Women of Colonial America by Brandon Marie Miller

Author:Brandon Marie Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 2016-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

SHIRTS AND SHIFTS

Making clothes posed another time-consuming task for colonial women. Sometimes the process started from scratch, with shearing the sheep’s wool. Following the shearing, a woman washed, carded, and combed the wool. Then she spun it out into thread, dipped the skeins into homemade dyes, and wove the threads into fabric on her loom. From sheep shearing to sewn shirt required nearly a year of work. Many women could not afford their own spinning wheel or loom. They traded goods or labor for the fabric needed to sew clothes—or paid with precious cash, if they were lucky enough to have any.

To make linen, a colonial woman cut flax plants, soaked and dried them, then pounded the stalks to break down the tough plant fibers. Then the fibers were spun, dyed, and woven into linen. Women used linen to sew shirts and shifts—underclothes—as well as aprons, caps, and baby dresses. Luxuries like tablecloths, napkins, and sheets were also sewn from linen.

A more well-off woman hired a tailor or dressmaker to sew fitted dress tops (bodices), jackets, and men’s breeches. Wealthier women ordered material from England. Many southern women ordered fabric from English stores when the tobacco crop shipped for sale. Nearly all women handled a needle, thread, and thimble with skill. Clothing required yards and yards of fabric, and each tiny stitch on every garment was sewn by hand. Sewing, mending, or altering a family’s clothes proved a constant chore. Women also knitted stockings and caps.

Since clothes were expensive and time-consuming to make, most colonists possessed scant wardrobes. Only the wealthy could afford lace, fancy buttons, or embroidery silks that set their clothes above the common folk. Sumptuary laws actually decreed that a craftsman’s wife or a poor farm woman must not dress like her betters.

A woman also counted laundry among her chores, washing the family’s linens (about once a month) and infants’ diapers. She scrubbed clothes stooped over a washtub filled with water she’d lugged from well or stream and heated over a fire. After wringing each piece by hand, she hung the clothes to dry in the summer breeze or freeze-dry in the winter cold.

Clothes made from wool, or expensive fabrics like silks, were not washed for fear they’d be ruined. Women spot cleaned these garments, brushed away dust and dirt, aired them out, and stored the clothes in chests with dried herbs. Dirty garments and seldom-washed bodies did not make for sweet-smelling colonists.

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