished, we were able to take questions, one on one, from the public. many asked what it must have felt like. Still shaken from the adrenaline, I was able to discuss these thoughts with them. I think we all left with a greater understanding of the events of Spring 1775.

Sunday was another quiet day. In 1775, the Green Mountain boys had taken over the garrison, but didn't really know what they were going to do with it. The Interpreters put their British uniforms away, and civilian clothes were put on, as the patriot soldiers were all civilian men, not a standing army like the British forces. There were demonstrations of the differences between the two 'armies', and similarities as well, as many of the people in America at the time still felt like British subjects. They were simply rebelling against perceived oppression from a King and Government across the ocean.

Pierre and I were able to talk about the material culture we were packing up from the weekend. What it must have felt like in an age before mass communication. What it must have felt like to be forced to take a 'side' in a war that you may not have even wanted to be a part of, if it fully was even a war...

I hope we get to go back and do more interpretation at Ticonderoga. It was one of the highlights of my living history experience. Both Ti and Lexington offered an outstanding degree of accuracy in kit, material culture, and interpretation. I am still gobsmacked by the experience.

We are quickly approaching the 250th anniversary of it all, the 250th anniversary of my family arriving in America and being pressed into service to the Crown. That man could not read, and signed his 'name' with an X. I hope to have a better understanding of his life when I am through, and can put into words for him, what it must have been like.

Who Am I? Persona development and research in Living History

I have always thought this was an important and very loaded question. Important, because it shapes who we portray when 'in the field' at events. Loaded, because we can address tricky aspects of our shared history, or, make such a mess of them that we can be thought of as racist.

Ask yourself who are you.

If you're a soldier, that's easy, you wear what you are told to wear by your unit, you do what you're told to do...

Easy, right? If you answered yes, then this article may not be for you at this juncture in your living history career. Tuck it away for another date.

For the rest of us, being told what to do and how to dress just isn't an option. If our bodies prevent us from being a line soldier, either through extreme gender shapes, or any other reasons, we might have to look at other options. If we live nowhere near a military installation or unit, being a soldier might not be an option. If we are getting a bit too old for that sort of profession, it may be a good time to look at other options.
So who are you?

I've often said that the easiest personas to portray are ones that are close to our own modern lives.  When you break down who we are to the basic ideas, we are business people, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children, our ethnicity comes into play in a huge way for most of us. Are we religious? If so, what sort? Are we alone, raising a family through death or divorce?

These are all easy questions to answer and give a good groundwork for persona development.

So I will give you my persona as a case study so that you may use it as a guide to help you in yours. First off, my body is overtly feminine, so I dress as a woman. I would look like a very silly shaped man, and I am really femme, so this wasn't something that entered into my thought process. I am feminine. I am also a wife, a mother whose children are grown. I am a military wife too. This all speaks to my social standing in the world, how much money or class level I'd be in, what social roles I portray. I am an artist and craftsman, I am intellectual and work with my hands. I also come from a very Catholic upbringing, and still hold to many of the tenants of that religion. I come from the Gaelic culture.

Ok, if you know me, you can picture me in your mind's eye.

Now picture me in eighteenth-century clothes.

I am a soldiers (sailor's) wife of a certain age. I dress in middling class clothing, wool, linen. I wear many petticoats, stays, a gown, maybe a shortgown (jacket), and I dress modestly. I make clothing for people, and am often seen making or repairing the clothing of the clothes of the people in my group, or military units near me. My clothes may be old, but are in good repair.
And something you might not know about the Gaelic culture if you didn't grow up in it, we all tend to appear stand-offish, but love to be around people. We don't make eye contact, or like to be touched, but love to let loose with our friends with music and good cheer.

So who is my persona? I've just told you. I may change it up a tiny bit, to accommodate the event we are attending. At Louisbourg, I am fresh off the boat, waiting on a land grant so that I can set up house before the next sailing season, I might run a tavern to make a little bit extra money. At Ticonderoga, I am a Loyalist woman, walking to Canada, depending on the event...if the Americans are in power at the Fort, I am a spy, down from Canada with my Mohawk husband. If in later years of the war, we may be straight up Americans looking to supply the Fort with provisions. If I am in Annapolis Royal, I am a Loyalist again, travelling with the military from New York or Charlestown, waiting on a land grant in the Valley, I hear there's good farmland to be had.
I am always a Gaelic woman of a certain age, with a husband who may have seen military service. I am middle class, no higher. My clothes may get dirty, but will always be in decent repair.

Now that I have given you my case study, my persona, ask those questions of yourself. And then start doing some research. What would you wear, what would you own. Create a research binder to help you keep track of all these ideas in your head. Please don't fall into the trap of copying another, fellow re-enactor. Doing that results in a badly played game of telephone, and causes 'fashion trends' in the profession that may not have actually been fashionable in the period.

Look at a lot of art! If you are lower or middling sorts, look at Hogarth, Sandby, avoid oil paintings featuring ladies and gents in fancy silks or velvets unless you are of the upper sorts. Hogarth and Sandby tend to be genre painters, every day folk in morality lessons. Portraiture holds a whole other layer of semiotics that you have to be aware of. It's a good place to start developing your eye though, telling your mind what you should look like...that can be vastly different from what your modern eye thinks you should look like.
Read books, not just the history of the period, but also the material culture and clothes. Read newspapers of the period, what was available at the shops? What were the runaways wearing and stole?

It tends to be far less expensive and much less frustrating, if we all start with who we are and work from there. Then we can make or buy only what we need, and not make costly and frustrating mistakes along the way...I'm not the only one with a closet full of silk gowns I'll never wear again in their current state. They will eventually get repurposed into modern garments, because I get dressed up for the Mess once a month, something my 18thC persona would never do. That's a lot of $40/metre silk I really didn't need to buy.  It's pretty, but really...

As I begin to develop my own research binder to present for my comprehensive exam in research/creation, I hope you'll all start one too.

Start by asking the question, who am I?