White Wedding Dresses?

Here’s the ‘iconic’ pic from my website TIGHSOLAS, www.tighsolas.ca that contains the Nicholson family letters from the 1910 era. It is a detail of a ‘tea party’ on the grass in front of their comfortable brick-encased Queen Anne style home in Richmond, Quebec.
I like the picture because it is pretty, but it really does embody the hopes and dreams of the middle class in Canada in 1910.

I watched the show Sunday Morning, yesterday, taped and the comedic editorialist (I don’t know her name) talked about her upcoming marriage and the high cost of weddings and wedding gowns. She setttled on a off white number, floor model.

She mentioned that white wedding dresses didn’t originally signify purity; that Queen Victoria got married in white to promote the lace industry in her country

I suspect white came to signify purity around 1910, as we had the Purity Movement, which I have written about extensively on this blog.

The comedienne also mentioned that white was worn by some women because white cloth was more expensive, and hard to wear (stains) and hard to wash, hence wearing it was a sign of prosperity. Bingo!

That’s what these white dresses meant to the Nicholson Women, who did their own clothes washing most of the time, despite aspring to a genteen lifestyle. In 1911, it takes Flora Nicholson, 19, TWO days to wash and iron her white dresses on a weekend she returns from Macdonald Teaching College.

So this all underscores the points I want to make with my ebook Threshold Girl, about Flora at School in 1911/12 and based on the Nicholson letters.

Threshold Girl is about a lot of things pertaining to Laurier Era History, but it’s mostly about women and clothes and what these clothes mean to them and what their clothes lust means to other less fortunate working women in the textile trade.

http://www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf

The picture above is deceptive. It is of Marion Nicholson, my husband’s grandmother, who went on to lead the Teachers’ Union in Montreal. She was no slacker: she had tonnes of energy and directed it in many useful ways. I will write about her later, in another book, which will deal with the Jewish question in Montreal schools.. Edith Nicholson, the subject of my next novellette was more of a dreamer, although she could could be a woman of action, if necessary. I’m turning her into an opium addict for in my next book, The Diary of a Confirmed Spinster.

A Tale of Two Montreal George Drummonds

Three Rivers in 1910

Well, in a letter from Radnor Forges Quebec in 1908, Edith mentions a “George Drummond’ who seems to be boss.. Was this the same George Drummond of Redpath Sugar who married Julia Grace Parker? I wondered… because wouldn’t that be useful for my story about Edith Nicholson, tentatively called the 1912 Diary of a Confirmed Spinster Edith Nicholson and posted at www.tighsolas.ca/page11.pdf.pdf, which is a follow up to Threshold Girl, published at www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf.

But no.. George Edward Drummond was an Irish Canadian Business man who owned the Canadian Iron Furnace Company which owned the works at Radnor Forges, where Edith worked in 1908.

George Alexander Drummond was the Scottish Canadian businessman who married a Redpath and then Julia Grace Parker.

George Edward was younger and his original name was Drumm. I wonder if Drummond is Scottish, and that’s why he changed his name.

“At least I know where my  pots and pans come from, ” said Margaret after a visit to Radnor, a sad little company town, on the steep  decline. It would close right after Edith quit.. I guess she wasn’t that impressed. It was a company town. No ‘real’ town, no community, had sprung up around iron works la Mauricie in all the decades they had been in place.

But the Forges at the Mauricie were the first iron ore companies in Canada and they manufactured bog ore.

So they were significant. And there’s a heritage website involved. http://www.pc.gc.ca/fra/lhn-nhs/qc/saintmaurice/index.aspx

For the purposes of this story, they are significant in how Edith’s teaching job reflected how LONESOME it was to be a teacher in a rural place.

Anyway, in 1959, I also lived in a lonesome mining town, called Wabush. My family was among a handful of pioneer families who went out to Wabush Lake Labrador to live. We stayed two years, some families stayed much longer.A community did spring up around the iron ore mines, though.

The Three Rivers Forges were a Crown (Canadian ) concern, but the Wabush mines were owned by Americans.

Dominion Textile and its wares 1910

American Textiles Workers 1914, perhaps in South. From TRiver “American 1910″ set on Flicrk. Some rights reserved.

Products of Dominion Textile Co. (Ltd.)

The Dominion Textile Co. is foremost in imitating and displacing American cottons, and on ordinary prints, for instance, now has the great bulk of the trade up to the 15-cent retail class. At 15 cents and above they meet strong English competition.

All Canadian prints are made at their Magog Print Works. They now have six classes of shirting prints, which are marked, respectivelj’, “L.X. ” “3,” “C,” “D.C.” “T.B.,” and “G.C.” The “L.X.” are narrow 26/27 inch subcount prints that are sold by the mill at 6 cents a yard less 12 per cent. The 12 per cent, is the trade discount assigned to the jobber as his margin and he has to sell the retailer at the ‘-’list” or restricted price of 6 cents. Some of these 26/27 inch prints actually measure only 255 inches, but the demand for such narrow prints in Canada is small, anyhow.

The “3″ prints are 29/30 inches wide, come in indigo, aniline, regatta, blouse, plates, reds, cardinals browns, omish, pinks, lilacs, and chambray, and are sold by the mill at 8 cents a yard less 15 per cent.

In assorted lots the same price is charged for all kinds, but if indigos only are specified a higher price is charged.

The “C” prints are 31/32 inches wide and seem to be more largely sold than those of any other class. They come in regatta, blouse, pinks, cardinals, solid colors, borders, omish, two-tone stripes,aniline, etc., and are sold by the mill at 10 cents a j’ard less 15 per cent.

The “D.C.” prints are 31/32 inches wide and sold assorted in indigo, navy and gold, navy and white, and Copenhagen at 10 cents a yard less 15 per cent, with increased price for indigos alone. The “T.B.” German prints, guaranteed pure
indigo dyed, are 29/30 inches wide and sold at 11 cents a yard less 17^ per cent.

They are heavy prints with large designs and used especially by the Doukhobors and Mennonites of Western Canada.

The “G.C. indigo” prints are 30/31 inches wide and are sold by the mill at 13^ cents a yard less 15 per cent.

The Dominion in addition makes printed delaines, challies, foulards, crepes, dress ducks, drapery cloths, tickings, etc.

The Dominion makes gray sheetings from 25 to 40 inches wide, its “Bengal” and “Bombay” brands being mainly 33 to 36 inches and the “Mount Royal wide grays” 40 inches wide. The gray drills are mainly of the 29-inch width, with some up to 34 inches, and gray twills of the 36-inch width. The Dominion makes three grades of ordinary gray ducks: “Savannah,” of which the 6-ounce invoices from the mill at IH cents and the 12-ounce at 21 1 cents a yard; “Trident,” 12 J- and 22^ cents for the 6 and 12 ounces., respectively;and “Eagle,” 14 cents for the 6-ounce on up to 26 cents for the 12-ounce. Its gray cantons run from 25 to 31 inches and the bleached cantons from 22 to 29.’ inches. The wide gray and I)leached sheetings are made in 6 to 11 quarter widths.

The Dominion bleached shirtings, cambrics, and longcloths are mainly 35/36 inches wide; bleached interlinings 36/37 inches. The white summer suitings
are 36/37 inches; white duck suitings, 26/27 inches; and bleached drills, 30/31 inches. The circular pillow cottons are 40 to 50 inches wide and pillow siijis, 40, 42, 44, and 46 inches. The Dominion quilts run 60 bv 80, 72 by 70,
71 by 81, 70 by 90, and 72 by 90, with mill prices of 75 cents to $1.10 each. The gray huck and honey comb towels run from 52j to 90 cents a dozen at the mill, with bleached towels in fancies up to as high as $1.42 a dozen. The 32-inch butter
cloths sell at the mill for 2f to 4 cents a yard.

The Dominion makes two classes of cotton blankets, the “Dragon,” which sells in the 10/4 width at 82 cents and in the 11/4 width at $1, and the “Ibex,” which sells in the 10/4 width at 87^ cents, in the 11/4 width at $1.05, and in the 12 4 width at .$1.25 at the mill. The Dominion blankets are made entirely by the Montmorency mill near Quebec, which turns out about 7,500 pairs a week, and which has an up-to-date equipment with 14 German-made napping machines. The Montmorency mill has a complete waste-spinning plant with 17 sets of triple cards for making waste yarns on the German woolen principle.

The mill buys cotton waste from the United States, as well as from other mills, and makes many blends for sale to hosiery mills and to mills needing colored waste filling for flannelettes, cottonades, etc. The most popular yarn blend made for underwear purposes is produced by running 1 brown lap to 12 white.

Cambric and Crepe and Competition

Weaving Machine. 1910 era

Well, I have found a 1914 Textile Industry Magazine from Canada that pretty well has everything I need to know. Here’s a bit comparing US and Canadian tastes.

Competition with Goods from the United States.

The Canadian mills are not keeping pace with the demands of their home market, but they are enlarging, and if a line is imported in considerable quantities they soon get out an imitation. Their print designs are largely based on the American, which are more novel and more suited to the Canadian taste than the usual English designs. They have practically driven American gray sheetings off the market with similar pure-sized goods.

Their standard construction in gray sheetings, by the way, seems to be the 64 by 60 in widths of 33 to 36 inches. On some lines of American goods,such as ducklings fleece, printed scrims, Stiefels,and blue drills, the Canadian mills, in spite of many attempts, have not yet been able to make an article that will meet the demands of the consumers, and there is still a good market for such articles as “Serpentine crepe,” which they have imitated with the lighter “Japonette crepe” of the same width and construction; “Lonsdale superfine cambric,” which they have imitated with the ” Lansdowne superfine cambric A,” the “Wabasso A cambric,” and others. The Canadians are not entirely copyists, as they have some good designs in their print works, but the neighboring American industry being so much the larger they naturally have to follow their lead in many cases, and if an American specialty invades their market to any extent they try to replace it as soon as possible with a similar one made by their mills.

The preferential duty tends to keep out American piece goods to a large extent, but the importers say that in some cases they could still afford to buy American goods if they were made to suit the market. In most cases American and Canadian tastes are about the same, but there are differences. (Are ‘piece goods’ garments?)

For instance, on butter cloths a large importer at Winnipeg said that he had sold 10,000 pieces of 100 yards of butter cloth, but could get no delivery for several months because of the local mills being sold up. He said he would fill in with American butter cloth, but that his trade demanded 32-inch widths, while he could get only ;5()-inch widths from the United States. Similarly he said he could use American black denim if he could get any, but that American imitations of the Canadian black denim were not satisfactory in color, that the Canadian demanded a bright live black, while the samples sent from the United States had more of a dead, greenish-black finish. In Canada over three-fourths of the trade in denims is in black denims, made with black warp and filling, with a smaller demand for gold back, cadet, and other kinds.

It’s all so COMPLEX!

Shirtwaists 1910 Eaton’s catalogue.

I have started to read Nan Enstad’s paper, Fashioning Political Identities, and because it is an academic paper, written in academic style and not as easily digested as the two Juliet Nicolson histories I have been blogging about, it’s going to take me a few readings to figure out exactly what this paper has to do with Tighsolas. An awful lot, actually, I can see that already.

The Nicholsons, middle class women, sewed their own waists. But the Enstad paper claims that the Italian and Jewish working class women (we’re talking the US here, but Montreal was not unlike New York) who worked in the clothing factories, paradoxically purchased their clothes as they didn’t have time to sew. Not from the Sears catalogue however, but from carts pushed around in their neighbours. And sometimes they dressed up like ‘ladies’ which upset the apple cart of class distinction.

And Enstad talks of the Shirtwaist Union Protests that I have talked about and mentions the fact that observors were confused, because these women were all gussied up. How could pretty girls be serious political activists? (I just blogged about a report on a suffrage parade where the women’s colourful fashions were described in detail: a similar thing, except this was usually done in support of the women: See, these suffragettes aren’t all manly women. They aren’t so frightening after all.

And there it is: the first connection I can make with http://www.tighsolas.ca/. The Nicholson women loved fashion, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t politically aware. Or that they didn’t want romance in their life. That’s a central point of Tighsolas.

Indeed, during the Second World War, Marion became a Teacher’s Union Leader and Edith became Commandant of the Red Cross in Quebec.

And still they cared about fashion. And they were quite vain. And they were quite girly.

And it’s all very complex… so that’s why I’m spending SO MUCH TIME getting background to the Tighsolas letters before I continue writing Flo in the City, my story about a girl coming of age in 1910.

THE LUXURY OF DREAMING BIG 23rd installment

Marion Nicholson, circa 1910

The next few days shot by, as the rather insensitive opening line on Flora’s letter home three days later, proved: Newton Center, August 6, 1908

Dear Mother,

I suppose you will be thinking it is your time to get a letter. We are having such a fine time I can hardly waste time writing letters.

Henry May and I are going out to dinner tonight to Mrs. Burnett’s. We would have gone out auto riding this afternoon if it hadn’t rained. Tomorrow we are going over to Mrs. Coites’ to play bridge and in the evening Henry is going to take us to the theatre.
Friday, Miss Starkey and Miss Stevens are going to take us to Jetties Beach on Nantuckett Island. They are nurses in the Newton Hospital. Miss Starkey took care of Aunt Christie when she was the worst. She is very nice and pleasant and above all a Canadian. ..Flora underlined the words ‘ a Canadian’ for emphasis.

Lovingly, Flora,

PS.Tuesday, Henry, May and I went out to Framingham to call on Mrs. Coy.

Flora didn’t go into detail about her Tuesday trip, in the Stanley Steamer, to Wellesley and then on to Framingham, on a whim, where the happy trio dropped in on family friend Mrs. Coy unannounced and found her in kimono, her hair dishevelled. She had been doing the washing, all day, she said, appearing both pleased to see Flora and her cousins as well as deeply embarrassed.

“I’m not fortunate like your mother,” she said, apologetically. I have no daughters to help me do the housework. “But on your house calls, Dr. Watters, you have likely seen women in worse disarray than this.”

Henry blushed a bit and said nothing.

“We were visiting Wellesley and since you are just down the road we decided to come say Hello,” said May,”but we cannot stay.”

With that Mrs. Coy was let off the hook, and didn’t have to receive them, yet she seemed torn. She was a lonely woman, with two sons, one living at home.

“Mr. Coy is at work and Chester is in Maine. Had I known you were coming I would had Ross come down. How is your grandmother, Flora. What is she, 83? Does she still like to travel?

“Yes, I think so. She is fine. She rattles away in the old tongue all the time now.”

And then a few more words and they were off, with Mrs. Coy waving from the window, a small, sad figure, no doubt wishing she were young and free again.

On their way back, motoring smoothly through the sprawling Wellesley Campus, Flora spied a lone figure on the archery field setting her arrow in the bow, drawing and taking aim.

Flora shaded her eyes from the 4 o’clock sun with her hand. (She had long given up on wearing her hat in the open car.) The woman archer struck such a dignified figure, Flora’s heart leapt. Henry noticed his cousin’s intense interest and slowed the motorcar. The tall young woman on the grassy knoll let go the arrow which fell somewhere out of view and then reached over her left shoulder into her quiver for another and repeated her strike. She wore no hat, either, the hair of her updo had come down on one side and her grey-blue skirt billowed in the breeze like the gown of a twentieth-century goddess.

The woman didn’t notice she had an audience. For some reason, Flora was reminded of Marion.

In a minute or two, without speaking, Henry pushed forward the throttle and the Steamer barrelled on, much more quickly now, past a few other women scholars strolling in the late afternoon sun, for it was summer and the campus was quiet.

May, in the front seat now, started flipping through the Wellesleyan Magazine, which they had picked up on their visit. “Newspaper Work” She read:
The world of journalism, in which the average layman indiscriminately places the cub reporter as well as the seasoned war correspondent, seems to possess an especial glamour for college girls, and every year there is a little group of graduates from the women’s colleges who try to enter the field.

The term ” newspaper work ” usually suggests the reporting and editing of a paper; although there are two other very important departments. Blah blah. There are the Managing Editors whose work is to keep the paper closely in line with the policy laid down by the owners, and the interests of the business office, City Editors, right down to the Desk Editors, who read the copy turned in by reporters all day long.

The news is divided between two fields: local and foreign. The City Editor has charge of all local news; that is, within a radius of about twenty miles. He keeps a big book, called the “Assignment” book, and in it are recorded weeks and months ahead, coming events of public and general interest.

His salary, on the five papers investigated, ranges from $1,820 to $4,000 per year, with an average of $2412.

“I think I would like to be a city editor,” exclaimed Mae.

She lip read for the next few paragraphs and then said “Ah, listen to this, Flora…
But there are handicaps which are thought to offer serious objections for women. All the editors and newspaper women interviewed feel strongly that the high nervous strain under which the editors must work, especially in the last hour before the paper goes to press, would wear a woman out in a short time.

It is a maelstrom of hurry and anxiety, Woman’s ability to control such situations is, of course, a matter of opinion, but newspaper people themselves doubt it, and point to the fact that there are no women holding such positions in Boston.

“So a teacher I will be, it seems,” said Mae. “I’m suddenly sick to my stomach. Must be the oysters at lunch.

“It is likely motion sickness. They are finding that it is difficult for some people to read while driving in an auto,” said Henry, wiping the dust from the face of one of the gauges with a gloved index finger.

“That must be it,” said Flora, from above Henry. ‘Maelstrom of hurry and anxiety’, surely her Mother, Margaret, was an expert, she thought. Flora was not happy to be brought so abruptly back to reality, her reality, that her family was near penniless, and that, with her marks, it was going to be struggle for her to get into the very female world of teaching, let alone the very male world of newspapers. At least Mae, with her excellent grades (she was the same age as Flora and one year ahead of her) had the luxury of dreaming big.

Hat Fashion Hair Fashion

The Women of Richmond, Quebec 1908

It is a truism, that except for the Royals and church-going African American women, hats are no longer in fashion. And that is odd, considering that we live in a super-consumer society.

Even when Princess Diana was alive, and she wore hats – and to fine effect, they didn’t come back into fashion.

Even when the movie Titanic came out and Kate Winslett was featured wearing the large hats of the era – to fine effect, they did not come back into fashion.

I figure that is because the hair industry is too powerful. Hair is the new hats, and like hats, hair style and quality of cut suggests social status, although a different kind of status from in 1910. Hot or not, probably.

And just as in 1910 older women did not look wonderful in large hats covered in flowers and feathers, older women don’t look great in hair fashions best suited to the young. I think, anyway. That doesn’t mean older women have to dye their hair blue. In fact, middle-aged women today tend to have blond streaks.

Women’s hair in the 1900 era was washed rarely and brushed often and worn pinned up.

THE EYESORE -6th installment

Big hats and boats: 1910. Might be Marion there. This is a classic impressionist scene except for the canoe. Of course, the picture taker knew nothing of the avante-garde art scene in Paris. Canadian Emily Carr did, she was in Paris in 1910
I’ll get right to it.

Except for an hour at luncheon, where Mrs. Montgomery fed them cheddar cheese sandwiches and cucumber aspic, and speculated about Margaret’s trip to Three Rivers, a rather one sided conversation as the girls were sworn to secrecy about it, the afternoon passed uneventfully. There was choir practice at 2 pm to fill some time and afterwards Mae read in the hammock as Flo tossed a ball to Floss on the lawn.

At four the Mae and Flora left to pick Marion up from the train; well, Mae popped into Pope’s, bought that piece of tongue and ran home to put it in a marinade, a few hours late, but how would Marion know?

On the way home, the two sisters ran into Jed C, who said Marion had not changed at all since he last saw her; then they bumped into Ivor D who said she had changed a great deal, so much he hardly knew her.

I saw them both last year, Marion wryly observed, at the St. Andrew’s Day celebrations.

Marion was carrying a small travel case and a magazine as she detrained, and Flo grabbed the magazine from her.

It was the Ladies’ Home Journal. It had been years since the Nicholsons subscribed.

But this is from May 1906, Flora said, disappointed. It’s two years old. The fashions will all be out-dated. Well, I supposed it doesn’t matter much in Sherbrooke, or anywhere in the ET for that matter.

Marion’s attention drifted for a moment and she bit her bottom lip.

Anyway, Marion, teased, coming back to Flora. What’s wrong with 2 year old fashions. This jacket is two years old. Mother sewed it from a picture in the Delineator.

The summer jackets, this year, don’t have leg of mutton sleeves and braided collars.

Am I such an eyesore?

Well, I have to admit, Jim and Ivor didn’t seem to think so.

Well, I will tell you a secret: I am having 2 new shirtwaist suits made for me, for the fall.

Where will you get the money to pay?

I will figure out something, Marion said, surpressing a smile.