Clothing the Californio: The Lecture -- part of CoCoVid and Virtual FrockCon 2020, and other news

Elizabeth Urbach in
Californio costume. 

Hello again!  I have a few pieces of news to share! 

First thing: The Cup That Cheers is now also a YouTube channel!  I've gotten some messages over the years, telling me that some readers wish they could see me make the historic recipes and some of the historic costumes, that I've written up and posted here on the blog, and this spring and summer's time spent in lockdown gave me more time to think about creating educational videos.  Since I work at an elementary school which will be starting the school year online, some of the videos will be aimed at elementary and middle school-aged children and the time periods that they study in Social Studies, but others will be aimed at an older audience, and will include making historic recipes and costumes, as well as costume history.  I also taught beginning hand-sewing at my school, and I will be translating that class into a series of videos for the channel. 

Clothing the Californio title card for
YouTube videos. 
Creator: Elizabeth Urbach

Historical Sew Monthly -- Procrastination (how appropriate!): A pre-Gold Rush California day dress

Version 1.0 of the California day dress ca. 1838.

The Challenge: Procrastination (January 2016), Out of Your Comfort Zone (June 2015), and Stashbusting (March 2015).  I didn't realize it until last month, but I neglected to publish the blog post in 2015 for the Out Of My Comfort Zone and Stashbusting Challenges, which were part of the original reason for this dress being made!  7 months is quite a procrastination, although I still don't consider this dress finished ...

California history, especially domestic history, has been a major passion and research topic for me for the past 15 years or so.  Part of my research has involved re-creating typical daily outfits for California women, from the early Spanish settlement period in the late 18^th century, to the early 19^th century Rancho period on the eve of the Gold Rush.  Unfortunately, comparatively little of the European, English, and North American fashion information from that time is widely applicable to California during the same period, due to the distance – both physical and cultural – between the people of California and those in the rest of the Western world before the Gold Rush. 

_Mexicains_ by Emile Louis Vernier, ca. 1850.
 New York Public Library Digital Collection.

Beginning in the 1760s, Spain established frontier settlements in California, but all contact with Spain ceased between 1810 and 1824 during the Mexican War for Independence; when the fighting ended, California's settlers benefited from the free trade that resulted.  Trade with England and the United States enabled the people, now calling themselves Californios, to enjoy many of the products and luxuries that had long been available to more settled parts of the former Spanish empire, with closer ties to Europe.  Even now, however, shipments did not usually include fashion magazines or any ready-made articles of women's attire, unless specifically mail-ordered.  Almost no non-Hispanic women arrived in California to influence the local fashions during this time.

Clothing the Californio, part 4 -- the Gold Rush era.

Governor Don Pio Pico, his wife, and nieces, ca. 1850,
San Diego Historical Society.

By the time California entered the United States in 1850, the social and political climate of the state was radically changing.  Hispanic immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, entered California and headed to the gold mines, bringing their own culture with them.  Non-Hispanic immigrants to the state no longer acclimated themselves to California's previous culture, and they competed with the Californios for land, status, resources, and political clout.  Many Californio women married non-Hispanic men during this time period not only because the newcomers were different and exciting, but because to do so helped secure their property (an English-speaking man to manage their affairs as local law became much more English and American in influence) and social status.  During this time, Californio families began to identify themselves with Spanish European culture, in opposition to the non-Californio residents' characterization of all Hispanic people as Mexican and therefore "non-white", as well as to avoid association with the political and social unrest happening in the Republic of Mexico.  Californios began to wear the same styles and garments that other Americans wore, and look just as Victorian as someone from the East Coast during the same time period.