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Tag: 17th century

“It’s made of WHAT?”: Making 17th-Century Soap

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Back in August, recently retired volunteer Penny held a workshop to talk about her favorite hobby: making soap!  Penny has been a volunteer at Pennsbury Manor since 1982 – wow!  She retired after almost 30 years of soap-making demonstrations, but graciously agreed to provide a soap-making workshop for her fellow volunteers and teach us about her techniques. 

To provide a little background information, soap was a necessary all-purpose supply to keep in any 17th-century home.  You used the same basic lye soap to wash yourself, your dishes, and your laundry.  Alum could be mixed to make a specialty soap for removing laundry stains.  Herbs like lavender and lemon balm could also be added for scent.  Early Pennsylvanians could have purchased soap at the markets in Philadelphia (or Burlington, NJ which was just down the river from Pennsbury!).  But if you had the time, making your own soap would be a good way to save some money. 

It was made of two basic ingredients: tallow and lye.  Both ingredients were easy to come by – tallow, or rendered animal fat, was regularly available from the kitchen.  Penny taught us a modified version of the original Lye Soap process, which I’m happy to share with you now! **Click on images to enlarge**

Penny’s Castile Soap

1.  Prepare the Suet

Tallow is made by rendering (melting) animal fat, otherwise known as “suet.” Penny recommends beef suet from around the kidneys, but other animal fats can also work. This would have been easy enough to acquire in the 17th Century, but in the modern world the best place to find suet is your local meat shop. This includes grocery store meat departments.  To melt the suet, cut it into small pieces and place in cast-iron pot.  I recommend you start with rendering about 1 lb. of suet, as you need 28 oz. of tallow for Penny’s recipe. 

2. Render the Suet
Add 2-4 inches of water and 2 Tbsp. salt to the suet and place pot  on stove-top (or fire if you’re doing this at a historic site). Slowly bring to a boil – you don’t want to heat the pot too fast, or the suet will burn.  Allow the tallow to melt off, then remove from the heat.

Place a larger clean pot on the ground and drape cheesecloth or piece of linen across the top.  We learned that this works best if the cloth is strapped to the sides with some twine or rope.  If working inside, cover the floor with washable cloth or newspapers to prevent any mess or damage. 

Then take the pot of melted suet and pour onto cheesecloth. Allow to drain for several minutes, shifting mixture and even squeezing the cloth so all usable fat seeps through. Then remove the cheesecloth and toss the sifted mixture.  Congratulations, you now have tallow!  Now leave it to cool to 95°-100° F. 

3.  Making Lye: A Shortcut
Penny strongly recommends a shortcut for making lye water, as the 17th-century method is time-consuming and messy. However, if you’re a stickler for authenticity (which we applaud!) and want to go through the original process, you will need to find/create a Leeching Barrel, like the ones you see here (engraving from unknown source).  

The leeching barrel would be prepared with layers of straw and ash from the fireplace.  By pouring boiling water into the barrel, the lye chemical would be stripped from the ashes and combine with the water, which would drip down into the pot at the bottom. But if you’d prefer to skip this process, Penny picked up some Lye Crystals at her local grocery store.  The directions should be provided for specific measurements of hot water and crystals.  But first make sure you have the right equipment: rubber gloves, wooden spoon, pitcher that can withstand 200° F, and large pot/bowl/container.  Follow the instructions, allowing the crystals to dissolve fully and then leaving the mixture to cool to 100°. 

 4.  Mixing the Soap

Heat 20 oz. olive oil and 16 oz. coconut oil to 95° F.  Measure out 28 oz. of the tallow, which should now be the same temperature (if you are short, then repeat steps 1-2 until you have rendered enough tallow). 

Combine oils in large pot, then SLOWLY pour lye water into the fats, stirring constantly but gently.  The mixture will slowly become the consistency of applesauce.  Depending on the tallow used, this could take anywhere from 15 minutes up to an hour. 

 5. Molding the Soap
Gently pour or ladle mixture into mold(s).  

You can use any size square or rectangular mold you want.  To make an easy mold, find a wooden box (or shoe boxes work great) and line with linen or wax paper to prevent leaks.  Depending on the weather and where the molds sit, soap could take a couple days or a week to harden.  Warm weather will keep it slightly soft. 

 6. Milled Soap (optional)
To make a more refined soap, you could mill (shave) the hardened soap and remelt and mold.  Modern soap-makers often mill their specialty soaps and add in additional scented oils, herbs, and coloring. 

**Caution, use fresh soap rather than old, hardened pieces – it won’t melt or dye properly and you could have a crazy time trying to make it behave!!** 

Thanks again to Penny for her outstanding dedication to Pennsbury’s visitor programs and volunteer education!!

By Hannah Howard, Volunteer Coordinator

 

Confessions of a Costumier: Ladies’ Dressing Guide!

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Many of you may not realize how much time and research goes into crafting the historical outfits worn by our Pennsbury Manor Interpreters.  These reproductions are all based on original artifacts, paintings, and sketches in order to honor the people whose stories we tell.  It’s a constant evolution, but we are working very hard to make sure each item (down to your pins and socks!) are as close as we can get to 17th-century originals. In many cases, we try to copy the same styles and silhouettes as real 17th-century people, as we have done here with this 1687 London strawberry seller:

 

Continue reading “Confessions of a Costumier: Ladies’ Dressing Guide!”

A Country Life: Take a Whiff of THAT! (Part 3)

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In the third post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collection (check out our posts on Lemon Balm and Rosemary).  Here is one of my favorites… 

Lavender (Lavandula): Visitors will often recognize this herb’s soft, purple flowers and many will welcome the chance to smell it. Colonists also enjoyed lavender’s scent and used it as a perfume for clothing. They also recognized the value of aromatherapy. Lavender’s aroma was used to ease headaches and “giddiness.” The plant’s flowers, leaves, and seeds were also consumed to ward off fainting and joint pain.

 

By Danielle Lehr, 2011 Summer Intern

Exploring the Artifacts: English Maps

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Continuing our exploration of 17th-century maps (see my last featurette here), we look at yet another map in the Manor House:

Map of Buckinghamshire – by Danielle Straub

In the Manor House’s Withdrawing Room, there is a map on the far wall across from the rope. This map is small and hard to see from across the room, but up close one can see vibrant colors and beautiful ornamentation. I wanted to point this map out because not only is it beautiful, but also because it is an interesting specimen of maps from the 1600’s.  Be sure and click on the images to open a larger view.

I mentioned in the last Featurette characteristics of older maps, if some may recall, which I will be using again in this article. Our map is of Buckinghamshire in England, from 1610. Since this map is 100 years older than our Pennsylvania map (also seen in the last Featurette, follow link above to view), we can see more decoration and the use of mythical creatures.

To begin, in the center of the map is the main map of Buckinghamshire. Noted on the map are man-made features such as towns, cites, and bridges. The towns and cites are marked by a symbol of small buildings with a red dot of watercolor over it. Our mapmaker seemed to use red and yellow watercolors more than the others! These colors are splashed across the crests, fleur de lis, and well-inked lions. Getting back to the central map, the natural features that we placed on the map include hills, mountains, trees, and rivers. The shape of the hills and mountains appear to be anywhere from a bump to a rounded peak, while rivers are a consistent bold line. The trees stand alone at places or are placed in clusters as well on the map.

At the top corners are inset boxes. The box on the left is of Buckinghamshire and on the right is Redding. These insets are like mini maps to important cities and include their own compass, distance scale, crest, and key. They show the roads, river, groups of buildings, fields, and is decorated with oversized farmers and their animals. The key is for the street names which each have a corresponding letter or number on the map. The inset of Redding also labels the South Giles Church and the school in Redding.

Lastly, in the bottom corners are arches. These arches have titles held up above them by two cupids. In the arch on the left is the King’s crest and below are crossed lances and flags with a crown. Across the lances is a banner which reads “UNION”. In the arch on the right are four crests with the title of “The Armes of thofe Honorable Families which have born ye Titles of Buckingha(m)”. The family crests include those of “Walter Gifford Earle, Richard Stanbowe E., Thomas of Wodftoke E., and Humfr. Stafforde Duke”. This map is beautiful and was a symbol of pride for these families to be from Buckinghamshire. If you ever get a chance to see it close up, please go view and enjoy it.

**A big THANK YOU to Danielle Straub for her work on these summer featurettes and helping our curator Todd with his work in Pennsbury’s archives!**

A Country Life: Take a Whiff of THAT! (Part 2)

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In the second post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collections (check out our post on Lemon Balm).  Here is one you’ll probably recognize… 

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis): Recognizable by its needle-like leaves, rosemary had many uses in the 17th century. In the kitchen, cooks could use rosemary to flavor meats (like we do today). Medicinally, its savory aroma was used to ease a headache and to improve one’s memory. Additionally, vapors resulting from steaming the herb could be used to cure an earache and the leaves could be smoked to ease a cough.

 

By Danielle Lehr, 2011 Summer Intern

A Country Life: Take a Whiff of THAT!

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William Penn wrote that “a country life and estate I like best for my children,” and we agree!  So our new featurette The Country Life will highlight the outside gardens and grounds of Pennsbury Manor and the surrounding area.  Enjoy!

Sights, Sounds, and Smells of the Kitchen Garden

Every spring and summer, visitors to Pennsbury stop by the Kitchen Garden to take in the sights and sounds of the 17th Century. They see a multitude of plants of all colors and textures. They hear the birds chirping and the bees buzzing. However, the garden also offers visitors the chance to experience smells of the 17th Century (and I’m not talking about the kind of smells they experience in the stable). The garden boasts a number of fragrant herbs that William Penn may have grown in his own garden. In Penn’s time, the fragrant herbs were not only pleasing, but also useful. Penn’s contemporaries often had several uses for one herb, including culinary and medicinal uses.

Now that school tour season is over, our fragrant herbs will have a change to recover from the rubbing, pulling, and picking. However, kids are not the only ones who are drawn to the sweet and savory smells of the Kitchen Garden. Children and adults alike enjoy the hands-on (and nose-on!) element the Kitchen Garden offers. Here at Pennsbury, we encourage all visitors to engage their senses as they stroll through the garden, including this one: 

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis): A favorite of mine, lemon balm really does smell like lemon! Although it is related to other mints, lemon balm offers a citrus surprise that visitors often do not expect. In Penn’s time it was used to flavor cakes, teas, wine, and other beverages. In fact, our Summer Camp kids discovered lemon balm tea today and loved it!   Medicinally, lemon balm was also used to treat a number of ailments from stomachaches to epilepsy.   

So take a stroll into the lower kitchen garden and look for lemon balm, it’s near the path intersection by the cistern.  Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing more of our most popular and fragrant garden herbs for you to explore.  Stay tuned!

 

By Danielle Lehr, Summer Intern

William’s World: A Crime of Fashion!

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The Scene:  The Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, London

The Date: 15-16 January 1690

Where’s William?
M.I.A.  At this stage, Penn was keeping a very low profile in England.  He was still suspected by the new King and Queen, William and Mary, of Jacobitism and perhaps Catholicism.  Most of his letters now just carry a date, not a location of where it was written, and letters to him were addressed to friends who might know his location, for hand delivery.

Background:
Far below the social and political sphere in which Penn maneuvered, there existed a large underclass.  This is especially true of the city of London.  Many upper class Londoners were quaintly amused by

the simple country laboring folk they encountered in journeys across southern England.  Closer to home, though, they often objected to the ‘airs’ put on by the lower classes, especially concerning their modes of dress.  Fashion, and fashionable clothing, became a London trait, most noticeable after the Restoration, and continuing after the Glorious Revolution.  Modes of dress indicated your status in society, and also indicated who could or could not be approached in public areas.  The engraving on the right is one of many in a collection by Marcellus Laroon, an artist who sketched London’s street hawkers, entertainers, and beggars in the late 1600s.  These chimney sweeps are from the lowest ranks of London society, and are dressed accordingly.  But unfortunately for the gentry, the lower classes started to find plenty of opportunities to buy the fashionable garments traditionally worn only by the upper-classes, causing a major disturbance in the class system.  Many women wearing fashionable gowns were now less than met the eye.  Bernard Mandeville, writing in the early 18th Century, laments:

This haughtiness alarms the court, the women of quality are

frighten’s to see merchants’ wives and daughters dress’d like

themselves: this impudence of the City, they cry, is intolerable;

mantua-makers are sent for, and the contrivance of fashions

becomes all their study, that they may have always new modes

ready to take up, as soon as those saucy city shall begin to

imitate those in being.

As the merchants wives went, so went the laborers and their wives and girlfriends.  They aspired to fashions which would elevate themselves to the merchants clothing status.  Men were no different, as you can see from the engraving here.  This fiddler sought to elevate his appearance and improve business by dressing in fashionable attire, probably bought used from a street crier.  A huge quantity of secondhand clothes abounded in London, both legitimate and stolen. Tradesmen looking to purchase new fashions or servants who receive garments from their employers would sell off used clothing to street hawkers (seen below) for extra money.  The hawkers would then resell for a much smaller price than new garments.  Clothing and cloth remained a huge black market commodity in 17th – 18th Century England, and most likely, throughout the Empire.  This continued until industrialization and its mass-produced, inexpensive clothing caught up with the demand.  If fashion or other needs called, and the purse was light, theft would do. 

Event: 
Trials of Anne Hughes, Jane Townsend, Jean Voudger, Ursula Watson, and Mary Smith all before a jury for theft of clothing or cloth in the weeks preceding.

Outcome:

Anne Hughes – found guilty of stealing a number of clothing items from her employer, listed as a “quarter of an ell of Holland value 18 d one yard of Cambrick 3 s. one Scarf 6 d. one pair of Shoes 12 d. “

Jane Townsend – found guilty of  stealing one Flaxen Sheet value 5 s. from Joseph Brendon.

Both of these women were sentenced to being “Whip’d from Newgate to Temple Bar” which would have been from above St. Paul’s, and down Fleet Street, tied to a cart, being publicly whipped along the way.

Jean Voudger – found guilty of stealing from one John Rance 56 yards of Flanders Lace value 10 pounds,  two Laced Holland Cornets 7 s., two Quoifs 14 s., 2 pair of Gloves, 2s., and twelve Hoods 13 s.

She was sentenced to death for this crime, but was saved from the gallows by reason of her pregnancy.

Ursula Watson – found guilty of stealing a handkerchief and a pair of gloves, and was acquitted of theft charges regarding other items missing from the house.

Mary Smith – found guilty of for stealing six yards of Serge value 12 s. on the 24th of December , from Robert Acton.

Both Smith and Watson were sentenced to being whipped from Newgate to Holburn Bars.

The  second-hand clothing market fueled by fashion crazed London was a boon for some, allowing for an apparent increased status to lower class workers (like the crab seller seen above) and employing many.  However, it remained a bane to those caught stealing to supply this market and the aristocrats who saw their status as under assault by those up-dressing commoners!

 

By Todd Galle, Museum Curator 

Reflections on the Cradle of Liberty

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I just discovered a great essay by the renowned historian Gary B. Nash entitled “Cradle of Liberty”  from an interesting online project The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.  

Nash is often considered one of the best historical authors of his generation ( not to mention a personal favorite of mine whose work The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America was definitely used in my master’s thesis!).  Considering that legacy, I was really excited to see how much credit he gives our beloved William Penn and his role in creating Philadelphia’s cradle of liberty!

Check out his article and feel free to share your thoughts below!

Penn’s Pen: Dear Emperor of Canada…

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In June of 1682, Penn was busily preparing to leave for Pennsylvania.  But already he was writing to the Native Americans and establishing his two main concerns:  peaceful title to land and establishing commerce through the Free Society of Traders.  The Emperor of Canada is probably an Iroquois chief.
You can find the original of this letter in our exhibit:

“TO THE EMPEROR OF CANADA

The Great God that made thee and me and all the World Incline our hearts to love peace and Justice that we may live friendly together as becomes the workmanship of the great God.  The King of England who is a Great Prince hath for divers Reasons Granted to me a large Country in America which however I am willing to Injoy upon friendly termes with thee.  And this I will say that the people who comes with me are a just plain and honest people that neither make war upon others nor fear war from others because they will be just.  I have sett up a Society of Traders in my Province to traffick with thee and thy people for your Commodities that you may be furnished with that which is good at reasonable rates  And that Society hath ordered their President to treat with thee about a future Trade and have joined with me to Send this Messenger to thee with certain Presents from us to testify our Willingness to have a fair Correspondence with thee:  And what this Agent shall do in our names we will agree unto.  I hope thou wilt kindly Receive him and Comply with his desires on our behalf both with Respect to Land and Trade.  The Great God be with thee.  Amen.” 

Written by Mary Ellyn Kunz, Museum Educator

Waking up in the 17th Century!

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up and live like William Penn?  Spend a week eating and dressing like the Penn family, sleeping in the House at Pennsbury Manor? 

Well I can’t really help you there.  BUT apparently there are two hilarious, adventurous Britons who came very close to that dream!  I have recently discovered a very funny show called “The Supersizers,” hosted by restaurant critic Giles Coren and broadcaster Sue Perkins who spend a week dressing, eating, and living in different times throughout British History.  Not only is it absolutely hysterical to watch, but it offers a fascinating look at the food and lifestyle of the time!

One of the episodes looks at Restoration England, a slightly earlier time period (1660s) than what we interpret at Pennsbury (1683-1701).  But it’s still full of really fascinating insights (note the part where they discuss the rising popularity of vegetables!).  Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCfx98Ei5lM]

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*No copyright infringement intended, used purely for educational purposes*

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