The Women Who Came in the MayflowerMarble, Annie Russell
History
The Women Who Came in the Mayflower
Marble, Annie Russell
Massachusetts -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Mayflower (Ship); Women -- Massachusetts
“Our clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn,
They need to be clouted soon after they are worn,
But clouting our garments they hinder us nothing,
Clouts _double_ are warmer than _single_ whole clothing.
“If fresh meate be wanted to fill up our dish,
We have carrots and turnips whenever we wish,
And if we’ve a mind for a delicate dish,
We go to the clam-bank and there we catch fish.
“For pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies!
We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at noon,
If it was not for pumpkin we should be undoon.”[24]
What did these Pilgrim women wear? The manifest answer is,—what they had
in stock. No more absurd idea was ever invented than the picture of
these Pilgrims “in uniform,” gray gowns with dainty white collars and
cuffs, with stiff caps and dark capes. They wore the typical garments of
the period for men and women in England. There is no evidence that they
adopted, to any extent, Dutch dress, for they were proud of their
English birth; they left Holland partly for fear that their young people
might be educated or enticed away from English standards of conduct.[25]
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle has emphasized wisely[26] that the “sad-colored”
gowns and coats mentioned in wills were not “dismal”; the list of colors
so described in England included (1638) “russet, purple, green, tawny,
deere colour, orange colour, buffs and scarlet.” The men wore doublets
and jerkins of browns and greens, and cloaks with red and purple
linings. The women wore full skirts of say, paduasoy or silk of varied
colors, long, pointed stomachers,—often with bright tone,—full,
sometimes puffed or slashed sleeves, and lace collars or “whisks”
resting upon the shoulders. Sometimes the gowns were plaited or
silk-laced; they often opened in front showing petticoats that were
quilted or embroidered in brighter colours. Broadcloth gowns of russet
tones were worn by those who could not afford silks and satins;
sometimes women wore doublets and jerkins of black and browns. For dress
occasions the men wore black velvet jerkins with white ruffs, like those
in the authentic portrait of Edward Winslow. Velvet and quilted hoods of
all colors and sometimes caps, flat on the head and meeting below the
chin with fullness, are shown in existent portraits of English women and
early colonists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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