What is a Mantua Maker?

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

WHAT IS A MANTUA MAKER

     A newspaper article about skillfully creating imaginative Halloween costumes reminded me of past days when I made our family’s Trick or Treat and Halloween parade outfits. It also reminded me of the hours I spent sewing clothes for my family—I believe the “hat” I wore back then was known as “seamstress.” Tailor might have been an appropriate title also, since I made suits for my husband and son, and coats for myself.

     These memories came to mind when I came across the term “mantuamaker” in the book A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary,  1785-1812*. Just what was a mantuamaker, I wondered, as I moved myself over to the Internet to find out.

     Mantuas, a loose gown worn by women, in the 17^th and 18^th century, were called a mantie or mantua, from the French word manteau.***

     Mantua makers are found on the United States census between 1790 and 1910. However, their history evolves much earlier, according to one web site***. The very last Boston woman to claim the title of mantuamaker

From the Bastille to Cinderella

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

FROM THE BASTILLE TO CINDERELLA

      In writing my historic romance novel, circa 1790s, I struggled to determine a starting point. After doing much research, I realized that all the characters appearing in the beginning of the novel had witnessed the Fall of the Bastille in France on July 14, 1789. I decided to have them sharing their experiences several weeks later as they imbibed in chocolate coffee, a popular drink in Paris at that time.

     I researched eyewitness and news accounts of the event in preparation for writing their conversation. One comment intrigued me. It referred to the days of the warring as The Night and Orcus. What did this mean?

     I typed “Orcus” into the computer search engine and learned that Orcus is an alternative name for Satan. Thomas Carlyl described the era as follows: From Sunday afternoon (exclusive of intervals and pauses not final) till Thursday evening, there follow consecutively a Hundred Hours. Which hundred hours are to be reckoned with the hours of the Bartholomew Butchery, of the Armagnac Massacres, Sicilian Vespers, or whatsoever is savagest in the annals of this world. Horrible the hour when

The French military in America during the American Revolution: Part II

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE FRENCH MILITARY IN AMERICA

DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Part II

French relations with women in America

 Newport, Rhode Island, played an important part in the American Revolution by housing military personnel who arrived from France to help the Americans. Excerpts from three journals, kept by Jean Francois Louis Clermont-Crèvecœur, comte de; Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, and Louis Alexandre Berthier, provide material for this second post on Newport, Rhode Island and American women. To read Part 1, click on The French military in America during the American Revolution Part 1.

      In 1780 women in America were very pale and seemingly frail. The men were “tall and well-built,” although some were big, fat and lacked vigor.

     This was according to diarist Jean Francois Louis Clermont-Crevecœur, one three French military officers in M. le Comte de Rochambeau’s army who kept journals which extensively described their observations and thoughts about Revolutionary America. The army spent the winter of 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island. Along with the other two diarists, Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger and Louis Alexandre Berthier, Clermont-Crevecoeur recorded his keen observations about Americans and their dating/marriage habits. Observations from two other diarists, Prince de Broglie (in 1782) and Comte de Segure, add to the word picture painted by Clermont-Crevecoeur, Verger and Berthier.

     Americans had a lifespan of sixty years, Clermont-Crevecoeur wrote. Some rare residents lived to be

The French military in America during the American Revolution Part 1

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
THE FRENCH MILITARY IN AMERICA
DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Part 1
NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND HOSTS
THE FRENCH MILITARY IN 1780

Newport, Rhode Island, played an important part in the American Revolution by housing military personnel who arrived from France to help the Americans. Excerpts from three journals, kept by Jean Francois Louis Clermont-Crèvecœur, comte de; Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, and Louis Alexandre Berthier, provide material for this post on Newport, Rhode Island. This is Part 1 of a continuing discussion of the French in Rhode Island. To read the next segment click on The French military in America during the American Revolution: Part II

     During the night of October 30/31, 1780, a snowfall blanketed the navy ships that were transporting M. le Comte de Rochambau’s army to their winter quarters in Newport, Rhode Island. On the morning of the 31st, a thick mist enveloped the ship’s sails. “There was great activity as they hoisted their anchors to proceed to

Madame Rosalie de la Val: A Character Sketch

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

MADAME ROSALIE BACLER de la VAL:

A Character Sketch

Since March is Women’s History Month, and March 8 was International (Working) Women’s Day, I developed a character sketch on Madame Rosalie Bacler, a French émigré who came to the United States during the French Revolution, and who was a “working” woman, a “noble” who planned a French refugee colony in the Massachusetts Territory of Maine. Whenever I “introduce” this historical female to people, they become fascinated. Madame is the main character in the historical romance novel that I am attempting to write.

     Madame Rosalie Bacler de la Val, a French émigré who came to the United States to escape the atrocities of the French revolution, was an independent land speculator/settler in what is known today as Hancock County, Maine. In the 1790s, this region it was the Maine Territory of the State of Massachusetts, part of the Penobscot Land Tract purchased from the State of Massachusetts by land speculators Henry Knox and William Duer.
     Only about ten percent of the post-American Revolution land speculators worked independently, outside a company. None, as far as I have encountered, were women—much less

THE SPECTACULAR PENOBSCOT RIVER A Natural Wonder in Maine: Part 2

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

THE SPECTACULAR PENOBSCOT RIVER

A Natural Wonder in Maine: Part 2

To read the previous segment of this post click on: THE SPECTACULAR PENOBSCOT RIVER A Natural Wonder in Maine: Part 1

I recently presented a program to fifth grade students in my granddaughter’s reading class, which had been reading The Sign of the Beaver. I picked the book up when she was visiting, and discovered its setting was on the west side of the Penobscot River. My research has been mostly on the east side of the river, but I had viewed the river from the Penobscot Narrows Observatory in September, and, using the pictures and the results of much of my research, I believed I had something valuable to share with the class. To read my experience in the observatory, click on: THE PENOBSCOT NARROWS BRIDGE AND OBSERVATORY

     The Penobscot river and bay area is rich in Native American history. In former times the region was part of the traditional homeland of the Wabanaki Confederacy, one tribe of which was the Penobscot tribe. The Confederacy at one time, thousands of years before the arrival of the white man, controlled much of New England. Ancient remains of their campsites have been

PROCOPE CAFÉ, PARIS Part 2

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
PROCOPE CAFÉ, PARIS Part 2

To read Procope Café Part 1 click on: PROCOPE CAFÉ, PARIS: Part 1—Finding photographs: An International Adventure

The Procope’s history is closely linked with eighteenth century revolutionary ideas.
 
Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened Le Procope, a café/ice cream establishment, in 1686. He may (or may not have) adopted the name Procopio from the historian Procopius.

The opening marked the beginning of some serious coffee drinking in Paris.

Procope was originally marketed as a lemonade shop, and its sumptuous décor combined with its air of sophistication attracted a clientele keen to distance itself from the more loutish elements of the day. The name “café” was given to the establishment only when

BLACK FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS: Then and Now

Eight years after purchasing our retirement home, and five years after moving in full time, I finally am doing some very belated “landscaping” work.

Lest you consider us slothful, we had done some outside work in previous years—two years ago my husband, Monte, and son, Nolan, removed big rocks in our woods, then  made a path between

THE AMAZING BEAVER

After the American Revolution (and probably before the war, too) the new world, from Virginia to Maine, was replete with wild animals. Tales of one, the beaver, are recorded in journals of French men exploring the country either after the American Revolution or while waiting out the French Revolution, between the 1780s and the 1790s. Surprisingly, this creature is credited with playing a role in American history.

The journal of Clermont-Crevecoeur, a French military officer assisting with the American Revolution, relates, about beavers in Virginia, that they were among the animals he located “but since they live in colonies and are very shy when hunted or when the virgin land where they live is cleared, they are rarely seen except in wild and uninhabited country.”

Park Holland, a surveyor of Maine lands, concurs. While he was explored Maine near an outlet of a large lake (possibly the Aroostook River headwaters), he wrote “We crossed a large beaver stream, and halted to examine the works of theses curious little animals. They had a large quantity of timber cut for completing a dam upon which they were evidently at work before

ALEXANDRIA, D. C. (Virginia) IN THE 1790s

Thomas Jefferson returned to the United States in March, 1790. The French Ambassador was welcomed at Wise’s Tavern (201 North Fairfax Street), Alexandria. In Mayor William Hunter’s welcoming remarks he stated: “As a commercial town, we feel ourselves particularly indebted to you for the indulgences which your enlightened representations to the Court of France have secured to our trade. You have freed commerce from its shackles…”

Jefferson replied: “Accept my sincere thanks for yourself and the worthy citizens of Alexandria, for their