A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

 

QUESTION: My grandmother loved to sew. She made her own clothes and some of those of her family. Over the years, she assembled quite a collection of sewing items. Some of the most interesting were the old sewing kits and baskets from the 19th and early 20th century. One thing I inherited from my grandmother was her love of sewing. I, too, love to sew. After she died, I got her collection of sewing items. I have no idea about the sewing kits and would like to learn more about them so that I can date them. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Before the introduction of mass-produced clothing, sewing was a way of life for every household. Usually, it was the women who took care of the making and mending of clothing. Your girls, required to master complicated sewing skills, used a variety of containers to hold their sewing tools.

The earliest sewing containers consisted of simple bags made of fabric or leather. But by the 18th century in Europe, metalworkers, jewelers, and other craftspeople had begun making fine sewing tools for ladies of the court who also required handsome boxes to hold them. Artisans used rare woods, leather, ivory, or precious metals inlaid with gems and mother of pearl on the outsides of their boxes and lined the interiors with silk or velvet. They fitted larger boxes with two or even three levels or sections.

By the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class created a market for less expensive and more practical sewing boxes that were both attractive and durable. Inside, they tightly wrapped tools and notions made of steel, such as needles, pins, scissors, bodkins, buttons, hooks, and eyes to prevent them from rusting. They also used brown paper to protect delicate, colored threads from light and air, while shielding sewing silks from the elements by soft, washed leather.

A typical Victorian sewing box would be just big enough to keep all of a woman’s sewing tools, as well as a little bit of her handiwork. Inside, you’d find a needle book with a large range of sizes, along with an assortment of thread made of cotton, linen, and silk, plus buttons formed from shells, acorns, wood, and metal. Sewing implements included different types of shears and scissors, a pin cushion and needle emery, a jar of beeswax, and a folding measure or measuring tape. Some boxes even housed tools to make lace or square cords.

Victorian women considered their sewing boxes to be private—for their eyes only. Many of these boxes had locks, and ladies often kept love tokens, such as a romantic letter, a book of poetry, or an image of her beloved inside it.

Small sewing boxes known as étui in France and "lady’s companions" in England and Germany became very popular. These portable containers usually held basic tools---scissors, needles bodkin, and a thimble—required for sewing on a day trip or for a sewing circle:. Larger lady’s companions often held a small mirror, a tiny perfume bottle, a little New Testament, a lady’s knife, tweezers, or a button hook. Some containers took the shape of books with “Lady’s Companion” printed on the spine, while others resembled fold-up leather pocketbooks. Other whimsical sewing boxes had shapes like hearts, eggs, and flasks.

With the introduction of the first sewing machines in 1860, ladies discovered that their thread was too stiff to run through the new invention. As a result, George Clark introduced a six-cord, soft cotton thread for these machines in 1864, and branded it as Clark’s O.N.T. (for “Our New Thread’). In the late 19th century, the Clark Thread Company issued many sewing kits and boxes advertising this brand.

Small, lidded baskets—woven from cane, grass, rushes, willow, honeysuckle, or bamboo—also made suitable sewing containers. In 19th-century China, a bride would be presented small gifts in ornate baskets during her wedding. These baskets were exported by the thousands to the United States starting around 1880, and were popular as sewing baskets until around 1930.

By the beginning of the 20th century, baskets had become the most common sewing containers in America. Often manufacturers lined them and created spaces for a pin cushion, scissors sheath, and thimble holder sewn into the lining. Starting around 1930, wicker bucket totes became sewing containers for many women. These usually had cord handles and decal images of flowers, poodles, and sewing tools on their wooden lids.

Besides the more elaborate sewing boxes and baskets, many women created their own mending kits to hold all the necessary implements to sew or repair anything, anywhere. These mending kits also functioned as travel kits that people could easily pack and take with them.

During the 18th century, women made mending kits called “housewifes” or “hussifs” from scraps of velvet, burlap, or leather by rolling them into a pouch with compartments for tools. They also came in other forms like purses or satchels. Wealthier women purchased kits made of ivory, wood, or silver at finer stores. Mending kits included a small pair of scissors, one or more thimbles, a needle case, spools of thread, bodkins, stilettos, clamps, buttons, and pleat makers. 

During the first half of the 20th century, women often upcycled their old clothes into the season’s latest fashions by shortening skirts or changing hat trim. They completed this intricate work by hand, using tools found in their mending kits. Because these kits were small, ladies could take them everywhere. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Sleep My Baby

QUESTION: Recently, I purchased an old book on Victorian life at a book sale. As I was leafing through it, I noticed a photo of a bizarre looking little doll. The caption said it was a mourning doll. I never saw anything like this before. What can you tell me about this little doll and what was its purpose?

ANSWER:  During the Victorian Era,  people typically used elaborate physical representations and rituals to mark the death of a loved one. Because people often died at home, family members, usually women, prepared the body of the deceased for buria. The dead body would then be displayed for a time in the parlor. Because of the close proximity of death to the home, and because of high mortality rates for children and infants, children knew about death and dead bodies from a very early age.

In Victorian times, parents and other family members openly discussed death with children. And children's stories often included death scenes and references to death, especially with an emphasis on the joys of heaven and the inevitable reunion with loved ones there.

During the 19th century, especially after the Civil War, death played a major role in everyday life.

By the late 19th century, it became customary to commission a "mourning doll" to lay at the grave of a deceased child. These dolls became a way for families to deal with the death of a child. Along with mourning attire and jewelry, death masks, and post-mortem photography, the mourning doll was just another, if somewhat overlooked, element in the Victorian grieving process.

Considering that many infants died of disfiguring and draining illnesses such as smallpox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis and diphtheria, the mourning doll offered an idealized reality of their loss. While their child may have departed gaunt and bloody, the wax effigy would look as though it had simply closed its eyes and gone to sleep.

Graveside dolls became a way for parents to cope with the death of a child. When a child died, it was traditional for families who could afford it to have a life-sized wax effigy of the child made for the funeral. The doll would often be dressed in the deceased infant or child's own clothing, and most of the deceased child's own hair would be used to make the doll even more realistic. These wax dolls usually show the deceased lying in a coffin-like setting with their eyes closed, to mimic a peaceful sleep.

The backsides of the heads were made flat so that the doll would lay nicely when laid out to rest. Most parents put the mourning doll on display at the wake and would then leave it at the grave site. Some people often kept these effigy dolls after the funeral, placing those of infants in a crib, periodically changing their clothes, and otherwise treating them like a real baby.

To simulate the feel of a real child, the makers stuffed them with sand and heavy cloth to give them a more realistic feel when being held. Sometimes, parents had the doll,  itself, framed. Effigies of older children consisted of just the head and shoulders. All of them had flat backs, so that they could be placed in a picture frame.

Many Victorian girls had some sort of doll. They used them, much as little girls do today, to play house and thus practice social interactions. By the late 19th century, people recognized that childhood was a time for play, but that play also came with instruction. Little girls play-acted tea parties and courtships, and learned the expectations and rules of femininity. Of course, family members encouraged them to dote on baby dolls like they were their own, preparing girls to become good wives and mothers. But there was another role that dolls prepared girls for—funerals.

Wax effigies weren’t the only death-related dolls associated with Victorian children. Parents often gave their daughters “Death Kits,” which included a doll and miniature coffin. In play, the child would then practice dressing the doll, laying it out for visitation by placing it in the coffin, and planning a funeral. She might also be expected to practice attending to the grief of the doll’s mourners. When young Victorian women became adults, they would have most likely been asked to care for dead family members.



A kit would include a doll with black mourning clothes and a doll-sized coffin. Just as in real life, the little girl would prepare the doll for a wake and funeral, displaying it for mourners near the body of the dead child. Sometimes the effigy would be a full bodied doll, its body weighted with sand so as to feel more realistic, and with a flat back so as to lie down nicely in something like a tiny coffin. Dolls of older children might just be a head and shoulders, with the back of the head and torso flattened so it could be framed.

After the funeral the doll would either be left at the child’s grave or kept in the home, perhaps displayed in a glass coffin. Often cared for much like a real child, the mourning doll might be placed in a bed or crib and have its clothes regularly changed. Occasionally, parents would have a full-sized effigy made of their dead child to place in their bedroom.

Although many of these dolls didn’t survive the years, those that did were usually lovingly kept by the parents, often displayed in the bed of the deceased and cared for and re-dressed as though they were the deceased. Those that remain today were preserved in large glass boxes and, typically, depict a child between birth and three years.

Wax mourning dolls lost their popularity as tastes changed and the First World War began in the early 20th century. This is another one of those bizarre Victorian customs that has faded into history.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Spring Edition, "Down to the Sea in Ships," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.  

A Little Piece of Home

QUESTION:  Recently I discovered a well-worn copy of the Bible dated 1861 while going through an old trunk left to me by my father. He said it belonged to his father and his father before that. What’s intriguing about this Bible is the inscription inside: “Presented to John C. Gillespie of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to take with him to the field of battle, June 1, 1861.” Can you tell me why my great grandfather would have had such a Bible and why it has been handed down all these years?

ANSWER: Bibles are often what bind families together, even today. This occurred even more during the 19th century, when each person may have had their own personal copy. But this Bible, I suspect, was special, for it belonged to a Union soldier who fought in the Civil War. It’s something he carried with him into battle and which he kept his entire life, passing it down to future generations, after one of the most traumatic experiences of his life.

The Civil War continues to fascinate generation after generation. And with this fascination comes a desire to own a piece of the war, to hold on to a bit of its history.

A collection of Civil War memorabilia often begins with the purchase of a 25-cent minie ball, picked up as an inexpensive souvenir after touring a battlefield. Other people  become collectors after participating in re-enactments, as they replace reproduction articles with the real thing. Still others, perhaps like yourself, become collectors because descendants have passed down items that they carried into battle.

Collections of Civil War memorabilia can be broken into three general categories. Most collectors focus on weapons. Others specialize in collecting military uniforms, as well as associated items such as buttons, patches, badges, buckles, and hats.

And some collect the personal effects of those who left their homes and fought their neighbors on the battlefields of their own country. It’s often these homely objects that intensify the romantic appeal of this horrific war. Collecting what soldiers carried with them to war provides an intimate glimpse into their lives.

Volunteers, assembled in a short period of time, comprised most of the armies of both of the Union and the Confederacy. Men—or more often boys in their teens—reported for duty with hastily gathered supplies, and there was little uniformity about what they brought from home. Although each state was expected to supply its fighting forces with necessities, it was often the mothers, wives, sisters, a and girlfriends who were responsible for the materials that the soldiers actually brought with them when they reported for duty. As a result, there was a great variety of items included in the soldiers' personal effects.

With little idea of how the war would eventually be fought, new recruits generally overpacked, and soon found it necessary to shed their excess personal belongings as the war stretched on. These early recruits often reported with items intended to create a home away from home. Consequently, silver knives and forks, pincushions, and even embroidered booties found their way into camp. The soldiers didn’t anticipate years of war—early recruits signed up for only a few months—and the ensuing movements resulted in the abandonment of these niceties.

Identifying Civil War personal effects has been made easier because most of the soldiers marked their belongings with their names and regiments.

In addition to the items which soldiers brought from home, camp visitors gave soldiers  gifts of food, towels and soap, blankets, hammocks, tobacco and pipes, and pills. Soldiers traded their watches for some of these items. And even though the typical soldier would have appreciated more useful items, god-fearing visitors often distributed  religious tracts. Some gave soldiers sewing kits called "housewives," with which they spent idle hours mending and repairing their clothing. The soldiers played various games, including a primitive form of baseball, as well as poker and cribbage, chess and checkers, dominoes and marbles, and even bet on dice.

As the war stretched on and soldiers found themselves depleting their personal supplies brought from home, they turned to sutlers to replenish their need. Both Union and Confederate governors granted special permits to these civilian merchants. They accompanied the armies with horse-drawn wagons and sold, often at a great profit, the personal items a soldier would find in his pockets or haversack.

Articles owned by soldiers on either side differed little. Instead, social class and military rank are what determined the kinds of items the men carried,, Wealthier men, especially those with higher military ranks, were more likely to carry finer things, more things, and things not absolutely essential to day-to-day existence. On the other hand, many of the ordinary soldiers were poor men, often farmers, or recent immigrants from Ireland or Germany. Their possessions were far more modest.

One accessory common to most soldiers was a wallet, usually of folded leather, lined in linen and held together with a leather strap. Soldiers carried their money—generally not much, as a private's pay was typically $9 a month—and photographs of those at home in their wallets. Leather wallets in very good condition sell for about $65.

Another item that most soldiers carried into battle was a copy of the Bible. These  pocket-sized books are often found in poor condition today because of the amount of use they received. Inscriptions increase their value.  A typical Civil War Bible sells for about $75.

And they wrote. Soldiers of the Civil War kept extensive diaries, and maintained regular correspondence with friends and loved ones at home. Many of the envelopes they used are of particular note with patriotic scenes depicted on them, as are the many writing implements and accessories. Ordinary soldiers wrote on paper with wooden lead pencils, which they purchased from sutlers for a few cents or received as gifts.
Officers, however, often included writing sets in their holdings. Many carried bottles of ink—glass bottles covered in materials like leather to prevent breakage—and pens which, being made of a breakable material, rested in brass tube-like protective cases. Today, uncut Civil War-issued pencils can be had for $5 to $10, and fancy pens in brass cases bring $45.

Pens weren’t the only things transported in protective cases. Whiskey flasks were often covered in leather and encased in silver or pewter. Collapsible tin or pewter cups rested in little tin cases with snap-on lids. Other personally-supplied mess pieces commonly found include combination knife-fork-spoon utensils and plates.

On a more personal level were the items that soldiers carried in leather toilet kits tucked inside their haversacks. Toiletry items such as toothbrushes, tooth-cleaning powder (little more than baking soda), hand soap and shaving soap, brushes, and  mirrors were often packed in these kits. In many a soldier's pack was at least one straight razor with a bone or ivory handle, even though beards were in style.

Each article tells a story, has a message, is worthwhile keeping. The Civil War is about people. Those who fought it are no longer here to tell us about it. So the next best thing is to collect the items they carried.

Smokey the Bear is Still Smokin’

QUESTION: As I was cleaning out my attic recently, I came across my old Smokey the Bear Jr. Forest Ranger Kit. Do you know if this is collectible today?

ANSWER: Your "Smokey the Bear Jr. Forest Ranger Kit," was popular with kids since its introduction in 1957. Today, it’s also a popular collectible. It came complete with a bookmark, letter from Smokey, membership car blotter, four poster stamps and a Junior Forest Ranger Certificate, all profusely illustrated, inside of a beautiful envelope. The Forest Service even included a brass-relief badge from time to time. .

Created by a Madison Avenue advertising campaign in 1944, Smokey the Bear quickly became a beloved national symbol. His plea, "Only you can prevent forest fires," first coined in 1947, is familiar to all.

While Walt Disney’s Bambi had been previously used as a symbol for forest fire prevention, the ad men for the Forest Service decided a bear would be better and gave the job of designing him to illustrator Albert Staehle.

The mid-20th century artist is best remembered for his Saturday Evening Post and American Weekly magazine covers featuring a black and white cocker spaniel. Staehle created the Smokey character with the ranger hat and carrying a water bucket. He did four original posters of Smokey for the United States Department of Agriculture's Forest Service.

After Staehle created Smokey the Bear, Rudy Wendelin took on the job his artist. For 30 years, until
his retirement from the Forest Service in 1975. Wendelin endlessly drew Smokey. Later, he even designed the commemorative postage stamp released in 1984 in honor of Smokey’s 40th anniversary.

The cartoon bear was supposedly named after Smokey Joe Martin, New York City's assistant firechief in the 1920's. He began appearing on fire prevention posters and billboards and in countless television public service advertisements pleading with viewers to be fire-safe in the forests.

In 1950, a badly burned cub was rescued in the aftermath of a fire in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest. He was chosen to be the living symbol of forest fire prevention by the national government. For the next 25 years the bear, now named Smokey after the department's famous cartoon character, was used as a living reminder to Americans of the need to be careful with matches and fire in the forests. In May of 1975 he was retired to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and there he died in November of 1976. His remains were transported back to New Mexico and today, Smokey is buried in his original forest. Another orphan cub was chosen to succeed him.

The Smokey the Bear campaign produced an enormous amount of collectibles. This treasure trove includes everything from stuffed bears and banks to bumper stickers and books of every size and type.

Early recognizing the growing popularity of its fire fighting bear, the United States government trademarked him in 1952. This was done to insure that he would not be used in any way detrimental to his goal. It also brought in royalties, which fluctuated between $40,000 and $200,000 or more each year—money used to supplement the fire prevention budget.

Smokey the Bear can be found in cloth, metal, plastic, and porcelain. Most popular are the stuffed bears. Ideal Toy Company manufactured the first one in 1952. Knickerbocker and Dakin soon followed. Teddy bears of Smokey, wearing jeans and a ranger hat, have been made in all sizes. Some were often talking toys, games, records, and drinking cups and mugs flooded the marketplace in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's.

The first appearance of Smokey the Bear in a comic book came in a 1950 release, entitled Forest Fire, by the American Forestry Association. Rudy Wendelin did the artwork. The Dell Publishing Company produced a series of eight comic books from October 1955 to August 1961. Then came Smokey the Bear in 1962 by K.K. Publications for a 13-year run as part of their "March of Comics" series. And from February 1970 to March 1973, Gold Key issued 13 comic books.

In 1959, the United State Forest Service had Western Printing Company create a comic book, “The True Story of Smokey the Bear,” for use as an educational giveaway to youngsters. It became a popular premium for the next 10 years.

The Forest Service also handed out other premiums since the 1950's that today are quite collectible. These include the Junior Forest Ranger' badges. The agency also gave away pinback buttons with Smokey's face and the slogan, "I'm Helping Smokey Prevent Forest Fires," as well as a free coloring book, "The Blazing Forest," also printed by Western Publishing Company, as part of its "Prevent Forest Fires" campaign.