Sherilyn Decter's Blog, page 3
February 24, 2020
Cleo Lythgoe- Queen of the Bahamas
[image error]Hi there- Bette Hardwick here. Sherilyn’s got this great historical fiction trilogy out- The Rum Runners’ Chronicles. It’s a series about a bunch of fiesty dames, succeeding in a man’s world.
As a reporter for the Miami Herald and working in a man’s world, I gotta say how much I admire women like Cleo Lythgoe. She make up her own rules, and doesn’t take any guff from nobody.
Gertrude “Cleo” Lythgoe (alias: “The Queen of The Bahamas” or “The Queen of Rum Row”) is one of the many famous bootleggers of the Prohibition era in the 1920s. She is independent, strong and knows how to use her charm to both banish and seduce. She threatens menacing men, staves off competition with razor blades and potential rapes with pistols. Cleo is a dame after my own heart.
[image error]Born in Ohio to English-Scottish immigrants, Cleo is well-known for her business acumen, hard-nosed attitude, and highly profitable liquor shipping operations.
She appears part water nymph and is surely a majestic-looking woman— or as Sherilyn might say, “hot” in the modern day parlance. Cleo has been mistaken many a time for Russian, French and Spanish, but she was pure American with ties to a British liquor distributor.
She earned the nickname “Cleo” due to her striking physical resemblance to Cleopatra.
Weathering a sobering childhood—losing her mother at a young age and being the last of ten children—Cleo developed a talent for school.
She started her career as a stenographer for a British liquor importer in New York. It was there she became the first woman to hold a wholesale liquor license. When Prohibition was declared in 1920, she saw an opportunity, capitalizing on the situation by setting up a wholesale liquor business in Nassau, Bahamas.
[image error]
Cleo’s Nassau office is on Market Street and lives in the Lucerne Hotel, known as the bootleggers’ headquarters. The hotel is a haven for shady types, criminals, rogues, colorful characters, and journalists.
With her connections in Scotland, she imports the world’s finest Scotch and commissioned her own flotilla of boats. Like the blockade-breaking-Russian-Czar-taming Madame Clicquot before her, Cleo is a wily entrepreneur with a laser focus on the money.
She is renowned for her intellect and beauty, but also for her fierce actions: when men believe they can disrespect her, she hauls them into her office and makes it clear that they can desist or take a bullet.
Like I said, Cleo tolerates little funny business from competitors attempting to squash her profits and operates fearlessly in a male-dominated profession. On one occasion, on hearing herself and her goods had been bad-mouthed by a man, she marched into the barber’s shop, dragged the critic out—lathered face and all—and took him to her office where she promised to “put a bullet through him” if he didn’t stop. The man fled. Other men have tried to intimidate her and found themselves threatened at gunpoint by the fierce, beautiful woman.
Cleo’s stately beauty, calculated approach to rum running, and pistol-as-accessory brashness has made her the source of both media delight and government frustration. She was arrested and charged with importing over 1,000 cases into New Orleans, but managed to secure her acquittal.
[image error]Her peers include smuggling heavyweights like Billy McCoy, who harbors great respect for her. When I interviewed him for the article Freddy Van de Water and I wrote for the newspaper, Bill talked about “the breathtaking fury she could show”—she once, allegedly, threatened to shoot a man simply for speaking ill of liquor.
Cleo has achieved celebrity status through popular newspaper stories about her exploits. She loves the limelight and became a media darling with newspapers from Jamaica to New York.
Men fall in love with her and send “love letters” to the editors. But she always says “I don’t need a man to tell me what to do.”
Despite catching the eye of fellow rum-runner Bill McCoy, the two have never married. Instead, it is Lythgoe’s steely, gun-wielding personality that backbones her ability to run a successful smuggling business as a single woman in the early 1920s.
“Everyone knows that my liquor is the very best.”
Cleo is planning on retiring in 1925. She wants to leave the rum running business in large part because of her belief that there is a “jinx” lurking in the wings to both kill her and destroy her operation.
Heavy is the head that wears the boozy crown.
Postscript: Lythgoe successfully escaped her jinx, dying decades later in Los Angeles at age 86. When Cleo kicked it, the Wall Street Journal estimated her worth at more than $1 million, but she was cryptic and never told.
That’s the thing about women bootleggers. While the men are brash and loud, killing whoever got in their way, “most women were swift, stone cold cunning and rarely talked.”
In the wake of her passing, the Nassau flags flew at half-mast for days in honor of their fallen queen.
The post Cleo Lythgoe- Queen of the Bahamas appeared first on Sherilyn Decter.
The Real McCoy
[image error]Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s. I have had it with these Philly winters and have taken a temporary posting down in Florida. The beaches and the weather are amazing. And check out these swimsuits!
On assignment, I got a chance to do up an article on ‘The Real McCoy’. What a dashing fella, if I do say so. Bill plays a role in Sherilyn’s Rum Runners’ Chronicles trilogy and I figured you’d want to learn more. Of course, I had to share the byline with another pencil-pusher, Frederic F. Van de Water, who is writing a book about Bill called “The Real McCoy”.
[image error]William Frederick McCoy, his friends call him Bill, considers himself an “honest lawbreaker.” McCoy takes pride in the fact that he never paid a cent to organized crime, politicians, or law enforcement for protection. Unlike many operations that illegally produce and smuggle alcohol for consumption during Prohibition, McCoy sells his merchandise unadulterated, uncut and clean. Which is where is gets the reputation as ‘The Real McCoy’.
In his book, Freddy describes him as
“Six feet two, with shoulders like a cargo hatch, slim waist, a voice like a foghorn, lean tanned face, and steady eyes set in the network of wrinkles that long gazing over glittering water etches, he sat in my suddenly dwarfed living room and talked of the days when liquor was liquor and Rum Row was a marine market running unbroken from Montauk to the Atlantic City, when each man worked for himself to outwit revenue cutters and to fend against piracy and hijacking.
He lost himself in his story. Surf boomed through his words, and out of the rush of his speech, now and then, leaped a phrase poetic and vivid, sired by his sheer zest for action and a deep love of the sea and of sail.
He crowds fifty, clean limbed and muscular as he could have been at twenty-five. His outlook upon life is as unscrupulously gleeful, thrill seeking, adventurous as though he were still fifteen. There are moments when you suspect that the essential ego of him is no more than that.”
Bill McCoy is, without question, the most successful and notorious of the rum runners. He is, literally, the father of Rum Row and the inventor of many rum- running techniques. They figure he’s responsible for 700,000 cases of scotch and whiskey smuggled in to slake the thirst of Americans.
Bill McCoy is the trusted friend of some of the most outrageous crooks in Manhattan harbors. He is a leader in Nassau- a placid tropic city that is a combination of a cow town on pay day and a new gold camp, with additional spectacular and violent features thrown in for good measure.
During Prohibition, McCoy began smuggling whisky into the U.S., traveling from Nassau and Bimini in the Bahamas to the east coast of the United States, spending most time dealing on “Rum Row” off New Jersey.
I figure he must be spending a lot of time off Miami, as well, cause Edith Duffy’s name keeps coming up and the Goodtimes blind-tiger she runs.
[image error]Almost as famous as Bill is his schooner Arethusa. When her old auxiliary engine was replaced with a better, smaller one, the increased cargo space allowed for an extra 1,000 cases of liquor, meaning that Arethusa could now carry 5,000 cases, a cargo worth $50,000 a trip. That’s a lotta clams!
“Her name was Arethusa. She seemed to ghost into the harbor’s mouth under full sail. She was an aristocrat, a thoroughbred from her keel to her trucks. The sun turned her spread of canvas golden, and my throat was tight and stiff as she came walking up the harbor like a great lady entering a room.”William McCoy
My goodness, that rum runner is a real poet. I wished my own fella talked about me that way with that look in his eye the same way Bill talks about his darn boat.
Bill created the idea of “Rum Row”. In her Rum Runners’ Chronicles series, Sherilyn describes it thus- “As far as the eye can see, you’ve got your schooners and yachts, windjamming square-riggers from Scandinavia, traps from England and Germany, converted tugs and submarine chasers, and anything else that has a bottom that will float, and a hold that can be filled with booze. (Rum Row is) a roaring, boisterous, ‘sinful-and-glad-of-it’ marine Main Street. You’re looking at about a hundred smugglers boats and come evening there will be tourists and rubberneckers, boats with jazz bands, and hundreds of contact boats (coming from shore) picking up cargo.”
[image error]He also figured out an efficient way to transport all that smuggled booze. Rather than wooden crates which were unwieldy and heavy, Bill stacked six bottles together in a pyramid, wrapped them in coconut fiber to prevent breakage, and put them in a canvas sacks called a “hams” because of their shape.
Of course, a successful rum runner like Bill got up the nose of the authorities. I’ll let Freddy take over here ‘cause he has some great stuff on all the law-breaking shenanigans.
“Fragments of Bill McCoy’s history are embodied in the records of the Department of Justice and the log books of sundry revenue cutters. These comments on the most daring and successful of rum runners are pardonably acid and prejudiced. Nothing is more offensive to officialdom than a reiterant, light-hearted disregard. Nothing is more maddening to the agents of constituted authority than derision.
For four lively years, while he mocked the increasingly portentous blockading fleet of the Volstead Act mobilized on the Atlantic seaboard, McCoy was a thorn in the twitching flesh of the United States government, a rankling and most persistent thorn. He was the founder of Rum Row off New York and the trade’s most daring and successful exponent. Time and again his ships were located, triumphantly captured. Subsequent relieve always was brief. He evaded those who had caught him and almost immediately was prodding elsewhere.
[image error]Nothing was more irritating to the State Department, the Department of Justice, Prohibition agents, and U.S. Coast Guard than the light-hearted disregard McCoy and his fellow rum runners showed them. Sitting out on the row, they taunted the authorities. Their souped-up contact boats, powered by 500-horse Liberty engines, doubled the speed of sluggish Coast Guard boats. To the government, McCoy was a symbol of defiance. They would not let him get away with it.
They earmarked $14 million in federal funds to upgrade and double the size of the Coast Guard fleet. The plan was to cut rum row off from its contact boats, making it impossible to land the liquor .
On November 2
3, 1923, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca, had orders to capture Bill McCoy and the Tomoka, even if in international waters. The New York Times article that reported on the capture and arraignment of McCoy described the incident:
The report showed that the Tomaka was first boarded by Lieut. Commander Perkins of the Coast Guard cutter Seneca, who ordered the crew keep silent. The bow of the schooner then was turned out to sea, and when the commander of the cutter observed the movement, he sent a shot across the bow of the Tomaka. She returned the fire with a machine gun set up on her forward deck. The machine gunners ran to cover when the shells of the Seneca began to fall so close to their mark that they kicked the spray over the Tomaka’s deck.”
McCoy described the chase that led to his capture:
“When the Tomoka was boarded under cover of the Seneca’s guns, I immediately set sail and ran away with the boarding party – one lieutenant, one bos’n and thirteen seamen – and only upon their pleas did I heave to and put them back on the Seneca. The damned radio was too severe a handicap for me. I surrendered after the Seneca had fired four-inch shells at me.”
When asked what defense he planned to make at the hearing before the trial, McCoy introduced the details of his operations by replying:
“I have no tale of woe to tell you. I was outside the three-mile limit, selling whisky, and good whisky, to anyone and everyone who wanted to buy.”
Instead of a long drawn out trial, Bill McCoy pleaded guilty and spent nine months in a New Jersey jail. Bill was permitted to leave the jailhouse daily as long as he returned by 9 p.m. He even attended a Walker-Shade prizefight in ringside seats at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, with the warden of his prison.
Doesn’t that just break your heart? Nobody wanted Bill in the joint- except the Coast Guard of course.
“The slippery, irreverent, swaggeringly resourceful McCoy was a scourge, a menace, a continual threat against the peace and dignity of the United States, and a jeering foe of that swelling army which strove to make the nation dry. In the flesh, even his bitterest foes admitted, he was the most genial and endearingly candid of law breakers.
Out of all this and more he has emerged, for all that he has done, for all that has happened to him, still with the heart of a mischievous, authority-scorning, rather gallant small boy. He handled millions in cash and to-day is comparatively poor, but he talks more of the thrills he enjoyed than the money he had.”
Well, that’s it for me. The Florida beach is calling. But if you want to read more about the love of Bill McCoy’s life, check out the post about Cleo Lythgoe. She was as feisty a dame as there ever was, and a famous rum runner in her how right.
The post The Real McCoy appeared first on Sherilyn Decter.
January 31, 2020
How The 2020s May Be Like the 1920s
— originally published in an editorial, January 6, 2020
— Adapted from The Roanoke Times
The 1920s are remembered as the Roaring Twenties. How will our ’20s be remembered? Guess we have to live through them first, but it’s worth looking back at the last decade with this name. Those ’20s turned out to be consequential years that still shape our lives today.
The 1920s began, as our own will, with a presidential campaign. The winning candidate that year promised a “return to normalcy” — a word that earned Warren Harding jeers from grammarians but a landslide victory from voters. We’ll see in November what version of “normalcy” today’s voters prefer.
That election was also the first in which women were allowed to vote; the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified just in time. In this year’s centennial of women’s suffrage, we now have a woman presiding as U.S. House Speaker — for the second time — and a woman four years ago received more votes for the presidency than her rival (just not enough electoral votes). When the General Assembly convenes Wednesday, we’ll see a record number of women in the state legislature —11 out of 40 in the state Senate and 30 out of 100 in the House of Delegates. Moreover, Virginia will see its first women (all Democrats) as House speaker (Eileen Filler-Corn of Fairfax), House majority leader (Charniele Herring of Alexandria) and chair of the Senate Finance Committee (Janet Howell of Fairfax).
The 1920s might seem quaint to us now, but at the time they felt like an unsettling break from tradition and a headlong rush into modernity. We remember flappers stylistically, but more substantively the 1920s saw first-wave feminism, the Harlem Renaissance and what at the time was an unprecedented openness about homosexuality — at least in urban centers such as New York and London, Paris and Berlin.
Then, as now, technology drove social change. Cars were mass-produced. Telephones become commonplace household items; by decade’s end nearly 41% of American homes had one. The rural-urban divide of the ’20s involved electrification; today it’s broadband internet. Robert Goddard blasted off his first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926; today we’ve ridden rockets to the moon and are talking about sending people to Mars. Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic in 1927; today planes crisscross the globe as a matter of routine. Alexander Fleming discovered something he called penicillin in 1928; medicine today cures diseases we scarcely knew existed a century ago.
Jazz wasn’t invented in the ’20s, but the ’20s became the jazz age. It’s still with us, just not as the dominant musical genre. Movies boomed; vaudeville died. By the decade’s end, movies had evolved, too — silent films were history, “talkies” were in. It’s hard for most people to name a sports figure from before the ’20s but everyone knows the name Babe Ruth. He joined the New York Yankees a century ago this year. The National Football League played its first season in 1920, albeit under a different name.
All that sounds like progress and — unless you were a Boston Red Sox fan who regretted the Ruth trade — it was. The ’20s, though, were not an unyielding arc bending toward progress. The ’20s saw a dark surge of racism across America, partly in response to decades of large-scale immigration and the domestic migration of African Americans from the South to the North. The Klan saw its membership soar; by some estimates by 1924, some 1.5 million to 4 million people were members of that hateful organization. The ’20s also saw a wave of Confederate nostalgia, powered both by the Civil War generation dying off and a reaction to the social changes people saw around them.
The ’20s saw the advent of prohibition. That era passed, but today we’re dealing with a different sort of prohibition as states begin to loosen the laws banning marijuana. In Virginia, Attorney General Mark Herring has proposed the state eventually legalize cannabis. It was in the 1920s that American states first began banning marijuana, culminating with a federal ban in 1937.
In Virginia, the 1920s saw a new political era take shape. Harry Byrd was elected governor in 1925 on a promise of building roads — the demand for better roads was a direct consequence of all those cars being mass produced in Detroit. There had been a dominant political organization of conservative Democrats before him; under Byrd it became more formally known as the Byrd Machine and it ruled Virginia with an iron grip until the 1960s.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said. A century ago in the ’20s, we were dealing with the rights of women and minorities, vast technological and social changes, immigration, intoxicating substances and a state dominated by one political party. In our ’20s, we still are.
The post How The 2020s May Be Like the 1920s appeared first on Sherilyn Decter.
March 14, 2019
HISTORYTELLERS Scavenger Hunt
Welcome to Historytellers Scavenger Hunt!
This is a hunt dedicated to novels historically set in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s where all genre are welcome. You’ll get the opportunity to discover new authors, new stories and to meet and talk to other readers who love this time period, not to mention that you’ll have the opportunity to win the grand prize which include a digital copy of all the novels participating in the hunt.
The hunt will be online only today 17 March 2019 from 00:00 to 23:59 EST.
Click on the picture below to go to the Historytellers Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt.
[image error]
***THE SCAVENGER HUNT***
Directions: I’ve included my lucky number on this post (You will spot it!). All my fellow authors participating in the hunt will include a lucky number on their posts. Collect the these numbers and add them up.
Entry Form: When you have that lucky total number, make sure you fill out the form here to officially qualify for the grand prize. Only entries that have the correct number will qualify.
Rules: Anyone can take part. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must submit the completed entry form by Sunday 17 March 23:59 EST. Entries sent without the correct number or without contact information will not be considered.
LET THE HUNT BEGIN!
[image error]
My name is Sherilyn Decter, and I am a writer, researcher, and lover of historical fiction. Living in a century old house, maybe the creaking pipes whisper stories in my ear.
I’m enthralled with the flashing flappers and dangerous bootleggers from the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition. If you like flapper fashions, check out my Pinterest page and I post all kinds of interesting Twenties tidbits on my Facebook page.
Through meticulous research, I try to bring that lawless era to life. I have five books in the Bootleggers’ Chronicles series set in Philadelphia, and am currently working on a trilogy, the Rum Runners’ Chronicles, set in Florida.
My work is set in the Roaring Twenties and if you like feisty and determined heroines, complex cover-ups, Prohibition stories about criminal underworlds, police and political corruption, then you’re going to love these grand gangster tales.
To get the inside skinny on the Bootlegger’s Chronicles, you can reach me at authorsherilyn@gmail.com
[image error]
Included in the Scavenger Hunt prize package is:
[image error]
[image error]
Innocence Lost (FREE on Amazon March 21 & 22)
In a city of bootleggers and crime, one woman must rely on a long-dead lawman to hunt down justice…
Philadelphia, 1924. Maggie Barnes doesn’t have much left. After the death of her husband, she finds herself all alone to care for her young son and look after their rundown house. As if that weren’t bad enough, Prohibition has turned her neighborhood into a bootlegger’s playground. To keep the shoddy roof over their heads, she has no choice but to take on boarders with criminal ties…
When her son’s friend disappears, Maggie suspects the worst. And local politicians and police don’t seem to have any interest in an investigation. With a child’s life on the line, Maggie takes the case and risks angering the enemy living right under her nose…
Maggie’s one advantage may be her oldest tenant: the ghost of a Victorian-era cop. With his help, can she find justice in a lawless city?
Innocence Lost is the first novel in the Bootleggers’ Chronicles, a series of historical fiction tales. If you like headstrong heroines, Prohibition-era criminal underworlds, and a touch of the paranormal, then you’ll love Sherilyn Decter’s gripping tale.
You can find all the Bootleggers’ Chronicles books on Amazon.
My lucky number is [LUCKY NUMBER] and you need to add it to all the other lucky numbers.
Add up all the lucky numbers and you’ll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
Click here to get to the entry form.
***CONTINUE THE HUNT***
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next author,
(yikes- you’re early LOL. I’ll be adding in the link on March 17. No peaking…)
[AUTHOR NAME WITH HYPERLINK]!
GOOD LUCK!!
November 5, 2018
Haute Couture in the 1920s
Haute Couture is a French phrase, literally translating to ‘high dressmaking’ but generally refers to clothes that are custom designed and tailored for the elite, by the finest designers and couture houses.
In the 1920s women’s desires for their position in society had dramatically changed following the First World War, becoming more rebellious and empowered. Women’s fashion was evocative of this societal change, representing freedom of choice and feminism. A new type of feminism arose with women wanting to be socially equal as opposed to politically equal. The cultural production of Haute Couture in the 1920s was a driver of this change, generating the meaning of discontinuity among women in the middle to upper classes within the Western developed world. This was particularly so with Haute Couture designers coming to prominence in this decade as creators of the new woman such as Coco Chanel, Edward Molyneaux and Jeanne Lanvin, among others.
For examples of the beautiful creations of these and other haute couture designers from the 1920s, please visit my Pinterest page.
Paul Poiret
Paul Poiret (1879– 1944) was a leading French fashion designer during the first two decades of the 20th century. His parents wanted to cure him of arrogance so they apprenticed him to an umbrella maker.
[image error]
Poiret established his own house in 1903, and made his name with his controversial kimono coat and similar, loose-fitting designs created specifically for an un-corseted, slim figure. His timing couldn’t have been more perfect for the boyish flapper silhouette.
“I freed the bust,” boasted Poiret, “and I shackled the legs.”
Poiret was particularly noted for his Neoclassical and Orientalist styles, for advocating the replacement of the corset with the brassiere, and for the introduction of the hobble skirt, a vertical tight-bottomed style that confined women to mincing steps.
Jean Patou
Jean Patou (1880 – 1936) was a French fashion designer. In 1912, he opened a small dressmaking salon called “Maison Parry”. His entire 1914 collection was purchased by a single American buyer.
Patou served in World War I, returning to Paris following the war to open a design house that was known for women’s sports wear including daring sleeveless tennis dresses and swimsuits.He also created the first suntan lotion. He was also famous for his fragrances, including Joy.
[image error]
[image error]
Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel (1883-1971) was a French fashion designer and business woman. The House of Chanel was famous for popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. Chanel’s success as a fashion designer funder her success as a business woman.
In 1918, Chanel purchased the entire building at 31 rue Cambon, which was situated in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened what may be considered an early incarnation of the fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to offer jewellery and fragrance. By 1927, Chanel owned five properties on the rue Cambon, encompassing buildings numbered 23 to 31.
More information about the glamorous and controversial life of Coco Chanel can be found here.
Callot Soeurs
Caollot Soeurs was founded by sisters Marie Callot Gerber, Marthe Callot Bertrand, Regina Callot Tennyson-Chantrell and Joséphine Callot Crimont and was one of the leading fashion design houses in Paris during the 1910s and 1920s.
[image error]The Callot Soeur sales room in 1910
In 1900, they were featured at the Paris World’s Fair. That year, they had a staff of two hundred and did two million francs in sales. By 1901, they had tripled their workforce and doubled their sales.
Edward Molyneux
Edward Molyneux (1891 – 1974) was a London-based fashion designer. Molyneux opened his own fashion house in Paris at 14 rue Royale in November 1919 (later, 5 rue Royale), expanding to Monte Carlo in 1925, Cannes in 1927, and London in 1932. The designer quickly became known for an impeccably refined simplicity.
Quote “Molyneux was the designer to whom a fashionable woman would turn if she wanted to be absolutely right without being utterly predictable in the Twenties and Thirties”
[image error]
Molyneux abhorred exaggerated decoration and preferred the minimalist fashion style, actually banning anything superfluous that he did not like. His military self-preservation and Irish/English background made him more spartan in the world of French Couture.
Jeanne Lanvin
Jeanne Lanvin (1867 – 1946) established one of the earliest French fashion houses. In 1897, she gave birth to Marguerite Marie-Blanche, her only child. Nothing was too beautiful for Marguerite.
[image error]
The little girl became the first source of inspiration for Jeanne Lanvin, who designed her an incredibly sophisticated wardrobe from a very early age. The mother and daughter never left each others’ sides. It wasn’t uncommon to catch sight of Marguerite meandering around the hat shelves in the store, and her elegance was well noted. A new opportunity then presented itself to Jeanne Lanvin, who decided to delve into children’s clothing. The mother-daughter look quickly caught on.
Lavin was about clothes that were pretty rather than fashionable but she was successful because they gave women confidence. No Lanvin gown ever overwhelmed the women wearing it and, in that brittle ‘20s world, when chic was all, that was quite an achievement. Whereas Chanel pared down, Lanvin added decoration because she knew that it appealed to women who wished to look smart but not like a fashion plate.
Lanvin was not just a creator. She was also a very shrewd businesswoman who knew how to place herself in the burgeoning couture market in the early 1920s. Interested in Medieval and Renaissance art, along with Egypt and antiquity, she created a soft but vibrant blue, guaranteed to flatter most skin and hair types. Called Fra Angelico blue, it became almost a trademark.
By 1927, when she launched Arpège, one of the world’s most successful fragrances even today, she commissioned one of France’s top architects to design the black glass ball which was its bottle.
Madeleine Vionnet
[image error]
(1876 – 1975) Vionnet trained in London and in Paris with the Callot Soeurs before establishing her first fashion house in Paris in 1912. Although it was forced to close in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, it re-opened after the war and Vionnet became one of the leading designers in Paris between the Wars (1919-1939). Vionnet was forced to close her house in 1939 and retired in 1940.
“without the example of the Callot Soeurs, I would have continued to make Fords. It is because of them that I have been able to make Rolls Royces”
Called the “Queen of the bias cut” and “the architect among dressmakers”, Vionnet is best known today for her elegant Grecian-style dresses and for popularising the bias cut within the fashion world and is credited with inspiring a number of recent designers.
Alongside Coco Chanel, Vionnet is credited with a move away from stiff, formalised clothing to sleeker, softer clothes. Unlike Chanel, Vionnet had little appetite for self-promotion; her retirement in 1940 marginalised her contribution to the wider movement. Madeleine Vionnet is quoted as saying that “when a woman smiles, her dress must smile with her”.
August 3, 2018
The Wedding Day
Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s. My best gal-pal is getting hitched and I thought I’d better brush up on all my wedding etiquette before her big day. And who better to go to than dear old Emily Post. Even my Ma listens to her advice when it comes to manners.
Weddings are complicated matters, so I’ve divided up my articles into Bridal Wear; Wedding Party; and The Wedding Day.
At the House: (excerpted from Emily Post)
If the wedding is to be at noon, dawn will not have much more than broken before the house—at least below stairs—becomes bustling.
Even if the wedding is to be at four o’clock, it will still be early in the morning when the business of the day begins. But let us suppose it is to be at noon; if the family is one that is used to assembling at an early breakfast table, it is probable that the bride herself will come down for this last meal alone with her family. They will, however, not be allowed to linger long at the table. The caterer will already be clamoring for possession of the dining-room—the florist will by that time already have dumped heaps of wire and greens into the middle of the drawing-room, if not beside the table where the family are still communing with their eggs. The door-bell has long ago begun to ring. At first there are telegrams and special delivery letters, then as soon as the shops open, come the last-moment wedding presents, notes, messages and the insistent clamor of the telephone.
Next, excited voices in the hall announce members of the family who come from a distance. They all want to kiss the bride, they all want rooms to dress in, they all want to talk. Also comes the hairdresser to do the bride’s or her mother’s or aunt’s or grandmother’s hair, or all of them; the manicure, the masseuse—any one else that may have been thought necessary to give final beautifying touches to any or all of the female members of the household. The dozen and one articles from the caterer are meantime being carried in at the basement door; made dishes, and dishes in the making, raw materials of which others are to be made; folding chairs, small tables, chinaware, glassware, napery, knives, forks and spoons—it is a struggle to get in or out of the kitchen or area door.
[image error]The bride’s mother consults the florist for the third and last time as to whether the bridal couple had not better receive in the library because of the bay window which lends itself easily to the decoration of a background, and because the room, is, if anything, larger than the drawing-room. And for the third time, the florist agrees about the advantage of the window but points out that the library has only one narrow door and that the drawing-room is much better, because it has two wide ones and guests going into the room will not be blocked in the doorway by others coming out.
The best man turns up and wants the bride’s luggage.
A bridesmaid-elect hurries up the steps, runs into the best man carrying out the luggage; much conversation and giggling and guessing as to where the luggage is going. Best man very important, also very noble and silent. Bridesmaid shrugs her shoulders, dashes up to the bride’s room and dashes down again.[image error]
The house is as cold as open windows can make it, to keep the flowers fresh, and to avoid stuffiness. The door-bell continues its ringing, and the parlor maid finds herself a contestant in a marathon, until some one decides that card envelopes and telegrams had better be left in the front hall.
A first bridesmaid arrives. She at least is on time. All decoration activity stops while she is looked at and admired. Panic seizes some one! The time is too short, nothing will be ready! Some one else says the bridesmaid is far too early, there is no end of time.
[image error]Upstairs everyone is still dressing. The father of the bride (one would suppose him to be the bridegroom at least) is trying on most of his shirts, the floor strewn with discarded collars! The mother of the bride is hurrying into her wedding array so as to be ready for any emergency, as well as to superintend the finishing touches to her daughter’s dress and veil.
The Church
Meanwhile, about an hour before the time for the ceremony, the ushers arrive at the church and the sexton turns his guardianship over to them. They leave their hats in the vestry, or coat room. Their boutonnières, sent by the groom, should be waiting in the vestibule. They should be in charge of a boy from the florist’s, who has nothing else on his mind but to see that they are there, that they are fresh and that the ushers get them. Each man puts one in his buttonhole, and also puts on his gloves. The head usher decides (or the groom has already told them) to which ushers are apportioned the center, and to which the side aisles. If it is a big church with side aisles and gallery, and there are only six ushers, four will be put in the center aisle, and two in the side. Guests who choose to sit up in the gallery find places for themselves.[image error]
Often, at a big wedding, the sexton or one of his assistants guards the entrance to the gallery and admission is reserved by cards for the employees of both families, but usually the gallery is open to those who care to go up. An usher whose “place” is in the side aisle may escort occasional personal friends of his own down the center aisle if he happens to be unoccupied at the moment of their entrance. Those of the ushers who are the most likely to recognize the various close friends and members of each family are invariably detailed to the center aisle.
A brother of the bride, for instance, is always chosen for this aisle because he is best fitted to look out for his own relatives and to place them according to their near or distant kinship. A second usher should be either a brother of the groom or a near relative who would be able to recognize the family and close friends of the groom.
The first six to twenty pews on both sides of the center aisle are fenced off with white ribbons into a reserved enclosure. The parents of the bride always sit in the first pew on the left (facing the chancel); the parents of the groom always sit in the first pew on the right. The right hand side of the church is the groom’s side always, the left is that of the bride.
[image error]At a perfectly managed wedding, the bride arrives exactly one minute (to give a last comer time to find place) after the hour. Two or three servants have been sent to wait in the vestibule to help the bride and bridesmaids off with their wraps and hold them until they are needed after the ceremony. The groom’s mother and father also are waiting in the vestibule. As the carriage of the bride’s mother drives up, an usher goes as quickly as he can to tell the groom, and any brothers or sisters of the bride or groom, who are not to take part in the wedding procession and have arrived in their mother’s carriage, are now taken by ushers to their places in the front pews. The moment the entire wedding party is at the church, the doors between the vestibule and the church are closed. No one is seated after this, except the parents of the young couple. The proper procedure should be carried out with military exactness, and is as follows:
The groom’s mother goes down the aisle on the arm of the head usher and takes her place in the first pew on the right; the groom’s father follows alone, and takes his place beside her; the same usher returns to the vestibule and immediately escorts the bride’s mother; he should then have time to return to the vestibule and take his place in the procession. The beginning of the wedding march should sound just as the usher returns to the head of the aisle. To repeat: No other person should be seated after the mother of the bride. Guests who arrive later must stand in the vestibule or go into the gallery.
The sound of the music is also the cue for the clergyman to enter the chancel, followed by the groom and his best man. The two latter wear gloves but have left their hats and sticks in the vestry-room.
The groom stands on the right hand side at the head of the aisle, but if the vestry opens into the chancel, he sometimes stands at the top of the first few steps. He removes his right glove and holds it in his left hand. The best man remains always directly back and to the right of the groom, and does not remove his glove.
[image error]
Starting on the right measure and keeping perfect time, the ushers come, two by two, four paces apart; then the bridesmaids (if any) at the same distance exactly; then the maid of honor alone; then the flower girls (if any); then, at a double distance, the bride on her father’s right arm. She is dressed always in white, with a veil of lace or tulle. Usually she carries a bridal bouquet of white flowers, either short, or with streamers (narrow ribbons with little bunches of blossoms on the end of each) or trailing vines, or maybe she holds a long sheaf of stiff flowers such as lilies on her arm. Or perhaps she carries a prayer book instead of a bouquet.
[image error]
The Wedding Breakfast
[image error]The feature of the wedding breakfast is always the bride’s table. Placed sometimes in the dining-room, sometimes on the veranda or in a room apart, this table is larger and more elaborately decorated than any of the others.[image error]
There are white garlands or sprays or other arrangement of white flowers, and in the center as chief ornament is an elaborately iced wedding cake. On the top it has a bouquet of white or silver flowers, or confectioner’s quaint dolls representing the bride and groom. The top is usually made like a cover so that when the time comes for the bride to cut it, it is merely lifted off. The bride always cuts the cake, meaning that she inserts the knife and makes one cut through the cake, after which each person cuts herself or himself a slice. If there are two sets of favors hidden in the cake, there is a mark in the icing to distinguish the bridesmaids’ side from that of the ushers. Articles, each wrapped in silver foil, have been pushed through the bottom of the cake at intervals; the bridesmaids find a ten-cent piece for riches, a little gold ring for “first to be married,” a thimble or little parrot or cat for “old maid,” a wish-bone for the “luckiest.” On the ushers’ side, a button or dog is for the bachelor, and a miniature pair of dice as a symbol of lucky chance in life. The ring and ten-cent piece are the same.
[image error]
The evolution of the wedding cake began in ancient Rome where brides carried wheat ears in their left hands. Later, Anglo-Saxon brides wore the wheat made into chaplets, and gradually the belief developed that a young girl who ate of the grains of wheat which became scattered on the ground, would dream of her future husband. The next step was the baking of a thin dry biscuit which was broken over the bride’s head and the crumbs divided amongst the guests. The next step was in making richer cake; then icing it, and the last instead of having it broken over her head, the bride broke it herself into small pieces for the guests. Later she cut it with a knife.
On leaving their table, the bridal party join the dancing which by now has begun in the drawing-room where the wedding group received. The bride and groom dance at first together, and then each with bridesmaids or ushers or other guests.
[image error]
Sometimes they linger so long that those who had intended staying for the “going away” grow weary and leave—which is often exactly what the young couple want! Unless they have to catch a train, they always stay until the “crowd thins” before going to dress for their journey. At last the bride signals to her bridesmaids and leaves the room. They all gather at the foot of the stairs; about half way to the upper landing as she goes up, she throws her bouquet, and they all try to catch it. The one to whom it falls is supposed to be the next married. If she has no bridesmaids, she sometimes collects a group of other young girls and throws her bouquet to them.
[image error]
July 20, 2018
The Wedding Party
Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s. My best gal-pal is getting hitched and I thought I’d better brush up on all my wedding etiquette before her big day. And who better to go to than dear old Emily Post. Even my Ma listens to her advice when it comes to manners.
Weddings are complicated matters, so I’ve divided up my articles into Bridal Wear; Wedding Party; and The Wedding Day.
The Bride: (Book of Etiquette by Lillian Eichler, 1922)
[image error]
To–day the keynote of the wedding gown is simplicity. The days of elaborate gowns with trains so heavy with the weight of precious jewels that eight girls had to carry them, is over. The sensible American bride knows that simplicity is more becoming to the solemn dignity of the occasion than extremely elaborate dress.
With styles constantly changing as they do, it would be of no value to offer any descriptions here. However, this little item, taken from the announcement of a fashionable wedding recently held, may offer some helpful suggestions: “The gown in which Miss ——— became the Countess ——— was of heavy white satin cut with an almost austere simplicity. The drapery of the skirt was marked with a garland of lilies and orange–blossoms. The tulle veil was bordered with old English point lace, an heirloom of the ——— family.”
From a study of the descriptions of other bridal gowns at recent important weddings, we find that satin is without doubt the favorite material. Crepe–de–chine and heavy white brocade are also used; and the bride may select whichever material she likes best, something soft and clinging unless she is inclined to be too slender, when taffeta is more suitable. Undoubtedly, no matter what the style of the gown happens to be, it should boast a train; and a draped skirt is always a popular wedding mode. The length of the sleeves and skirt is entirely governed by the fashion of the moment.
White satin slippers and white gloves enhance the simple beauty of the wedding gown. Jewels are rarely worn, except, perhaps, one large gem—a gift of the groom…
Not so long ago, the veil was of tulle, and from the top of the bride’s head it fell over her shoulders, completely enveloping her to the very tips of her shoes. This all–enveloping veil is no longer considered good form. In its place, is the very charming veil that is gathered into a becoming, flower–trimmed crown at the back of her head, falling gracefully to the train of the dress, leaving the face entirely uncovered.
The veil is always of filmy material. Tulle is favored; and lace is particularly beautiful, especially if it is old lace that has been a long time in the bride’s family. However, tulle is preferable to imitation lace. Orange blossoms or tiny lilies–of–the–valley may be entwined around the crown of the head, a spray or two nestling in the fold of the veil…
The Groom: (the following excerpted from Emily Post)
[image error]If he does not already possess a well fitting morning coat (often called a cutaway) he must order one for his wedding. The frock coat is out of fashion at the moment. He must also have dark striped gray trousers. At many smart weddings, especially in the spring, a groom (also his best man) wears a white piqué high double-breasted waistcoat, because the more white that can be got into an otherwise sombre costume the more wedding-like it looks; conventionally he wears a black one to match his coat, like the ushers. The white edge to a black waistcoat is not, at present, very good form. As to his tie, he may choose an “Ascot” of black and white or gray patterned silk. Or he may wear a “four-in-hand” matching those selected for the ushers, of black silk with a narrow single, or broken white stripe at narrow or wide intervals. At one of the ultra smart weddings in New York last spring, after the London fashion, the groom and all the men of the wedding party wore bow ties of black silk with small white dots.
[image error]White buckskin gloves are the smartest, but gray suede are the most conventional. White kid is worn only in the evening. It is even becoming the fashion for ushers at small country weddings not to wear gloves at all! But at every wedding, great or small, city or country, etiquette demands that the groom, best man, and ushers, all wear high silk hats, and that the groom carry a walking stick.
Very particular grooms have the soles of their shoes blacked with “water-proof” shoe polish so that when they kneel, their shoes look dark and neat.
[image error]While most people understand that it is the brides family that pays for the wedding, the groom pays for the wedding trip or honeymoon. In order that the first days of their life together may be as perfect as possible, the groom must make preparations for the wedding trip long ahead of time, so that best accommodations can be reserved. If they are to stop first at a hotel in their own city, or one near by, he should go days or even weeks in advance and personally select the rooms. It is much better frankly to tell the proprietor, or room clerk, at the same time asking him to “keep the secret.” Everyone takes a friendly interest in a bridal couple, and the chances are that the proprietor will try to reserve the prettiest rooms in the house, and give the best service
The Best man:
No one is busier than the best man on the day of the wedding. His official position is a cross between trained nurse, valet, general manager and keeper.[image error]
Bright and early in the morning he hurries to the house of the groom, generally before the latter is up. Very likely they breakfast together; in any event, he takes the groom in charge precisely as might a guardian. He takes note of his patient’s general condition; if he is normal and “fit,” so much the better. If he is “up in the air” or “nervous” the best man must bring him to earth and jolly him along as best he can.
His first actual duty is that of packer and expressman; he must see that everything necessary for the journey is packed, and that the groom does not absent-mindedly put the furnishings of his room in his valise and leave his belongings hanging in the closet. He must see that the clothes the groom is to “wear away” are put into a special bag to be taken to the house of the bride (where he, as well as she, must change from wedding into traveling clothes). The best man becomes expressman if the first stage of the wedding journey is to be to a hotel in town. He puts all the groom’s luggage into his own car or a taxi, drives to the bride’s house, carries the bag with the groom’s traveling suit in it to the room set aside for his use—usually the dressing-room of the bride’s father or the bedroom of her brother. He then collects, according to prearrangement, the luggage of the bride and drives with the entire equipment of both bride and groom to the hotel where rooms have already been engaged, sees it all into the rooms, and makes sure that everything is as it should be. If he is very thoughtful, he may himself put flowers about the rooms. He also registers for the newly-weds, takes the room key, returns to the house of the groom, gives him the key and assures him that everything at the hotel is in readiness. This maneuver allows the young couple when they arrive to go quietly to their rooms without attracting the notice of any one, as would be the case if they arrived with baggage and were conspicuously shown the way by a bell-boy whose manner unmistakably proclaims “Bride and Groom!”
[image error]Or, if they are going at once by boat or train, the best man takes the baggage to the station, checks the large pieces, and fees a porter to see that the hand luggage is put in the proper stateroom or parlor car chairs. If they are going by automobile, he takes the luggage out to the garage and personally sees that it is bestowed in the car.
His next duty is that of valet. He must see that the groom is dressed and ready early, and plaster him up if he cuts himself shaving. If he is wise in his day he even provides a small bottle of adrenaline for just such an accident, so that plaster is unnecessary and that the groom may be whole. He may need to find his collar button or even to point out the “missing” clothes that are lying in full view. He must also be sure to ask for the wedding ring and the clergyman’s fee, and put them in his own waistcoat pocket. A very careful best man carries a duplicate ring, in case of one being lost during the ceremony.
With the bride’s and groom’s luggage properly bestowed, the ring and fee in his pocket, the groom’s traveling clothes at the bride’s house, the groom in complete wedding attire, and himself also ready, the best man has nothing further to do but be gentleman-in-waiting to the groom until it is time to escort him to the church, where he becomes chief of staff
Bridesmaids:
[image error]The costumes of the bridesmaids, slippers, stockings, dresses, bouquets, gloves and hats, are selected by the bride, without considering or even consulting them as to their taste or preferences. The bridesmaids are always dressed exactly alike as to texture of materials and model of making, but sometimes their dresses differ in color. For instance, two of them may wear pale blue satin slips covered with blue chiffon and cream lace fichus, and cream-colored “picture” hats trimmed with orchids. The next two wear orchid dresses, cream fichus, and cream hats trimmed with pale blue hydrangeas. The maid of honor likewise wears the same model, but her dress is pink chiffon over pink satin and her cream hat is trimmed with both orchids and hydrangeas. The bouquets would all be alike of orchids and hydrangeas. Their gloves all alike of cream-colored suede, and their slippers, blue, orchid, and pink, with stockings to match. Usually the bridesmaids are all alike in color as well as outline, and the maid of honor exactly the same but in reverse colors. Supposing the bridesmaids to wear pink dresses with blue sashes and pink hats trimmed in blue, and their bouquets are of larkspur—the maid of honor wears the same dress in blue, with pink sash, blue hat trimmed with pink, and carries pink roses.
[image error]
As a warning against the growing habit of artifice, it may not be out of place to quote one commentary made by a man of great distinction who, having seen nothing of the society of very young people for many years, “had to go” to the wedding of a niece. It was one of the biggest weddings of the spring season in New York. The flowers were wonderful, the bridesmaids were many and beautiful, the bride lovely. Afterwards the family talked long about the wedding, but the distinguished uncle said nothing. Finally, he was asked point blank: “Don’t you think the wedding was too lovely? Weren’t the bridesmaids beautiful?”
“No,” said the uncle, “I did not think it was lovely at all. Every one of the bridesmaids was so powdered and painted that there was not a sweet or fresh face among them—I can see a procession just like them any evening on the musical comedy stage! One expects make-up in a theater, but in the house of God it is shocking!”
July 13, 2018
“Here Comes the Bride….”
Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s. My best gal-pal is getting hitched so I thought I’d better brush up on all my wedding etiquette before her big day. And who better to go to than dear old Emily Post. Even my Ma listens to her advice when it comes to manners.
[image error]
Weddings are complicated matters, so I’ve divided up my articles into Bridal Wear; Wedding Party; and The Wedding Day.
The Dress:
[image error]
Everyone knows what a wedding dress is like. It may be of any white material, satin, brocade, velvet, chiffon or entirely of lace. It may be embroidered in pearls, crystals or silver; or it may be as plain as a slip-cover—anything in fact that the bride fancies, and made in whatever fashion or period she may choose.
“A white dress for the bride is more or less traditional, and it is very infrequent that one has the courage to break away from the custom.
However a Society bride of a few weeks back was venturesome enough to go to the alter in peacock blue. The dress was designed on the usual stately lines that wedding gowns follow, and had a magnificent train of cloth of silver lined with blue ninon. Silver leaves held the bridal veil of blue tulle.
It was a startling innovation and I must confess that the result was extraordinarily effective.”
[image error]Brides have been known to choose colors other than white. Cloth of silver is quite conventional and so is very deep cream, but cloth of gold suggests the wedding clothing of a widow rather than that of a virgin maid—of which the white and orange blossoms, or myrtle leaf, are the emblems.
If a bride chooses to be married in traveling dress, she has no bridesmaids, though she often has a maid of honor. A “traveling” dress is either a “tailor made” if she is going directly on a boat or train, or a morning or afternoon dress—whatever she would “wear away” after a big wedding.[image error]
The Veil:
[image error][image error]The veil in the 1920s is long, often ending as a train. For many brides, the garland rather than the veil seems to have been of greatest importance. The garland was the “coronet of the good girl,” and her right to wear it was her inalienable attribute of virtue.
The face veil is a rather old-fashioned custom, and is appropriate only for a very young bride of a demure type; the tradition being that a maiden is too shy to face a congregation unveiled, and shows her face only when she is a married woman.
Gloves:
[image error]
Some brides prefer to remove their left glove by merely pulling it inside out at the altar.
Usually the under seam of the wedding finger of her glove is ripped for about two inches and she need only pull the tip off to have the ring put on. Or, if the wedding is a small one, she wears no gloves at all.
The Bouquet:
[image error]
Bigger is best when it comes to bouquets. Packed with ferns and orange blossoms, there are often streamers attached also embellished with orange blossoms.
*Rose representing love
*Lily-of-the-valley for happiness
*Carnation representing devotion
*Calla lily for beauty
*Tulip representing passion
*Chrysanthemum for wealth
*Gardenia representing grace
Incorporating orange blossoms into the bride’s costume originated in ancient China where they were emblems of purity, chastity and innocence. Because the orange is one of the rare plants that blooms and bears fruit at the same time, it is symbolic of fruitfulness. When real orange blossoms were unavailable, wax replicas were used instead. These artificial blooms were often passed down from one generation to the next.
The Trousseau
[image error]Trousseau is a French word meaning “little bundle.” It was supposed to be those items which a bride took with her in order to set up her new household.
A traditional trousseau – usually stored throughout childhood and adolescence in a hope chest – included jewelry, lingerie and toiletries, plus bed linens, bath towels and tablecloths. Many of the items in the trousseau were hand-sewn by female relatives (mother, aunt, grandmother, cousin) or the girl herself if she was skilled with needle and thread.
For many women, the trousseau also included brand new outfits to see her through her wedding, honeymoon and newlywed days. By the 1920s, well-to-do society brides purchased their new clothing at upscale clothing stores such as Macy’s, Marshall Field and Neiman Marcus.[image error]
By the end of the century concentration had shifted from extravagant clothing to underwear. The tendency was to amass enough to last the bride the rest of her. Around this time there was also a move towards collecting linen for the marital home.
A bride’s trousseau continued to be an important feature of preparations for marriage well into the thirties. The April 1930 issue of Good Housekeeping itemized a fashionable trousseau at a cost of $386.15. It included a satin wedding gown, a veil, a 3-piece going away outfit, and a suitcase of additional dresses, jackets and lingerie.
In addition to clothing, every bride had a few linens in her trousseau: towels, sheets, tablecloths, etc. Few could envision, however, the linens included in the trousseau outlined for the “daughter of the very rich” by author Emily Post. She described this “most lavish trousseau imaginable,” which would require “the services of a van to transport,” in her landmark book, Etiquette:
Linen Sheets 12 to 72, embroidered, monogrammed
Linen Sheets 12 to 72, plain, monogrammed
Linen Undersheets 12 to 72, plain, monogrammed
Pillow Cases 24 to 144 to match sheets
Silk Blanket Covers 12 to 24, lace edged, washable
Blankets 6 to 12
Quilts 3 to 12, wool or down-filled
Face Towels 24 to 120, extra large, monogrammed
Plain Towels 60 to 120, monogrammed
Hand Towels 60 to 120 to match plain towels
Large Bath Towels 12 to 24, monogrammed
Hand Towels 24 to 48, to match bath towels
Very Large Damask Tablecloth monogrammed
Dinner Napkins 36 to match very large tablecloth
Large Damask Tablecloth monogrammed
Dinner Napkins 24 to match large damask tablecloth
Medium Damask Tablecloths 12 to 48, monogrammed
Dinner Napkins 12 per medium tablecloth (from 144 to 576)
Medium Luncheon Tablecloths 2-6, Italian lace
Luncheon Napkins 12 per luncheon tablecloth (from 24 to 72)
Centerpieces 2 to 6
Doilies several per centerpiece
Lunch Napkins several per centerpiece
Tea Cloths 4 to 12, with Russian embroidery
Tea Napkins 12 per tea cloth, monogrammed (from 48 to 144)
Plain Damask Tablecloths 12 to 24, monogrammed
Napkins 12 per plain damask tablecloth (from 144 to 288 napkins)
Kitchen Towels 24 to 72
Pantry Towels 24 to 72
Dishcloths 24 to 72
[image error]
In addition, this extravagant trousseau was to include dozens of additional sheets, pillowcases, blankets, quilts, towels, tablecloths and napkins – for use by the servants.
May 14, 2018
Swimwear
Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s. You know…Sherilyn’s Gal Friday
Well, the weather is finally (!) turning warm and I’m going to head off to the beach for some well-deserved fun in the sun. (Guess which one I am?)
[image error]
Before I do, I thought I’d share a few notes I made for an upcoming spread I’m running in the Inquirer about bathing suits.
What the gals are wearing…
The bathing suit I’m packing for the beach is made of wool. I don’t actually go swimming, so the wool keeps me warm. My mother, when she went to the beach, wore full length bloomers, so we’re making great strides.
[image error]
There are new suits made out of a stretchy ribbed jersey that fit more snugly than regular jersey and are certainly more comfortable than thick wool. It makes it easier to swim, but it also shows off more curves.[image error]
Modest women can still wear the swim dress –– a longer skirt over attached shorts. And Jantzen has created a very popular suit looks like it is in two pieces. Imagine a tank top sewn onto a pair of swim trunks.
Up until a few years ago, swim trunks or skirts typically could not be higher than a few inches above the knee and women were often required to wear black stockings and shoes. At first stockings were rolled down to above the knee but kept on rolling down to ankle level.
Speaking of shoes, I mustn’t forget to pack my beach shoes. While some women simply wear flat street shoes over their stockings, I have a pair of beach boots. They’re lace-up boots that go up mid-calf and look like wrestlers footwear. I’ve also got my eye on a pair beach slippers made of Duck canvas that resemble flat Mary Jane’s or Oxfords. They’re made of rubber and are peachy for rocky beaches, rivers and lakes.[image error]
Necklines are dropping to deep boat necks or V-necks. Arm holes are growing bigger to make real swimming easier. Colours are as vibrant as other ’20s sportswear- red, blue, black, gray and kelly green with contrasting stripes. An optional white rubber belt is common and helps keep the two piece suit from floating up in the water.
Gal’s with bobbed hair who are swimming vs sun bathing often wear an “aviator” style rubber swim cap which fits as tight as a cloche hat. There’s an optional strap under the chin. A swim cap helps keep their bobbed hair from losing its shape.
While the idea of swimming is very popular — the actual sport is limited to serious athletes. Most beach goers merely play by the water, wading and maybe a bit of doggy paddle in shallow waters.
Beach Police
[image error]As the swim suits get shorter, women have to be on the lookout for the beach police who patrol the area with measuring tape in hand.
These skin censors measure the distance between the bottom of a woman’s bathing suit and her knee. Too much bare skin can result in a hefty $10 fine or even being hauled off to jail! Most of these modesty rules have been lifted by the mid-twenties — too many women simply didn’t care to follow them and far too many men enjoyed the new view.[image error]
Men’s Suits
Women aren’t the only ones to get tighter swimsuits. Men’s swimwear has also slimmed down to show off his new athletic body.
[image error]
In many ways, men’s and women’s suits are nearly identical.
A deep cut ribbed wool tank top over a snug fitting pair of shorts. It was “too much” to raise the top of the shorts any further (revealing men’s personal parts). Instead, more suit material has been removed from under the arms and around the back- supposedly making it easier to swim but mostly to reveal more muscles. Huba-huba!
Bathing Beauty Pageants
[image error]
Of course, I can’t mention the beach without talking about beauty pageants. My brother is ga-ga over them but my mother really doesn’t approve.
In 1921, the Atlantic City Business Men’s League took the advice of a local newspaper columnist and added a bathing beauty completion to its post-Labor Day Atlantic City Fall Frolic. Women in bathing suits competed against other women from other cities who earned the trip to Atlantic City by winning local competitions.
[image error]
Of course, bathing beauty pageants aren’t just an east coast thing. In California, in towns like Newport Beach, women in one-piece tank suits and beach boots literally parade up and down the boardwalks.
Not all of the California bathing beauties are there just to get a tan or win a beauty contest though. For some, it is the road to stardom.
[image error]It worked for Carole Lombard. Before she became an acting legend and wife to Clark Gable, Lombard appeared on film as one of Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauties.
May 1, 2018
Eleanor Roosevelt: The Wife
[image error]Hi there- Bette Hardwick here from sometime in the 1920s with part three of my four-part series on the remarkable Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.
There was a lot to tell, so I’ve divided my notes up into four parts: Childhood, School, Early Marriage, and Political Activism.
You will remember that Eleanor had a transformative experience at school in England, where she was taken under the wing of the headmistress and inspired to work for social change.
Romance
The summer she came home from school, Eleanor encountered her father’s fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on a train trip. He was a student at Harvard.[image error]
This chance meeting reintroduced the cousins and piqued their interest in one another. After a year of chance meetings, clandestine correspondence, and secret courtship, the two Roosevelts became engaged on November 22, 1903.
Fearing that they were too young and unprepared for marriage, and believing that her son needed a better, more prominent wife, Franklin’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, planned to separate the couple and demanded that they keep their relationship secret for a year.
[image error]
Sara Roosevelt’s plans did not work, and after a sixteen-month engagement, Eleanor Roosevelt married Franklin Roosevelt on March 17, 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was in town for the St. Patrick’s Day parade, gave the bride, his niece, away. The wedding made the front page of the New York Times.
A New Bride
[image error]Eleanor and Franklin were married on March 17, 1905. Although Eleanor loved Franklin, married life was difficult from the start.
Eleanor’s mother-in-law, Sara Roosevelt, chose their first home, hired the staff, chose all the interior decorations, and became Eleanor’s most constant companion.
“I did not like to live in a house which was not in any way mine, one that I had done nothing about and which did not represent the way I wanted to live” ER
“For ten years, I was always just getting over having a baby or about to have one, and so my occupations were considerably restricted during this period.” ER
Within a year, a daughter (Anna) was born; followed in rapid succession by James (1906), Franklin (1909, who died soon after birth), Elliott (1910), Franklin (1914), and John (1916).
[image error]
As the Roosevelt family grew, in 1908 Sara Roosevelt gave the couple a townhouse in New York City, which was not only adjacent to her own home but which had connecting doors on every floor installed.
Her mother-in-law had full access to Eleanor’s life and sought to dominate every one of her household decisions. She also controlled the raising of her grandchildren, and Eleanor reflected later that “Franklin’s children were more my mother-in-law’s children than they were mine.”
“I was simply absorbing the personalities of those about me and letting their tastes and interests dominate me.” ER
While the two women were very close; their intimacy only reinforced Eleanor’s sense of dependence and inadequacy. Eleanor was miserable.
An Affair (or two)
[image error]In September 1918, Eleanor was unpacking one of Franklin’s suitcases when she discovered a bundle of love letters to him from her social secretary, Lucy Mercer. He had been contemplating leaving Eleanor for Lucy.
Turning down Eleanor’s offer of divorce, Franklin promised that he would end his relationship with Mercer.
A divorce would ruin Franklin’s burgeoning political career. Following pressure from his political advisor, Louis Howe, and from his mother, who threatened to disinherit Franklin if he followed through with a divorce, the couple remained married.
Their union from that point on was more of a political partnership. Disillusioned, Eleanor again became active in public life, and focused increasingly on her social work rather than her role as a wife, as she had for the previous decade.
There is more information on Eleanor Roosevelt in the Bootleggers Chronicles or online.
If you’re a fan of the 1920s and want a bit of escapism, consider signing up for The Unstoppable Jennie Justo. This is a great fictional story based on true facts and will give you a taste of Sherilyn’s books that I know we’re all waiting to read once they’re published.
