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Ladies Underdrawers in Regency Times: Regency Underwear

November 6, 2010 by Vic

Copyright (a) Jane Austen’s World. Gentle Readers, The previous post elicited a question about Regency underdrawers or a lady’s unmentionables. My answer was so long that I decided to create a new post from it.

1742 and 1794 fashion silhouette contrast

Drawers, which made their first serious appearance in 1806, and were fashioned after men’s underdrawers, were still optional during 1810. They would be worn more frequently as the century progressed. Underdrawers were considered risque, for the garments resembled men’s pant legs.  Even if the garments were worn, they did not resemble the pretty underdrawers that we associate with the Victorian era.

Image of early under drawers

As you can see in this image, early ladies underdrawers consisted of two tubes of cloth that were tied to the waist, allowing a woman to, uhm, attend to her business without having to remove too many clothes. In an era without indoor plumbing, this must have been an important consideration.

I recently viewed a shameless cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson of a group of travelers (3 ladies and a gent, all family members), who were attending to their calls of nature on the side of the road. Because the image is quite vulgar, which many of Rowlandson’s images tend to be, I will only link to it. From the headdresses that the ladies are wearing, this cartoon was drawn much earlier than 1806. As you can see, no underdrawers obstructed the group from relieving their most pressing needs.

Detail of the Exhibition Staircase, Rowlandson, 1800

Detail of Rowlandson's Exhibition Staircase, 1800

Rowlandson’s Exhibition Staircase cartoon has a given date of 1800. The ladies’ tumble down a steep, crowded staircase forcibly reminds us that underdrawers were still a fashion consideration for the future.

Underdrawers belonging to the Duchess of Kent, 1810-1820. *Image@Regency Society of America Pro Boards

By 1820, wearing drawers was still optional, but by the 1850’s, the caged hooped skirts made them a necessity, for a hoop could be wildly unpredictable. One wrong swinging move or errant gust of wind, and a lady’s most delicate (or indelicate) parts would appear in full view. The 1956 version of The King and I contains one of my favorite scenes in which the King’s wives wear Western dresses for the first time. When the King enters, they immediately drop down to bow to him. Their hooped skirts swung straight up in the air, revealing their bare bottoms and shocking Anna, who had not anticipated such an END (ahem) to her well-meant scheme.

Caged crinoline

Needless to say, by the mid-19th century, ladies wore drawers as a matter of course.

*Regency Society of America Pro Boards

Posted in Fashions, jane austen, Regency Customs, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged , , , | 23 Comments »

Regency Fashion: 200 Years Ago in November

November 5, 2010 by Vic

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. A fine mist and cool air will  greet my dog and me on our morning walk. I intend to put on a thick short coat and scarf, and faux fur lined boots. How would my Regency counterpart have dressed in November, 1810, precisely 200 years ago?

More elegantly, I decided. While I putter on my computer in my jammies and robe, and sip coffee upon first rising, my Regency counterpart would have sipped hot chocolate from a delicate china cup and written letters, read from a book, or practiced on the pianoforte, as Jane Austen was wont to do in the early morning.

The maid would have started a fire in the morning room, but the house overall would have felt much cooler than it did even a month ago. A Rumford stove, which was becoming quite popular, would have retained  more heat, but as you can see, our Regency miss is swathed in a cap, long sleeved dress, and a high-necked chemisette. She wears gloves, stockings, and thin slippers. Layered as she is (for she probably wore a corseted petticoat underneath her ensemble and perhaps even a chemise), she would have felt comfortably warm. Had she still felt cold, she could opt to throw a thick shawl around her shoulders and a small throw over her lap.

Morning dress, or undress, were dresses worn by ladies who expected to be seen only by close members of the family or guests in the home. They were never meant to be seen by visitors. Undress outfits, especially in more modest households where women worked alongside their servants, preparing vegetables or overseeing household duties, gardening and the like, were covered by aprons and pinafores.

In this image from Sense and Sensibility 1996, Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood are shown wearing undress. As soon as Edward Ferrars nears the house, the women tidy themselves, taking off their aprons, and making sure they look neat and presentable. They would not have had time to change into nicer outfits, nor would they have likely had many choices of dress to choose from.

Some Regency ladies who stayed at home all day would remain in a state of undress until dinner, when they changed into a gown suitable for the dinner table. Others would change their outfit much sooner, when they were ready to leave the house or if they had arranged to receive visitors. After I finish writing this post, I shall put on my half-dress, replacing my morning robe with a walking outfit consisting of a hooded sweatshirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans a short coat and a scarf. I’ll exchange these outdoor exercise clothes with a more formal office look for work, which means that I will have worn three outfits by nine a.m.

My Regency counterpart would also change her outfit. A lady of fashion would look vastly more elegant  in her walking outfit with its little fur tippet artfully arranged over a long-sleeved spencer jacket than me in my walking suit. If she was married or a spinster, she would place her  jaunty hat with its  soft capote crown over a cap, whose lace trim would peep out from beneath the hat’s brim. Sturdier leather slippers, leather gloves, a reticule and umbrella or parasol would complete the ensemble.

A middle class lady would look less modish than the idealized women depicted in Ackermann’s Repository, which was the Vogue magazine of its day. She would have fewer clothes to choose from, and most likely possessed only one walking outfit instead of a variety, and certainly not in the first stare of fashion.

Whatever her social background, our Regency lady was now ready to meet the world and visit friends, go shopping, or generally run errands outside of the house. The walking outfit in the Ackermann plate provided sufficient layers for a lady to stay warm during her walks and errands. Should the November day turn particularly windy and wet, she would most likely trade the tiny fur tippet for a more substantial shawl or cloak. The middle class Regency lady might trade her shawl for her only cloak, which she would keep for years until its usefulness was outworn.

More on the topic:

Posted in jane austen, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments »

Vic’s Visit to Bath, Part One

November 4, 2010 by Vic

Copyright (c) Jane Austen’s World. Inquiring Reader, When I visited Bath years ago, I kept a journal, which I completely forgot about until yesterday, when I found it among a pile of papers. It is the custom in my family to arrange for lodging on the day of our arrival and the night before our departure in any foreign land, and to trust in the suggestions from the people at the local visitor’s bureau for the rest of the vacation. We visit such establishments after 3 or 4 PM, when many hotels begin to deeply discount their rooms. This habit is a bit like gambling, but for us it has paid off spectacularly.

My budget-minded family has followed this practice successfully, sometimes even at the height of tourist season, in England, the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, and the great American west. The pay-off is in finding lodging in charming hotels or B&Bs at a fraction of their normal price. (Our best bargain ever was in the French Quarter in New Orleans at the Place d’Arms, where we spent 4 glorious days in a luxury suite for $78/night. It was April, perfect weather for N.O.)

Bath to London coach on the open road

Back to England. My ex and I traveled from London to Bath (yes, we rented a car, and yes, he successfully negotiated his way out of London with me reading the map and helping him to enter and exit the round-abouts. Talk about a hair raising journey, for he had never driven on the British side of the road before and I am at best a terrible map reader). We entered Bath along the London Road, looking for the distinctive blue and white V sign, and discussed the price we were willing to pay. Those good people steered us to the Dukes Hotel on Edward Street, just off Great Pulteney Street,  across the Pulteney Bridge in Bathwick and near Sydney Gardens.

The Dukes Hotel on the corner of Edward Street and Great Pulteney Street

As a Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen fan, I felt that I had simply died and gone to heaven.

Entrance to the Dukes Hotel

Compared to Bath’s ancient Roman buildings and medieval streets, Great Pulteney Street is rather modern.  In the 3rd quarter of the 18th century, the city council voted to expand Bath’s boundaries across the River Avon. This era marked an expansion and growth for the city that resulted in the addition of thousands of new houses inside Bath proper and outside of it. Sir William Pulteney, who resided on an estate called Bathwick and fortuitously located across the river, commissioned architect Thomas Baldwin to design and build Great Pulteney Street. The task was completed in 1789.

Location of the Dukes Hotel

Situated at one end of this long broad thoroughfare is Sydney Gardens, the pleasure gardens mentioned so often by Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer and others who have journeyed to Bath.

Bath Hotel at the entrance of Sydney Gardens 1825

Seen prominently at the entrance of Sydney Gardens was the Bath Hotel (see a 360 panoramic view), now the Holburne Museum.

View from Laura Place towards Sydney Gardens with the Holburne Museum barely visible at the end of the street.

To return to our first evening in Bath, our room at the Dukes Hotel was charming but offered no view (which often happens when you wait for a bargain). We  immediately set off to explore Bath on foot, for it was mid-July when the days were long. Great Pulteney Street did not disappoint me with its wide sidewalks and row upon row of graceful houses made of Bath stone.  I would take this walk several times per day, and it is this street in particular that I still recall most vividly. I imagined myself wearing a Regency outfit and hearing the clopping of horses’ hooves and the rattling of carriages as I made my way towards Bath proper.

The wides expanse of Great Pulteney Street, walking from Edward St. towards Pulteney Bridge

At this point I must share with you why I am using Google earth images. My own photos are still missing. You can imagine how delighted I was to be able to reconstruct my journey from my newly found journal and the images I pulled from Google maps.

Laura Place. The fountain was built in the third quarter of the 19th century.

We walked past Laura Place, where Lady Dalrymple from Persuasion had taken a house for three months, until Great Pulteney Street ended at the fountain. It is then named Argyle Street.

Pulteney Bridge, 1779 by Thomas Malton Image @Victoria Gallery

We ambled along slowly, taking in all the sights and brazenly looking into windows when we could, and continued on to  Pulteney Bridge, a Palladian bridge designed by the Adam brothers and finished in 1773. The bridge has seen several renovations since, especially in the design of the shops that line it.

The Weir as seen below the bridge

We walked down the steps to the bank of the river and listened to the rush of water on the Weir  until the sun set. Click here for an arial view of the walk I have just described.

And so I conclude our first evening in Bath, which, due to the stress of driving in a foreign land from a major city along by-ways that eschewed busy thoroughfares, ended quite early for us. I did have time to write down my thoughts at a tiny desk in our third floor room.

This video brings back memories of driving around Bath’s environs. Driving up and down green hills near Bath, England

Posted in Bath, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency World | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Dirt Lane or Picturesque Scene? Sense and Sensibility

November 3, 2010 by Vic

“Now, Edward,” said [Marianne], calling his attention to the prospect, “here is Barton valley. Look up it, and be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever see their equals? To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and plantations. You may see one end of the house. And there, beneath that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage.”

“It is a beautiful country,” he replied; “but these bottoms must be dirty in winter.”

“How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?”

“Because,” replied he, smiling, “among the rest of the objects before me, I see a very dirty lane.”

“How strange!” said Marianne to herself as she walked on.

“Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant people?”

“No, not at all,” answered Marianne, “we could not be more unfortunately situated.”

Country lane, Barry Lyndon

I had the leisure of viewing Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon the other day, I say leisure, for the film is over three hours long and I took the opportunity to pull images. These two stills of country roads reminded me forcibly of the difference between Marianne’s histrionic behavior in Sense and Sensibility and Edward’s reactions during a time when both characters are experiencing extreme disappointment in their love lives.

Marianne has completely given over to her emotions after Willoughby departs, and Edward struggles to hold up his chin, knowing he is in love with Elinor but is bound by his engagement to Lucy Steele. His view of the landscape is utilitarian. He sees none of the sweep of grandeur and only the practical aspects of the scene below and can only imagine it in the winter, when roads are rutted and muddy. Throughout Sense and Sensibility, Marianne expresses picturesque point of views. In this scene in particular, she also demonstrates her youth and immaturity, giving Edward a churlish answer about their new neighbors, which, while perhaps  true, the sensible Elinor would never admit.

William Gilpin was instrumental in promoting the Romantic picturesque movement, which defines an aesthetic sensibility of a charming or quaint scene. Marianne Dashwood, whose personality tends towards the melodramatic, embraces the fashion for the picturesque ideal, whereas both Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars represent a more practical viewpoint which depends less on the sublime and relies more on what their experiences and restrained personalities tell them to feel.

Gilpin's watercolor shows how best to achieve a picturesque effect through the clumping of trees.*

The following quote about William Gilpin’s influence on this new aesthetic movement is from the aptly titled, Penny cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volumes 11-12, Charles Knight, London, 1838, p. 222:

But Mr Gilpin was a person of a remarkably refined taste, as is evinced by writings of his, of a class entirely distinct from those we have enumerated. These are his volumes in which he has illustrated, both by his pencil and his pen, the picturesque beauty of some parts of England, and generally the principles of beauty in landscape. The first of these works was published in 1790 in two volumes 8 vo; it was entitled Observations relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, made in the year 76 in several parts of Great Britain, particularly the Highlands of Scotland. This was followed by two other volumes of the same character, the greater part of them relating to the lake country of Cumberland and Westmoreland. Two volumes more on Forest Scenery succeeded. Besides these there are his Essays on Picturesque Beauty, Picturesque Travels, and the Art of Sketching Landscapes; Observations on the River Wye; and Picturesque Remarks on the Western parts of England. These form a body of works which were well received by the public at the times of their appearance, and which are now gathered into the libraries of the tasteful and the curious, so that copies rarely present themselves for public sale.”

The picturesque ideal expressed itself in literature, poetry, and paintings, and its influence could still be felt in the romantic paintings that depicted the natural beauty of America’s vast landscapes, such as the Hudson River School of painting.

Excellent posts about the topic are found in the following blogs:

*William Gilpin, How to Clump Trees, Bodlein Library

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Natural world, Regency Period, Regency style, Sense and Sensibility | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

Did Jane Austen have Revolutionary Thoughts?

November 1, 2010 by Vic

Watercolor by James Stanier Clarke. Thought to be of Jane Austen in 1815, when she visited Carlton House just months before the publication of Emma

Posted by: Tony Grant, London Calling

Jane Austen published Emma in December 1815, sixteen years after the French Revolution had ended but during a time when the women of that revolution were campaigning for women’s suffrage and especially for female education. It wasn’t a concept of education that had been considered before for women. Women were always thought unable to think like men. Their minds and brains worked differently on a much more superficial level, apparently. The grave subjects of philosophy, concepts about societies social needs, the study of History,mathematics,science, theology or Latin or Greek, were certainly not encouraged. It was a form of intellectual slavery. Women were kept childlike They were for marrying, procreating, looking after the home, bringing up children and being proficient in the finer arts of sewing, playing the pianoforte, singing, speaking French and being able to shop in a dress shop.

Rouseau and the Marquis de Condorcet (Marie Jean Caritat) in France and Mary Wollstonecroft here in England had different ideas for womens education.These ideas were infiltrating into the thoughts of Englishmen and women. They were the sort of ideas that would change society. I think Jane Austen introduced the character of Jane Fairfax to hint at such radical ideas. Jane Fairfax is an uncomfortable character within Emma. Emma Woodhouse can’t relate to her although they appear to be each others doppelganger, a mirror reflection of each other in many ways. But of course mirror reflections are opposites and you can’t actually become in contact with your reflection. There is a barrier, a layer of glass between you and your reflection. Jane and Emma, seem to exist in parallel worlds that cannot touch.

Marquis de Condorcet

Jane Austen, herself was an authoress earning money from what she wrote, but she still remained within the bounds of decent society. Emma is introduced by, “the Author of Pride and Prejudice.” She did not use her name. She was careful enough to dedicate Emma to The Prince Regent when it was suggested she might like to. She followed her urges and her intelligence and her talents but she kept her head down. She herself was critical of the education offered to young ladies and she herself had a horror of the profession of teacher as a result of her own experiences. Towards the end of her life Jane was writing Sanditon. Her heroine, Charlotte Heywood, is perhaps the most radical of her characters, in her views and in her actions. Would Jane Austen have eventually, “come out?”

Jane Fairfax was the daughter of Lieutenant Fairfax, and her mother had been, before marriage, Miss Bates, the youngest daughter of Mrs Bates of Highbury.When her father was killed in action in a foreign country and her mother died soon after of consumption, Jane had returned to live with her grandmother and aunt, her mother’s elder sister in Highbury. However, Colonel Campbell, her fathers superior officer, offered to educate her and bring her up in his own small family to give her all the benefits of education and culture he could provide. Lieutenant Fairfax had been instrumental in saving his colonel’s life years before and being a dear officer and friend, Colonel Campbell felt it his duty to look after his friends daughter, Jane. Here is a passage from Emma describing Jane Fairfax’s education.

“ She had fallen into good hands, known nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent education. Living constantly with right minded and well informed people., her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline and culture; and Colonel Campbells residence, being in London, every lighter talent had been done justice to, by the attendance of first rate masters.”

It is interesting to note that Jane alludes to two sorts of education in relation to Jane Fairfax. First she says that she was, “given an excellent education,” and associated with well informed people and received every advantage of discipline and culture. The discipline bit is a little vague. It might refer to personal, behavioural discipline or it might refer to an intellectual discipline of the mind, inquisitive, challenging ideas, thinking. Maybe Jane Austen is being vague on purpose to allay the doubts and fears of the middle class reading masses. But what does Jane Austen mean by “an excellent education?” We know what she means by, “every lighter talent.”

It can only mean one thing. Jane Fairfax had been educated in cultural aspects that might include history, geography, mathematics, science and all the areas of learning usually kept for the great universities and the exclusive education of men.She had had the influence of right minded and well informed people too. Jane Austen herself had undoubtedly been immersed in and influenced by this sort of cultural education by way of her father’s library and erudite discussions with her intelligent and learned brothers.

Jean Jaques Rousseau

Jean Jaque Rouseau ( 28th June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a philosopher and writer.
He thought;

“ The education of women should always be relative to that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up.”

His idea of education being important to women was so that they could then, in turn, educate their sons. He was only a little on the way to realising the full possibilities and potential for women. He wasn’t for giving women total freedom.

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat (1743 – 1794) the Marquis de Condorcet, wanted to go much further than Rouseau with women’s education and freedoms. He wanted universal education as did Adam Smith, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jeffereson. He thought that the advances in reason and science would automatically limit family sizes leaving women the freedoms to expand their talents and energies in other directions. He wanted women to be admitted to the rights of citizenship. A very modern gentlemen. He had to go into hiding for his beliefs.

In England there was Mary Wollstonecroft. In the introduction to her “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” Mary Wollstonecroft writes,

“Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for the truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman expected to co operatre unless she knows why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthens her reason till she comprehends her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good. If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman at present shuts her out from such investigations.”

Mary Wollstonecraft

What Mary Wollstonecroft is actually saying here is that men and women need to be equal for the good and progress of mankind and if women are to be the teachers of children they need an education which enables them to think and explore and understand ideas, otherwise she cannot teach those ideas. An argument which cannot be challenged surely. Teachers today have degrees and are expected to have a thorough knowledge of their subjects and to be able to think and be creative.

How does this bring us back to Jane Fairfax? Jane Fairfax has had an, “excellent education,” and she appears to be evasive. It might be more a case of her having to be evasive as a means to survival. Emma Woodhouse cannot form a close relationship with her. As the novel unfolds we learn Jane is breaking societies strongest taboos. She and Frank Churchill are a match made in the realms of a freedom not acceptable in the England of those times. They are of a different economic and class backgrounds. Frank Churchill’s guardian, Mrs Churchill, while alive, would never condone such a relationship. Jane and Frank keep it secret and have to resort to all manner of subterfuge. Emma Woodhouse, in all her plans and manoeuvrings, and imaginings is defeated. Jane Austen is delving into areas that are perhaps closer to her own heart than she may well want to admit out right. In her final novel Sanditon, I think the way the character of Charlotte Heywood develops Jane was becoming more outspoken in her views about hypocrisy and the role of women in society. If Jane had lived into old age, with societies changes becoming more rapid with the industrial revolution, she might have become a champion of womans rights herself.

Finally, Jane Austen resolves the dilemmas, in a sort of Midsummer Nights Dream way. Characters find their true loves and permission is given, after Mrs Churchill’s death, for Frank and Jane to marry. So we have a happy ending for everybody. In a way, because Jane rounds everything off too nicely, as modern readers used to the full force of rough reality in the modern classic novel, perhaps we itch for Jane Austen to have gone the full hog. But, written as it was in the Georgian period, it was brave enough to allude to these issues. Jane couldn’t resist her true beliefs, really.

Gentle Readers, Tony Grant, who lives in England and oversees the blog, London Calling, wrote this most timely post. At the turn of the 19th century, women were not allowed to vote. This post points out the harsh realities for our female ancestors just a few generations ago. Regardless of party affiliation, I urge every woman in the U.S. to go to the polls on November 2 and exercise their hard-won freedom to VOTE for the candidate of their choice. – Vic

Images: Wikimedia Commons

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency society, Regency World | Tagged , , , , , , , | 15 Comments »

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