If I Had My Own Blue Box:

From Field To Fashion

UPDATE MARCH 2015:

From Field to Fashion is now available as an Ebook!

With rising printing costs, I have decided to make From Field to Fashion: The Straw Bonnet available in an electronic format. In the new format, I have been able to price From Field to Fashion at a fraction of the printed price. My hope is this will make FFtF easily accessible as well as informative. Please visit my Etsy store to order your From Field to Fashion.

UPDATE 2011: Out of Print

From Field to Fashion is a 46 page booklet with the following sections:
– Straw Bonnets and the Straw Bonnet Industry
– Straw, Harvest and Preparation
– Straw Plait
– Straw Cloth
– The Straw Bonnet Base
– Industry and Labor
– Finishing the Straw Bonnet
– Who Wore a Straw Bonnet When?
and an Appendix:
1 – Original Bonnets Online
2 – Bonnet Production in Massachusetts, 1855
3 – Millinery Establishments by State, 1860
4 – Straw Bonnet Shapes
5 – Fashion Quotes from Harper’s Monthly & Weekly
6 – Fashion Quotes from Godey’s Ladies Book
7 – Straw bonnet quotes from fiction
8 – Wheat and Rye produced, 1850 & 1860
9 – Straw Industry Statistics
10 – Straw and Bonnet Related US Patents

Published in:

Favorite Topics - Millinery/Bonnets/Ribbons

on May 21, 2009 at 10:53 am Comments (10)

Increasing Spectator & Civilian Interaction

Inviting Spectators to participate

It is important to offer an opportunity to try an activity to a spectator or visitor. Inviting them to participate opens the door for a more complete experience. Since live historical interpretation differs significantly from traditional museum and gallery displays, visitors may not know what to expect or what opportunities to make the most of. Often guests will be interested in trying what you are doing but will either be to shy to ask or unsure of what is acceptable. This is why it is important to invite spectators to participate, clarifying the possibilities of the experience for them.

Spectator friendly activities

Sewing – Invite spectators to try working on sample sewing and handiwork projects. If you are working on a treadle or hand-crank sewing machine, invite them to try the machine. If you are quilting, have an extra needle and thread started for them to try. If need be, you can remove the stitches at the end of the event.
Spinning and Weaving – If you are working with fibers, have a drop spindle or small loom on hand for them to try. Children will benefit from the tactile experience of feeling the wool, silk or cotton fibers and comparing them to the finished yarns.
Knitting – Have an extra ball of yarn and a set of needles for spectators to try.
Food – Have them churn butter. (This is one of the few food related activities that are allowable.)
Laundry – If doing a partial laundry impression without the hot water and caustic chemicals, spectators can participate. Scrubbing wet clothes and hanging them can be a favorite for children.
Games – Almost every child and many adults love to play with period games. If your children are playing, invite a visiting spectator family to play as well. This will give the adults plenty of question and answer time as well. Parlor games are fun and often new to adult spectators. Invite them to join your game of conundrums or tableax vivants.

Potential Spectator Hazards

It is generally best not to have spectators handle original items outside of control situations with the proper surface and gloves.
Spectators should not be allowed to handle or taste food.
Spectators, though very interested, should not be allowed handle sharp or hot objects.
Spectators should not be allowed to handle loaded firearms.
Spectators should be kept a safe distance from fires.

Working with School Groups & Encouraging Student Interest

Younger spectators relate better to the character, personalities, and personal stories of people rather than facts, details and technical concepts.
Presenting a concept, event or series of events from the perspective of a character helps a student connect and develops a story-line.
Give students the opportunity to think critically and voice their perspectives on issues and events.
Link past events with present day experiences kids can relate to. Example – Soldiers’ aide groups gathering supplies for CW soldiers compared to student groups gathering items for care packages for soldiers.
Provoke curiosity and creativity.
Themes that can work well with students include
- Choosing between different options, right and wrong
- Dealing with pressure from peers and superiors
- Needs, wants and problems solving – ex. How to provide food for your family if there wasn’t any available to purchase? What would a soldier do if he saw a cool stream of water during a hot day of marching?

Tips for Teaching the Civil War

Published in:

on May 14, 2009 at 7:42 am Leave a Comment
Tags: Education & Interpretation

Picnic lunch

Published in:

Working on - Events/Activities

on May 11, 2009 at 1:51 pm Leave a Comment

22nd Virginia Volunteer Day at the Genesee Country Village & Museum

This past Saturday 14 of us spent the sunny part of the day volunteering at the Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford, New York. Our day started with moving one of the wagons filled with corn down to the Pioneer Homestead from behind Hosmer’s Inn.

Next we unloaded the corn from the wagon to the new corn crib. We filled pails, pans, our aprons and our skirts…. IMGP1881[1]

volunteer day 006

We spent the rest of the mid-day building fences. We learned about fence construction in the process.

In the end we had some nice fences and a little bit of rest…

Published in:

Resources - Preservation

on May 11, 2009 at 8:57 am Leave a Comment

Straw for bonnets

I am moving. Where I am going my straw plait will dry out. I don’t think it will do well in storage either. So……. I have 8 to 10 lengths of straw plait for bonnets. I think $12 per bonnet length should let me ship them priority mail. The plait is just under 1/2 inch wide. This is a good width for making a first bonnet yourself.

Send me an email or comment if you are interested.

I’ll be thinning out my excess reenacting stuff a little faster than I thought. So, I’m hoping to still get things up on a yardsale page. I know there are a several smaller wooden bowls I found in a box of stuff I forgot I owned. If there is something you know I have that you really want, send me a message.

Published in:

Favorite Topics - Millinery/Bonnets/Ribbons

on May 4, 2009 at 10:43 am Comments (1)

Social Movement Series – 19th c. Utopianism & Separatist Communities – Reading list

Andrews, Edward Deming. The People Called Shakers. New York: Dover, 1963.

Cohen, Daniel. Not of the World: History of the Commune in America. Chicago: Follett, 1979.

Dustin, S. S.. “Zoar and the Zoarites” Frank Leslies’ Popular Monthly. New York: August, 1890. (Available at http://www.zoarohio.com)

Fogarty, Robert All Things New: American Communes and Utopian Movements, 1860-1914, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990

Halloway, Mark. Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America, 1680-1880. New York: Dover, 1961.

Hayden, Delores. Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1790-1975. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1976.

Hinds, William Alfred. American Communities and Co-operative Colonies. Chicago: Kerr, 1908.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972.

Kern, Louis. An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopians. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

Ness, Immanuel, Ed.. Encyclopedia of American Social Movements. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 2004.

Nordhoff, Charles. The Communistic Societies of the United Stated: From Personal Visit and Observation. 1875. Reprinted Williamstown, Massachusetts: Corner House, 1978.

Noyes, John Humphrey, History of American Socialisms. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1870. Reprinted as Strange Cults and Utopians in 19th-century America. New York: Dover Publications, 1966.

Shi, David E. The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.

Streissguth, Thomas. Utopian Visionaries. Minneapolis: Oliver Press, 1999. (School-age text.)

A Summary View of the Millenial Church: Commonly Called Shakers (1848) available at Google Books.

Published in:

Working on - Articles

on April 28, 2009 at 11:49 am Leave a Comment

Social Movements Series – Temperance – Reading list

Allen, Ann
The Housekeeper’s Assistant, Composed Upon Temperance Principles … [charity & church; temperance]
1845 Boston
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_13.cfm

American Tract Society
Select temperance tracts
186-?
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AHL9078.0001.001

Brown, Thurlow W. (d. 1866)
Why I Am a Temperance Man [fiction?]
1853
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=Wright2-0389

Buckley, Maria L
Edith Moreton, or, Temperance Versus Intemperance [fiction?]
1852
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=wright2;idno=Wright2-0410

Cornyn, John K
Dick Wilson, the rum-seller’s victim: or, Humanity pleading for the “Maine law.” A temperance story…
1853
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ABF2585.0001.001

Delavan, Edward Cornelius, 1793-1871, ed
Temperance essays, & selections from different authors….
1869 4ed
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AHL9091.0001.001

How, Samuel Blanchard, 1790-1868
An Address on Intemperance, Delivered Before The Temperance Soc., Cumberland County, Pa. [Presbyterian ministe
1830Carlisl
http://deila.dickinson.edu/theirownwords/title/0011.htm

Kidder, D. P.
The Minister’s Study and Scenes Connected With It [temperance]
1849 NY
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/collections/index.cfm?TitleID=444

Lees, Frederic Richard, 1815-97
Text-book of temperance
1869
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AEU2708.0001.001

Mann, Horace
Lectures (I) Effects of intemperance on the poor & ignorant (II) Intemperance on the rich & educated
1852
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AHL8970.0001.001

Marsh, John, 1788-1868
Temperance recollections…Labors, defeats, triumphs. An autobiography
1866
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AEV6918.0001.001

Marsh, John, 1788-1868
The temperance battle not man’s but God’s: For instruction…of the friends of temperance, US
1858
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AEV6921.0001.001

McKillop, Archibald
Temperance Odes & Miscellaneous Poems
1860?
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/mtq?id=c7dd7ce426&doc=61491

Nott, Eliphalet, 1773-1866
Lectures on temperance…(intro. by Taylor Lewis)
1857
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AHL9092.0001.001

Palmer, Lynde
The Little Captain. A Temperance Tale [Amer. Tract Soc.]
1861 Bost.
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/collections/index.cfm?TitleID=529

Whole world’s temperance conv., NY, 1853
1853
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?naw:1:./temp/~ammem_Pu8s::

Published in:

Working on - Articles

on April 27, 2009 at 3:48 pm Leave a Comment

Social Movement Series – Transcendentalism in the 19th Century – Reading list

Other Bibliographies on Transcendentalism

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/resources/tr-bib.html

http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/4biblio.html

19th Century Source List

Radical problems.

Bartol, C. A. (Cyrus Augustus), 1813-1900.

Boston,: Roberts brothers, 1872.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AGV0206.0001.001 Chapter 3, page 61

A half century of the Unitarian controversy, with particular reference to its origin, its course, and its prominent subjects among the Congregationalists of Massachusetts.: With an appendix,

Ellis, George Edward, 1814-1894.

Boston,: Crosby, Nichols, and company, 1857.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AJK3655.0001.001

Philosophy as absolute science, founded in the universal laws of being, and including ontology, theology, and psychology made one, as spirit, soul, and body:

Frothingham, Ephraim Langdon.

Boston,: Walker, Wise and company, 1864.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AFX2789.0001.001 (see table of contents)

Recent British philosophy: a review, with criticisms;

Masson, David, 1822-1907.

New York,: D. Appleton and company, 1866.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AFX3590.0001.001

History of American socialisms.: by John Humphrey Noyes.

Noyes, John Humphrey, 1811-1886.

Philadelphia,: Lippincott, 1870.

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AEW0523.0001.001

Elements of intellectual philosophy.: Designed for a text book and private reading.

Winslow, Hubbard, 1799-1864.

Boston,: Jenks, Hickling, & Swan; [etc., etc.], 1853.

ttp://name.umdl.umich.edu/AJE5907.0001.001 Chapter 3, page 165 Articles

Elements of Psychology. By Victor Cousin; Introduction to the History of Philosophy. By Victor Cousin; An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge,Sunday, 15th July, 1838. By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Princeton review. / Volume 11, Issue: 1, Jan 1839, pp. 37-101

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acf4325.1-11.001

Emerson’s Essays

The United States Democratic review. / Volume 16, Issue 84

J.& H.G. Langley, etc. June 1845, pp. 589-602

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=AGD1642-0016&byte=222125475

Mr. Emerson and Transcendentalism

The American Whig review. / Volume 1, Issue 3

Wiley and Putnam, etc. Mar 1845, pp. 233-243

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABL5306-0001&byte=232792372

Speculative Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

The American Whig review. / Volume 13, Issue 77

Wiley and Putnam, etc. May 1851, pp. 458-464

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABL5306-0013&byte=240558065

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Catholic world / Volume 27, Issue: 157, Apr 1878, pp. 90-97

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0027.157

The Test of Truth

The Southern quarterly review. / Volume 12, Issue: 2, Oct 1855, pp. 471-501

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acp1141.2-12.002

Thoreau and New England Transcendentalism

Catholic world / Volume 27, Issue: 159, June 1878, pp. 289-300

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0027.159

The Transcendental Movement of New England

Catholic world / Volume 23, Issue: 136, July 1876, pp. 528-537

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0023.136

Transcendentalism

The Southern quarterly review. / Volume 2, Issue: 4, Oct 1842, pp. 437-471

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acp1141.1-02.004

Transcendentalism in Political Ethics

The Princeton review. / Volume 31, Issue: 2, Apr 1859, pp. 283-305

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acf4325.1-31.002

Mental Philosophy, Part I

Grayson, William Spence

Southern literary messenger; devoted to every department of literature and the fine arts. / Volume 21, Issue: 2, Feb 1855, pp. 77-83

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acf2679.0021.002

Dr. Brownson and Catholicity (Conclusion)

Hecker, Very Rev. I. T.

Catholic world. / Volume 46, Issue: 272, Nov 1887, pp. 222-235

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0046.272

Thomistic-Rosminian Emersonianism; or A Religion for Italy

Hecker, Rev. I. T.

Catholic world. / Volume 38, Issue: 228, Mar 1884, pp. 799-810

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0038.228

Reason and Faith

McCosh, Rev. James

The Princeton review. / Volume 32, Issue: 4, Oct 1860, pp. 648-685

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acf4325.1-32.004

A Woman of Culture, Chapter I-II

Smith, John Talbot

Catholic world / Volume 32, Issue: 187, Oct 1880, pp. 14-32

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0032.187

A Woman of Culture, Chapter V-VII

Smith, John Talbot

Catholic world / Volume 32, Issue: 189, Dec 1880, pp. 319-344

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/bac8387.0032.189

Transcendentalism

Tefft, Rev. B. F., D. D.

The Ladies’ repository: a monthly periodical, devoted to literature, arts, and religion. / Volume 8, Issue: 4, Apr 1848, pp. 124-125

http://name.umdl.umich.edu/acg2248.1-08.004

Published in:

Working on - Articles

on April 26, 2009 at 1:44 am Leave a Comment

Social Movement Series – Benevolence – Aid to the Poor – Reading list

Adams, George. The Rhode Island Register, for the year 1856. Providence: Gladding, 1856.

Annual Reports of the Children’s Aid Society, Nos. 1-10, Feb. 1854-Feb. 1863. New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1971.

Barnard, Henry, ed. The American Journal of Education, Volume XV. Hartford: Bernard, 1865.

Coon, Charles L.. The Beginnings of Public Education in North Carolina: A Documentary History 1790-1840. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1908.

Bolton, Charles C.. Poor Whites of the Antebellum South; Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi. Durham, NC: Duke Unv., 1994.

Debow, J. D. B… Debow’s Commercial Review of the South and West. New Orleans: Weld, 1850.

Duncan, Mary Grey Lundie. America as I Found it. London: Nisbet, 1852. [This author provides a look at American benevolence in the form of refuge houses for women and children primarily in Philadelphia in comparison with English and Scottish forms.]

First Annual Report of the Board of Public Charities of North Carolina. Raleigh: 1870.

French, J. H.. The Gazetteer of the State of New York. Syracuse: Pearsall Smith, 1860. (Available on Google Books.)

Hayward, John. Gazetteer of the United States of America. Philadephia: Gihon, 1854.

Hayward, John. The New England Gazetteer, Containing Descriptions of The States, Counties, Cities and Towns in New England. Boston: Clapp, 1857. (available on Google books.)

Revised Constitution and By-Laws of the Raleigh Female Benevolent Society, Adopted July 23d, 1823. Raleigh: Gales, 1828.

The Second Annual Report of the Children’s Aid Society. February, 1855. New York: M. B. Wynokopp, 1855.

Published in:

Working on - Articles

on April 25, 2009 at 11:50 am Leave a Comment

Social Movement Series – Water Cure – Reading List

Alcott, William A. Thoughts on Bathing. Boston: Light, 1839.

Atwater, Edward C. and Lawrence A. Kohn. “Rochester and the Water-Cure” Rochester History. Rochester, NY: Rochester Public Library. October, 1970.

Claridge, R.T.. Hydropathy; Or The Cold Water Cure. London: Madden 1842

Gove Nichols, Mary S. Lectures to Women on Anatomy and Physiology: With an Appendix on Water Cure.New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846.

How To Do It: Directions for the Knowing and Doing Everything Needful. New York: Tingley, 1864.

Lambe, William, M.D. Water-cure Library, Embracing all the Most Popular Works on the Subject; New York, Fowlers & Wells, 1850.

Priessnitz, Vincent. The Cold Water Cure, its Principles’ Theory, and Practice. London: Strange, 1842.

Shew, Joel. Hydrotherapy, or, The water-cure: Its Principles, Processes, and Modes of Treatment. New York: Fowlers and Wells. 1851.

Shew, Marie Louise. Water-cure for Ladies: A Popular Work on the Health, Diet, and Regimen of Females and Children, ant the Prevention and Cure of Diseases. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1844.

Nichols, Thomas L. Water-Cure Library, Embracing all the Most Popular Works on the Subject; Vol. 2 Introduction to Water-cure. 1850.

Published in: