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Weather and Wardrobe
If only What Cheer! Day would look this good! What to wear for 55-degree weather? Suddenly, “red and black and white calicoe” seems…foolish. The Cursing Sewing Mommy may have words for not having...
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Buttonholes Made Fun
For a time, I worked with a young man who sang at work. It wasn’t “Old Man River” or railroad work songs, but simpler, more repetitive phrases: “Up the stairs, down the stairs” while moving around the...
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After Cheer
With the Young Mr on the lawn at the John Brown House Museum: he came, he dressed, he ate, he drummed. At the end of the day, his friend and his friend’s mother finally came, and thanks to them, I have...
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Working Weekend
This is the house at the farm museum where we went to work on Sunday. That bright orange under the window is squash. The part painted red is an office addition and not interpreted space. This is the...
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Consider the Chicken
Nobody puts Dumber in a pot With apologies to the late David Foster Wallace The majority of us do not consider the chicken. We may consider whether the package of chicken we purchase is free range,...
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Surprise!
Warning: Museum content ahead. I found this link in the AASLH.org twitter feed yesterday: a post at The Uncataloged Museum about the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris. CW Peale: The Artist in His...
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Night Lights and a Book
Last night, I went to a meeting downtown for my boss, and chose to walk instead of drive. I took some blurry photos along the way as evening became night and the city became more and more like Busy...
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Women’s Work
Cooking. Gets you every time. Three holes (at least; there might be four) and mending to do. The patches are cut, but I’m thinking now that a wool apron might be a good thing to have. The other thing...
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Shameful and Shifty: HSF #2,UFO
Chaos on deck, assistant elsewhere It’s not done, it’s as simple as that. I had a shift in hand for HSF #2: UFO. Along the way, I made significant progress: side seams sewn up, sleeve seams sewn up,...
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Working the Curtains
Like most people, I have good days and bad days at work. Unlike most people, I sometimes get to use my hobby at work. We have a new audio tour at the museum, and one of my colleagues is working on the...
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Busy!
[French Barracks] T. Rowlandson, 1786, Drawings R79 no. 13, Lewis Walpole LibraryThis is a busy week chez Calash, so here’s an image by Rowlandson, as described by the Lewis Walpole Library: A view of...
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Installation Progress
Faith & Freedom Case 2: Establishment Faith & Freedom Case 2: Establishment It starts with words on a wall, and then we bring in the objects. They get hung up, placed, arranged, listed,...
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Thinking Ralph Earl
Mabel Ruggles Canfield. Oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1796. Litchfield Historical Society, 1917.4.4 In three weeks, I start a three week cycle of events in different decades: Saratoga in 1777 will be...
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What (Cheer) to Wear?
It’s 1800. Do you know what your housekeeper is doing? I don’t. Or, more accurately, I can’t decide. I’m hung up on stays, and not wanting to make another pair. I’m indecisive about style, and though...
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Overtaken by Events
The Great Gale of 1815 I had a plan for this week, but was overtaken by events. Eventually I’ll have a post for HSF # 25, along with thoughts about ways to estimate laundry tub diameters. Until then,...
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What Cheer! Wednesday
The cast at the end of the day Where are you going this weekend? I’m going to Providence in 1800, along with my family and friends. The mantua maker is coming, and writes a very pretty letter about the...
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Good Grief
Pre-sweat melted hair I had my doubts about this event, since we were interpreting the death and mourning of John Brown a full month after it actually happened, and initially resisted somewhat...
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A Side of Oysters
Or, Fleshing Sexism into History Here’s a bitter blog post instead of the angry one someone expected after the Turkey Shoot. It started elsewhere with a discussion of this print: there’s more going on...
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Mopping Up Action
Photo by Asher Lurie This past weekend, I took my show on the road down 95 to Trenton’s Old Barracks Museum, where once again, soldiers’ rooms needed cleaning. Hannah Glasse exhorts servants...
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Serious Saturday: Security Concerns
Warning: Museum Content Ahead Woman Selling Salop. William Henry Pyne. The Costume of Great Britain. 1805. Night watchmen. We’ve been over them before, tangentially, but never in an experienced way....
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