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

Blogging during the Quarantine

image from FreeDigitalPhotos.com

Oh my goodness!  So much has changed since the last post!  I think that everyone in the world (or almost everyone, at least), is going through this unprecedented experience: just about the whole world is shut down (or just opening back up), and most of us are sheltering in place by not leaving our homes except to get groceries and attend to other emergencies, wearing masks and gloves, and staying at least 6 feet away from people outside our own households.  There is a lot of controversy (and name-calling and character-assassination on both sides of the issue) about whether or not such strict lockdown is necessary or even legal.

The school where I work has been closed since mid-March (although we did a very quick switch to 100% online/remote learning, with varying degrees of success), and all of the living history and costume-related events, as well as all other public events for the next several months, have been canceled or rescheduled.  Costume College, which was scheduled for the end of July, has been canceled, and the theme that was set for 2020 has been pushed forward to 2021.

Posting again after a year ...

Image from http.clipart.edigg.com

I haven't entirely forgotten this blog ... really ....

So many things have changed since I last posted -- on December 31st of 2018!  Most important among the changes is another new place to live.  I moved in about 6 weeks ago, but I'm still unpacking things; I have almost all of my possessions out of my storage unit, however, and I need to get another bookcase or cabinet to hold my antique books and the dishes and silver that I inherited from my grandparents.

I am still working in the library at the school, and I'm also in charge of running the Rancho Day event for 4th grade, and assisting with the Tea Party section of the Colonial Day event for 5th grade, for both of which I wear historical dress, of course!  Rancho Day for 2020 will be at the end of next month, and Colonial Day will be a few weeks later, in early to mid February.  I need to get my costume in order for both events!

I walked in the Rose, White & Blue Parade in San Jose again, with

Photo: Deborah Borlase.

the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild, and our theme was Prohibiton: Pro and Con.  I made a ca. 1918 skirt out of blue linen (not quite finished, but it was wearable) and wore it with my vintage embroidered blouse and my "Votes for Women" sash, to illustrate that the people opposing prohibition were also opposing women's voting and other legal rights.  The two issues (prohibition and women's suffrage) were so intertwined that most of the women's organizations campaigned for both issues simultaneously; the amount of control that "Big Alcohol" had over the national, state, and local governments was one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest one, to women getting the right to vote, which is a fact that people have largely forgotten and which, even the historians in my costume group wanted to dismiss, as "clouding the issue."

A long-awaited update!

Me and two friends in 1920s
costume at the local Egyptian
Museum, September 2016.
Photo: Ann Morton.

Hello everyone in blog-land!  "I'm not dead yet!" as goes the line from Monty Python's _Holy Grail_ ... As you may have surmised, things have been changing around here, but hopefully I'll be settled for a good while and can get back to my cooking, costuming, and general historical nerd-ery.

I moved twice this year, once at the beginning of September, and again at the end of September/beginning of October.  I have mostly unpacked my things; still finding places to put things and working out what I need to add to my storage supplies so that I have a place for everything, so I still have a couple stacks of boxes waiting to be unpacked, or to be taken to my storage unit.  I think I have all my costuming and cooking supplies at the house, but the homeowners are doing some remodeling to the kitchen, so there is sawdust and paint and caulking and dropcloths everywhere, so I can't do much baking yet.  I did make two figgy puddings, from the recipe I blogged about here, so that's something at least!  I totally failed at getting my Christmas cards out on time, so yet again they will be New Year's/holiday cards, because I really need to let my family know my new address ...

Historical Sew Monthly: A Cap with a Pleated Ruffle

_Plucking the Turkey_ by Henry Walton,
1776, Tate Gallery.

I won't be able to keep up with all the challenges this year, and will probably be finishing up the blog post and putting it online after the deadline on whichever challenges I can complete, but hopefully people will enjoy seeing the results anyway!  Here is the challenge for February, in which I make a simple 18th century cap with a pleated ruffle.  Although I'm posting this in March, the sewing actually happened at the beginning of February ... 

Challenge #2: Tucks & Pleating – make a garment that features tucks and pleating for the shape or decoration.

Material: ¼ yard of cotton-linen blend fabric  

Pattern: self-drafted from Sue Felshin's instructions online

Year: 1775-ish

Notions: white thread, 20 inches of cotton cord (kitchen twine) and 26 inches of 1-inch wide ribbon 

How historically accurate is it? 75%, producing an accurate-looking, entirely hand-sewn cap, from a modern blend of linen and cotton. 

Hours to complete: 6 hours (by hand; would have been less if done by machine) 

First worn: for photos only, in mid-February.

Total cost: all from the stash, but it would have been less than $10 total if I'd bought everything new.

_The Butter Churner_, by Henry Robert Morland,
before 1797, Bonhams Auction House.

As many costumers have discovered, once your family knows that you make costumes, they turn to you when they want to borrow an outfit for whatever costume-friendly events come up in their life ... often not giving you much advance notice for pulling something together!  As if you have a whole costume shop inventory – in their size – at your disposal ... Anyway, as long as they don't expect me to let them do whatever they want to the costume or give them the aforesaid costume to keep, at no charge, I'm usually happy to put together an outfit for them, if I have the time.  This time around, it was my cousin's daughter, who is in 5^th grade, and who had a special social studies theme day at school at the beginning of this month.  The theme was the English colonial period of America's history, and all the students (and teachers) in the 5^th grades were expected to dress up and bring a period-inspired lunch for the day.  The teachers had gone to Party City and bought a bunch of cheap "Colonial" costumes for the kids to wear if they didn't come up with their own costume, but I had seen those before, and they were hideous, as those things typically are. 

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.

Holiday catch-up.

Thanksgiving Day--The Dinner
_Harper's Weekly_, November 1858

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful day, whether you spent it with family, or had a "Friendsgiving" with good friends instead of relatives!  I'm still adjusting to the new living situation and job, and unfortunately, one of the things that comes with working with children, is getting sick!  Everything my kids get, I get.  I'm currently in the middle of the second bug that I've caught since the beginning of the school year; the earlier sickness started out as a cold and turned into a tonsil infection which kept me away from work for over a week!  This one seems more like a bad cold, and I'm hoping it won't turn into anything worse (fingers crossed!) but it's hung around all week and really put a damper on my holiday baking!  Time for lots of tea and hot/sour soup ...

Changes, good and bad

Image by Joy Coffman.
Wikimedia Commons.

Well, I haven't fallen entirely off the face of the planet, but it feels like it.  Some dramatic changes have occurred, including the changing of my career (for the present), and moving to another house.  I have left the history museum where I worked for 14 years, and I'm currently working at an elementary school while I plan for graduate school, which is what I had planned to do before beginning work at the museum.  I'm working more hours than I used to work, which is both a good thing and a bad thing: I'm glad for the extra wages, but I am so exhausted that I have very little energy, even on weekends, and none during the week, for sewing and cooking like I used to.  I hear that my energy level will change as I get used to it, but we'll see.  I am so behind on my writing, sewing, and historic cooking!  The new living situation doesn't allow for much, if any, cooking, unfortunately.

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.

Clothing the Californio, part 3 -- the Mexican period.

Working-class man and women in California.
Monterey State Historic Park.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

After 1824, under Mexican law, the central government basically ignored California, but the Californios were given free trade and loosened domestic business regulations; when the Missions were secularized, some people received large grants of good Mission land from the government, and were able to become self-sufficient and even begin to accumulate wealth.  They used their wealth (in hides and tallow) to purchase manufactured goods that were brought to California on international trade ships every few weeks or so, on average, but most ranch owners didn't live in aristocratic style until much later.  Many of the Native people who had been part of the Mission system stayed on the land and became the servants of the wealthier ranch owners, but by the 1830s, this state of society was still really new and changing.  Americans, English, and other non-Hispanic immigrants began to arrive in small numbers at this time, and generally adopted Californio fashions, taking Spanish names and joining the Catholic Church, as well as becoming Mexican citizens, purchasing rancho land, or marrying into land-owning families and inheriting it.

Clothing the Californio, part 2 -- re-creating 18th century Spanish California costume

Spanish girl and woman, and their Moorish and Indian maids.
By Father Ignacio Tirsch, ca. 1770.  Baja California.

So, in analyzing the images of Spanish-era/18^th century Californio women, these are the common clothing elements: white linen camisa (women's shirt/chemise) with medium-high neckline (no visible cleavage) edged with a gathered ruffle, with full elbow-length sleeves edged with a gathered ruffle that shows under the jacket sleeves; fitted wool or linen cuerpo or casaca (bodice or casaque/jacket), with medium-high round or square neckline (no visible cleavage), waist pointed at center front, stiffened with light boning and/or cording in front and at body seams, elbow-length sleeves with a slightly longer ruffle (compared to ruffle on camisa sleeves), hip-length peplum/skirt attached to the back and sides of bodice at waist edge, laced over a dark/contrasting stomacher, or laced or possibly hook/eye fastened closed edge-to-edge at center front; two (non-ruffled) ankle-length faldas, or petticoats, in solid colors (wealthier women are shown in cotton print petticoats), including red – often with white cotton or linen yoke from the waist to the hips and red wool or other color from there to the hem; black or white cotton or wool stockings and plain brown or black leather shoes with low heels; solid-colored, or white, or striped, cotton or linen rebozo (rectangular cloth veil or shawl), or lace mantilla (large rectangular or triangular veil worn by wealthier women) -- no cap, hat or bonnet -- covering the head, and wrapped around the shoulders and neck; hair braided and wound around the head (perhaps like 16^th century Italian hair taping) under the rebozo or mantilla. 

Clothing the Californio, Part 1 -- 18th century Spanish California background

giving tours at work, with a visiting "Chinese clay soldier".

So, I'm preparing to attend an event with my costume guild (The Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild) next weekend, and it just so happens to coincide with one of my main areas of costume history research and interest: 18th and 19th century California women.  Since I work at a historic site (History San Jose) that incorporates two buildings that date from that time period, and since I dress in costume for some of my work there, I was asked to write an article about clothing from that time period, for my costume guild's member newsletter.  I'll be posting some of the article here in the following days, as I put together (hopefully!) a new costume to wear to this event.

And back to costuming: Historical Sew Monthly catch-up -- War & Peace

George Washington, by Charles Peale Polk,
c. 1793. Smithsonian Museum.

The Challenge: April – War & Peace: the extremes of conflict and long periods of peacetime both influence what people wear.  Make something that shows the effects of war, or of extended peace. 

A friend of my parents' is in the media business, part-time, and occasionally has a project where he needs a costume designer.  The first time he brought me into a film project, around 20 years ago, I went up to the Santa Cruz mountains where the team was filming a documentary about Johann Sebastian Bach, using the California Redwoods as stand-ins for the forests of Germany.  I was a costume assistant – ironing, dressing people, polishing shoes, and mending – and it was a really interesting experience.  A few months ago, this same friend called me up and said he was part of another small film project, and they needed a costume designer.  This time, since there was only one actor to be costumed, they only needed one person, and he asked me to put together a bid.  I must have been the only costume designer who sent a bid, because they accepted mine immediately!  Then, the actor that I was about to start costuming ended up not being hired (the client on the East Coast didn't like his audition tape) and I was put on hold for over a month while my parents' friend tried to find someone else.  Two weeks ago the company found someone that they liked, and the client on the East Coast liked, too, so I found myself in the middle of research. 

Back to costuming: the mid-Victorian sheer dress.

Original sheer muslin dress, 1840s.
Old Sacramento Living History Museum.

Mid-Victorian daytime fashions were not all about heavy, opaque fabrics; warm weather allowed for light dresses of semi-transparent fabrics like muslin and barege, trimmed with embroidery, ribbons and lace for a cool, floating visual effect.  These gowns, called sheer dresses, or "clear muslin dresses", were especially popular at seaside and tourist resorts, during the 1840s through the 1870s.  They were worn for morning, afternoon and evening, changing the bodice style, and were popular in England and North America, as well as when visiting warmer climates like Italy.  These followed the lines of mainstream fashion, but included characteristic features such as shorter sleeves, lower necklines, partial bodice linings, and depending on the transparency of the fashion fabric, separate colored under-dresses.  This article, first published in the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild's newsletter, Finery, will focus on day or afternoon styles for these dresses. 

Catching up -- school days begin again!

My mom's empty classroom.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Hello everyone,

I haven't fallen off the face of the blogosphere, but wow!  It has been a long time since I've posted.  Several things have been going on in the meantime. My mom retired from her kindergarten teaching career and I helped her move out of her classroom; 20+ years in the same classroom = a surprising amount of stuff!  Weeks and countless hours of sorting, packing, throwing away, giving away, and hauling papers, books, DVDs and videos, pictures, posters, activities and worksheets that she used to supplement the curriculum, and all the toys, puzzles, and manipulatives that belong in a kindergarten classroom.

I also spent 6 weeks as a teacher's aide in the same school's summer school program, teaching Medieval
history to a class of mostly 3rd, 4th and 5th graders.  It was a lot of fun!

Busy days.

Christina and I making the tea. 

Oh my gosh, it's been something like a month since I last posted!  A lot has been going on.

First, we had our 6th annual Cat Rescue Tea in San Jose, and it was another success!  We served about 120 people over 2 days, and raised close to $5,000 for 13th Street Cats!

I made 8 batches of Meyer lemon curd, and coordinated a bunch of other things, including jam donations, tea donations (from Satori Tea Bar and Thompson Tea Company), and put together 2 afternoon tea baskets for the silent auction, as well as collected a bunch of other tea things for the raffle for both days.  I also helped make tea sandwiches, served the lemon curd, jam, and butter, and with my friend Christina, made all the tea that was served at the event.

Finally finishing a project ...

Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Several months ago I began to make a dress for the museum where I work.  We conduct custom tours for 3rd grade classes in our Victorian house, and the tours include a short dress-up session and photo opportunity.  The girls' costumes that we use are Jessica McClintock and similar Edwardian-inspired dresses from the 1970s through 1990s, that are not only historically inaccurate for the time period of the house (1855 - 1875) but they're getting really ratty, faded, and in need of replacement.  But hey, they were donated 15 years ago (i.e. FREE) ...

Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge #1 for 2014

Production photo of female
Hobbit for inspiration.

Challenge #1: Make Do And Mend.  So, I thought I would actually finish one of the challenges within a reasonable time period from its due date ... Besides the replacing of the waist drawstring on my hoop petticoat (detailed in the last post), I also spent some time arranging some items to make my 1580s Elizabethan working-woman costume into something Hobbity for the GBACG fashion show on Saturday.  I put my hair in curlers and asked my friend to lend me her pointy ears and everything!  And then (while at the fashion show venue) ... I read the fashion show script that the narrator would be reading, and had to "make do" to change it back to (relative) historical accuracy!  

New(ish) costumes: mending and adjusting one costume to work as a different one.

vintage 1940s poster.

I've been watching the Historical Sew Fortnightly costume activity for a while; although I've never had the time to finish anything on schedule, it's fun to see what everyone else does.  The current (well, the due date just passed, but you still get full credit even if you finish late) project is a "Make Do and Mend" theme.  I have such a pile of mending, both costume and mundane clothing, so I've gotten out a few projects to work on for this challenge.

The first one was fixing my hooped petticoat.  It's one of the cotton petticoats-with-tucks-filled-with-hoop-wire numbers that have been around for years, and it's served me pretty well for over 12 years.  I had removed the top hoop wire (it's a 5-hoop petticoat) because the petticoat was too long for me, and threaded the drawstring through the now-empty space where the wire had been, shortening the petticoat by about 6 inches.  No hemming -- all was good.  Unfortunately the drawstring was not all that strong, and it broke on my friend, who had borrowed it to wear to the Dickens Fair.  While she was wearing it.  Thankfully, it had been slipping down all afternoon, and she was in a dressing room when the breakage occurred, but we panicked for a while!  She ended up buying a new hoop petticoat at the Dickens Fair, and I brought my old one home, and shoved it in the closet.  Until now, when I looked through my stash and found a length of corset lacing that I had bought years ago, that ended up not being nearly long enough, but was a good length for a waist drawstring.  I promptly took it out, found my bodkin (I love those!), and threaded it in the empty drawstring space.  My hoop is usable again!

New costume finished!

Trevelyan's Miscellany, 1602.

Well, it's finished *for now*, anyways!  My oldest nephew has been showing signs of an interest in history for the past few years, and has really gotten into Medieval, Renaissance, and WW2 history lately, exactly as my brother did when he was the same age.  Just as I did for my brother, I intend to encourage this interest in any way that I can.  I gave my brother a lot of history-related books and magazines when he was younger, and he's started passing them on to my nephew, so I have to take a slightly different tack!  This year my nephew turned 10, and asked my brother to take him to the local Renaissance Faire for his birthday.  My brother and I usually go together, and in costume (of course!).  I happened to overhear my brother agree to take my nephew to Faire, and I said "We usually go together, and we dress up, so if you're coming with us, I should make you a costume."  I expected my nephew to say "Well, I don't know ..." but he immediately said "YES!"  Good thing I hadn't bought him a birthday present yet: his costume would be his present from me!