And We’re Off…

August 5, 2016August 4, 2016 / Adam Lid / Leave a comment

This morning I’m leaving early to drive up to the Bay Area for the Angel Island event. While the drive to the Bay Area is nowhere as a long as it is to Tombstone, it still takes some about five hours and one has to factor in for accidents and traffic. With any luck, we’ll avoid rush hour and be able to make the 3 pm ferry crossing. 🙂 As I indicated in a previous post, we will be staying on the West side of the island at Camp Reynolds (aka later as West Garrison) which is the oldest military presence on the island, dating back to 1863, and it offers a unique living history experience in that there has been little modernization to the site (by the same token, with some major exceptions, little has also been done to preserve the majority of the existing structures and so they lay in an arrested state of decay).

Formation at Camp Reynolds c. 1912. The barracks in the background were torn down in the 1930s.

I am participating with Co. G, 364 Infantry, a living history organization focused on the First World War Era and we will be recreating a bit of 1917 when the Army was mobilizing for war with Germany. Up until this point, Angle Island had been a busy place, acting as the major port of embarkation for troops coming and returning from service in the Philippines and Hawaii which was the Army’s main area of focus.

Trooper ponying another horse. Supposedly, horses captured from Pancho Villa were brought here but that’s highly improbable for a variety of reasons to include cost and utility.

However, all that would change on April 6, 1917 with America’s declaration of war on the Central Powers with the Army growing from roughly 133,000 peacetime Regulars to over 4,100,000 of which some 2,280,000 would be ultimately shipped to France. Angel Island did its part, acting as a recruit depot for the rapidly growing Army.

Recruit, Angel Island, c. 1917. It could have been someone from the newly-forming 63rd Infantry.

Before 1900, Angel Island was a somewhat sleepy Army post where not a lot happened. For officers, living conditions were pleasant enough but for the enlisted soldiers, it could be boring and monotonous. Desertion and smuggling in liquor from the mainland were big problems all through Camp Reynolds’ existence.

Outing, c. 1880s or 1890s, Camp Reynolds thereabouts.

Stay tuned for more about our excursion. 🙂

Adam’s Atelier On The Road – Angel Island

August 1, 2016August 1, 2016 / Adam Lid / 1 Comment

Angel Island 4

It’s just about that time again when I make my yearly pilgrimage to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay- I’d go more often but distance and other commitments conspire to prevent more frequent visits. 🙂 This year I, along with members of Co. G, 364 Infantry (a WWI living history group) will be garrisoning Camp Reynolds.

Camp Reynolds today- various structures present during the period 1863 through 1910 have been restored or reconstructed. We will be staying in the restored Quartermaster Storehouse which is the brick building in the foreground:

A photo of Camp Reynolds Parade Field on Angel Island. The right side of the parade field was the location of the enlisted men’s barracks. The brick building was a warehouse adjacent to the now gone dock. Picture taken from Sausalito.

And here are a few various of Camp Reynolds from the past:

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Camp Reynolds c. 1890s

Another View Of Camp Reynolds, c. 1890s or 1900s.

Camp Reynolds was first established in 1863 in response to the threat of Confederate raiders during the Civil War. Subsequently, infantry barracks were built in 1864 and 1874 along with officer’s quarters and other relevant structures. During the period from 1863 through the early 1900s, Camp Reynolds was used as an infantry depot and served at part of the coastal defense system in San Francisco Bay. During and after the Spanish-American War, a camp for soldiers returning from the Philippines and Hawaii was constructed as a recuperation center (and to keep the jaded veterans away from the new recruits and other soldiers shipping out to the Philippines 🙂 ).

Camp Reynolds, c. 1926

We will be participating in a living history timeline event and we’ll be representing the WWI era. Stay tuned for more… 🙂

Lily Absinthe Takes A Brief Look At The “X House” Reality Shows

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 / Adam Lid / 2 Comments

Today, we’re going to take a step outside of our usual bailiwick and talk about living history. We have been involved in various aspects of living history for over 30 years and while our involvement in recent years has been scaled back, we still have fond and not-so-fond memories of the various situations we found ourselves in. In many ways, living history the logical end-result for why historical garments are created and it presents the participant with an unparalleled opportunity to go back in time, at least for a moment, and get a taste of life in a past era. While there has been much debate over the years as to whether or not this form of “time travel” can truly give someone an authentic experience, it can not be denied that it does put present the participant with situations that are decidedly not typical of 21st Century life (at least in the Western World).

Taking aim at history…

And now we take a look at what happens when you take modern people and inject them into the past…

In recent years, reality TV has become, for better or worse, a major element in the cultural landscape. Shows like Big Brother, Survivor, and a host of others typically, these shows feature a group of people drawn from various backgrounds who are then put together in a close living situation such as a large apartment in a strange city, deserted island, or some otherwise remote wilderness location. The whole idea is to see how people react to being taken out of their normal environment and then forced to interact with others. The primary goal is to stimulate and maintain viewer interest by generating some sort of conflict or at least placing the show participants in situations that are sure to generate conflict and drama as a means of maintaining viewer interest.

For us, one interesting variant has been the living history reality show which involves taking a group of modern day people with varying backgrounds and then placing them into a recreation of life of a past era. Some of the more noteworthy (or notorious, depending on your point of view) have been 1900 House, Frontier House, Texas Ranch House, Edwardian Country House, and the list goes on.

1900house_cover

However, while seeing living history come to life on the big screen (well, little screen since it was TV) is interesting and definitely a worthy goal, the reality show format tended to get in the way, especially in the way some situations were seemingly manufactured to either generate conflict (classic personality clashes) or made to make a show participant look bad (typically someone complaining about the lack of X modern convenience). It definitely grew tiresome to the point where we simply stopped watching as in the case of Texas Frontier House (we subsequently tried to watch some of the missed episodes in an effort to be fair but it was still unwatchable).

What was especially obnoxious was people complaining about how hard life was “back then” and especially for those who were in the servant/laborer categories. Well guess what? It was hard and they should have been under no illusions it was going to be otherwise. In fact, the conditions recreated for these various shows was no doubt a lot less rigorous than what it actually was during the various historical periods being portrayed. We can only assume that the show producers were going for the usual fish-out-of-water culture shock but some of the show participant reactions were excessive.

Unlike the people of the period, the one thing that the participants had going for them was that it would only last a limited amount of time and they would be able to return to their normal lives. For the people of the period, it was home and that was that. One would have thought that people would be willing to suck it up on a temporary basis and just deal with whatever situations were presented to them.

It’s easy for us to take potshots at these shows and trust me, we’ve gotten many a laugh pointing out people’s faults and commenting on the poor costuming. However, at the same time, we need to realize that it still represents major effort on the part of the show participants and that is to be commended, even when things didn’t work out correctly. If nothing else, it also acts as a bit of a reality-corrective lest we have too rosy a view of past life (in our case, the 19th century).

While there is much that we find fascinating and attractive about the 19th Century, we also know its downside (and in some cases, darkside) and we harbor no desire to “escape” to the past (although a short visit would be fascinating if the means actually existed 🙂 ). At the same time, when considering any sort of living history experience, we have to be mindful that we are not letting our 21st Century attitudes color what we see and believe. So as with everything one sees and hears, it should be taken with a large grain of salt.

In conclusion, while there’s much to be learned by watching and participating in living history, we believe the reality show approach is not the most effective although it can be entertaining and with that, we’ll leave you with the thought that “there’s no place like home.” 🙂

Our version of the “1905 House.”

A Brief Look At Men’s Hats – The Bowler/Derby

April 30, 2016April 30, 2016 / Adam Lid / 1 Comment

Hats have always been fascinating to us here at Lily Absinthe and millinery/hat-making is an artform all its own. In contrast to today, hats were an essential part of men and women’s wardrobes and they helped to shape and define an individual’s appearance and how the presented themselves to the world. In this post and others to follow in the future, we’ll be taking a look at hats as a means to educating and especially in connection with recreating styles from the late 19th Century. With that, let’s begin…

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For men, hats were an essential part of their wardrobe, ranging from the purely practical for protecting oneself from the elements to the purely decorative for fancy dress. For the most part, the situation/social function determined what clothing was proper to wear and this in turn also affected hat selection.

For everyday wear from 1870 through 1900, probably the two most popular style was the derby or bowler (frontier regions such as the American West had their own peculiar hat styles and we’ll leave those aside for the moment.). The terms “derby” and “bowler” have been used interchangeably with bowler predominating in Great Britain and derby in the United States.

Derby, American, Wool, c. 1880; Metropolitan Museum of Art (C.I.49.49.18)

The bowler/derby was characterized by a curved brim and a rounded low crown and was made of stiffened wool felt, reinforced by the addition of shellac to the manufacturing process. The hat was said to have been invented by a London hatmaker in 1849 as an alternative to the top hat for riding due to the top hat’s tendency to catch branches and get knocked off (although there are some other conflicting stories as to its origins). No matter the case, the bowler/derby’s popularity grew as the 19th Century progressed and was popular with both the working classes as well as the more prosperous middle classes and it was ideal as both practical and semi-formal headwear.

Below are just a few examples:

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The bowler/derby was widely worn, even in the West, and it has even been claimed to have been “the hat that won the West.” Below are just a few notables that sported a bowler/derby hat (at least for the camera):

Bat Masterson, 1879

Butch Cassidy

The Wild Bunch

As can be seen from the various pictures above, the bowler/derby was usually worn with the sack suit although it could also be seen with morning suits and even occasionally with a frock coat. Just to show how ubiquitous this style was, here’s one interpretation that was made in Japan in the 1890s:

Bowler Hat, Japanese, c. 1880 – 1897, constructed of rattan and bamboo with cloth bands; Metropolitan Museum of Art

For those desiring to recreate men’s styles of the later 19th Century, the bowler/derby hat combined with a sack suit is a very good place to start- it provides an outfit that will work for most sorts of daytime events and even a few evening ones. In fact, we would argue that the sack suit and bowler/derby combination is probably the most versatile style for men, more so that the usual pseudo “gunfighter style” that seems to be prevalent these days. But that’s just our opinion. 😉

Stay tuned for more posts in the future on men’s hats….

A Brief View Of Men’s Clothing- The Frock Coat

April 25, 2016June 10, 2020 / Adam Lid / 2 Comments

In a previous post, we gave an overview of the sack coat and sack suit during the late 19th Century from 1870 through 1900. While the sack suit was probably one of the most commonly worn outfit for men, there were other styles that bear mention, principly the frock and morning coats.

The frock coat got its start in the early 19th Century as an informal alternative to the dress coat (also referred to as the tailcoat or claw-hammer coat) and as such, was a coat with full skirts that extended to the knee and had a distinct waist seam that gave it a tailored appearance. In contrast to dress coats, the skirts on the frock coat was constructed of distinct upper and lower pieces rather than being cut as one piece.

In the examples below, the difference between the types of coats is readily apparent and especially in the skirt:

Note the distinct, fuller skirt pieces on the frock coat. Also, frock coats could be single or double-breasted:

Frock coats were primarily made from wool although other materials such as linen were also used. In terms of color, frocks coats came in a variety of colors with darker colors predominating. Also, frock coats were made in both single and double-breasted styles; the double-breasted style was considered to be more formal than the single-breasted version. Finally, the frock coat could be worn open or closed.

Here’s an example of a frock coat made from linen:

Frock Coat, c. 1860 – 1870; Augusta Auctions

Below is an early version of the frock coat. As the 19th Century progressed, the skirts gradually became less exaggerated:

Man's_silk_and_wool_twill_frock_coat_c._1820

Frock Coat, French c. 1816 – 1820, constructed of wool/silk twill; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.2010.33.7).

And now some from the 1870s:

From Gazette of Fashion, and Cutting-room Companion, 1870

Frock Coat, American, c. 1870s; Kansas State University Museum (1984.21.1 ab)

And the 1880s:

Frock Coat, c. 1880 – 1890; McCord Museum (M973.49.7)

And finally, the 1890s:

Frock Coat, c. 1890; Victoria Albert Museum T.624-1996)

As a general rule, frock coats became shorter and more tailored with a slimmer silhouette and were often worn with a pair of lighter-colored trousers as shown in some of the pictures above. Also, it’s interesting to note that during the 1880s and 90s, we increasingly see frock coats being worn open with wide lapels.

For people desiring to recreate period fashions of the late 19th Century, the frock coat offers one possibility for those desiring a more formal, conservative look. However, it must be noted that the frock coat is more representative of the period prior to the 1870s and as such, it was being supplanted by the morning coat for formal wear. In a future installment, we will be covering the morning coat so stay tuned! 🙂

(To Be Continued)

Lily Absinthe

Gowns & Corsetry

Living History & Reenactment

And We’re Off…

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