Our Not-So-Poor Forefathers
Life was hard in colonial America by today’s standards.
But for the times in which they lived, most of our 18th-century ancestors were quite comfortable, thank you very much. This Independence Day, we look at early American life for the well-to-do.
Land of Plenty
Few Americans today realize that, by 1776, the American colonies had the highest per capita income in the civilized world. Much of that wealth was due to a thriving middle class.
Prosperous farmers sent their children to private schools and dressed their wives in lavish, colorful gowns. Colonial tavern keepers could earn the equivalent of $100,000 annually in today’s economy. Artisans and shop owners also flourished. (On the other hand, doctors made very little, and dentists were virtually nonexistent.)
Yankee Doodle Dandies
Fashion was important to most American colonists, and they could afford to be stylish.
A gentleman’s clothes were sometimes more colorful than ladies’ dresses. The most fashionable wore ruffled shirts, fancy waistcoats, embroidered frock coats (in striking colors like royal blue or emerald green), knee-breeches with silk stockings, and shiny buckled shoes.
The final touch for every proper colonial gentleman was a white powdered wig, symbolizing both wealth and prestige.
Fashion Dolls
Not to be outdone by their menfolk, colonial ladies routinely updated their wardrobes according to “fashion dolls.” Dressmakers, milliners, tailors, and fashion merchants used these miniature mannequins to display the newest fashions.
The dolls would circulate through the community, adorned in the latest Parisian styles.
Wigs were for gentlemen only, so a lady would spend most of the day having her hair “permanented” into a towering updo for special occasions. This concoction required hair “cushions” and rolls of wool, hemp, or wire, and the resulting monstrosity was then lavishly powdered.
Painted Ladies
Colonial women often spent a small fortune on face “paints” and lip salves imported from China and India.
They applied bleaches and white paint to their faces, necks, and shoulders to conceal imperfections and achieve the desired look of palest skin. Some would even draw blue veins over their necks and chest areas.
Popular face-whitening makeup contained copious amounts of lead — no doubt contributing to the wearer’s deathly pallor. Red rouge and lipstick, featuring equally toxic mercury compounds, provided contrast.
To complete the look, ladies darkened their eyebrows with lead, kohl, burnt cork, or the soot from oil lamps.
They could also attach false eyebrows made of mouse skin, inspiring one satirical poet to pen the following verse:
HELEN was just dipt into bed,
Her eye-brows on the toilet lay.
Away the kitten with them fled
As fees belonging to her prey.
…On little things, as sages write,
Depends our human joy or sorrows.
If we don’t catch a mouse to-night
Alas! No eyebrows for to-morrow.
Sources:
Featured Image: Adobe, License Granted
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
Colonial Williamsburg
The Costume Society
Dance’s Historical Miscellany
British Library